Watson v. State

• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BROWN, J.
• Citation: Watson v. State, 217 Ala. 164, 115 So. 101 (Ala. 1928)
• Decision Date: 12 January 1928
• Docket Number: 5 Div. 966
• Parties: WATSON v. STATE.

115 So. 101

217 Ala. 164

WATSON v. STATE.

5 Div. 966

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 12, 1928

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lee County; S.L. Brewer, Judge.

Horance Watson, alias Horace Watson, was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.

See also, 114 So. 926.

Frank M. de Graffenried, of Seale, for appellant.

Charlie C. McCall, Atty. Gen., for the State.

BROWN J.

The appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary.

The evidence offered by the state shows without conflict that the deceased, Thomas E. Davis, near midnight on the third Sunday night in October, 1926, was called from his bed by two men on a pretense that they had a truck stalled on the road near deceased's home and wanted his help to get the truck started. They asked for matches and requested the loan of an ax, which was procured by a young brother of the deceased and delivered to one of the men, who is described as "a low chunky fellow," and the other as "a tall, slim fellow," resembling, in this respect, the defendant. The young brother of the deceased and the "low, chunky fellow," after procuring the ax, started back to the road to where the truck was supposed to be stalled, but according to the boy's story, instead of a truck, they came upon an automobile with another man in it. The "low, chunky fellow" then told deceased's brother to go to a house some distance away and see if he could not borrow a lantern. When the boy returned to the road where he had left the men and the automobile they were gone, and on returning to the house the deceased and the tall man had disappeared. Some few days thereafter the dead body of Davis was found floating in "Halawaka creek," or what is also called "the back water of Bartlett's Ferry pond," near Harry Prince's store, a distance of 35 miles from the home of Davis, where deceased was last seen alive. There was a barbed wire twisted around his neck, and, as some of the witnesses describe it, what "looked like a bruised place right across his head"; one eye was popped out and the body was swollen.

Dr. Bruce, who examined the body, testified that the skull was fractured and that a hemorrhage through the mouth resulted from the injury. He gave it as his opinion that the wound on the head was caused by "powerful blow from some noncutting blunt object," and that death resulted either from the injury or from water suffocation, or from both the injury and suffocation.

A short time before the disappearance of Davis, as the state's evidence tended to show, the defendant and one Edge had been arrested on a charge of robbery, and on their preliminary trial before a committing magistrate, resulting in holding them to await the action of the grand jury, the deceased testified as a witness for the state. Edge and another witness testified that defendant, while in jail on the robbery charge, stated in their presence, referring to Davis, "if he ever hit the ground he was going to kill him," and about three weeks thereafter and before Davis disappeared, defendant was released on bail.

Testimony was adduced by the state going to show that the defendant and his brothers, up to within about a year before Davis disappeared, had lived in the community of the alleged crime and were well known; that the defendant and one of his brothers were seen in...