Wilson v. State
| Decision Date | 14 January 1915 |
| Docket Number | 858 |
| Citation | 191 Ala. 7,67 So. 1010 |
| Parties | WILSON v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Blount County; J.E. Blackwood, Judge.
Bill Wilson was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Russell & Johnson, of Oneonta, for appellant.
R.C Brickell, Atty. Gen., and T.H. Seay, Ass't Atty. Gen for the State.
The appellant was convicted of the murder of his wife, Jennie Wilson, and his punishment fixed by the jury at imprisonment in the penitentiary for life.
The state relied upon circumstantial evidence both as to the fact that Jennie Wilson was murdered and as to the guilty party. The only questions argued by counsel in brief relate to objections and exceptions as to the admissibility of evidence.
There was evidence introduced by the state to show: That defendant and his wife had separated, and that defendant had gone to the home of his father and had the two older children with him. That his wife was left with the younger child, a baby some 19 months old. That after the separation, some time in the fall of 1908, she was seen with her baby and a basket on her arm, going into the home of defendant's father, where defendant was then living with his two children, and that this was the last time she was seen or heard of, in that county.
A witness, one Jim House, testified that he accompanied her as far as the gate on the above occasion, and that he had not seen her since that time.
"In inquiries of fact dependent for their solution on circumstantial evidence, no general rule can be laid down which will define with unerring accuracy what collateral facts are relevant and admissible in any particular case yet, while it is proper to guard strictly against the undue multiplication of issues, whatever tends to shed light on the main inquiry, and does not withdraw the minds of the jury from that inquiry, by obtruding on their minds matters which are foreign, or of questionable pertinency, is, generally, relevant and competent evidence." Mattison v. State, 55 Ala. 224, first headnote.
The facts, as testified to by witness Dolphus Tidwell and his son, relating to their finding, on the river bank under an overhanging cliff or high bluff, two skeletons of human beings, one that of an adult and the other that of a small child; that these two skeletons were together and were found as if laid down in a sitting position; that they "were covered with rocks and the kind of stuff you will find under bluffs, and not much deep, *** and the bones seemed to be covered in a basket, or cane matting, and it was so rotten that it crumbled;" that at the same time they also found some of the teeth; that this was in 1911; and that the place was about 1 1/2 miles from where defendant lived, and that there was no road or trail there--were clearly relevant and competent.
Numerous objections to questions eliciting the above were properly overruled. A treatment of the objections in detail we deem unnecessary.
It is insisted that there was error in the court's sustaining the objection of the state to the question asked witness A.W. Tidwell on recross-examination: "Will you tell the jury, in your judgment, whether or not those were Jennie Wilson's teeth?" This was on recross-examination, and the witness had just previously stated that he did not know Jennie Wilson, had seen her but one time since she was a child. It is quite manifest that there was no error in this ruling.
Witness House testified to finding some bones under the bluff also some of which he carried away, and identified on the trial, and further...
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