Wilson v. State
| Decision Date | 21 November 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 30546,30546 |
| Parties | Randy K. WILSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
John J. Dillon, Atty. Gen., David S. Wedding, Deputy Atty. Gen., Capt. John A. Cleary, Chicago, Ill., for appellee.
This is an appeal from a conviction of the appellant of murder in the second degree. Through a motion for a new trial, the appellant presents for our consideration whether or not the verdict of the jury was sustained by sufficient evidence and whether or not the court erred in the admission of certain exhibits portraying the scene of the murder, the victim, and clothing with blood stains on it.
This requires a brief review of the evidence which is, to a large extent, without The evidence shows that the appellant, Randy K. Wilson, and two other persons, shortly after noon of the day in question, drove into Warren and parked a car, which was in the name of the appellant's wife, in the area behind store buildings on Main Street. The appellant was in Warren for the purpose of selling or installing air conditioners. The evidence further shows that he was on leave from the military service in Germany and was to return by plane about 6:00 o'clock in the evening of that day. The appellant was age twenty-seven.
contradiction. The offense charged took place in the Town of Warren, situated in Huntington County, having a population of approximately one thousand. At about 5:30 p.m. on June 18, 1963 the body of Lillie Good, and aged widow and mother of the president and director of the Exchange Bank of Warren, was found dead near the entrance of her home. She was lying in a pool of blood. She was last seen alive, so far as the evidence shows, about 2:30 p.m., when her cleaning woman left the premises. The home of the decedent was located about a block from Main Street and the Exchange Bank of Warren. It was situated beside the residence of her son, the president of the bank. Her body was discovery by the son, who called a doctor. A small bullet wound in the left side of the neck, from which blood had flowed, was found to be the cause of her death.
The evidence further shows that the town marshall, Jerry L. Wilson, made some investigation as to who owned the automobile which the appellant had driven into Warren. This investigation was made around 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon, at which time the marshall was unaware of any homicide occurring in the town. He took the appellant to the police station and jail. While there the appellant drew a gun, which was identified as a .22 caliber pistol (the same caliber as the one used to fire the shot that killed the widow Good in this case), and placed the town marshall and another party, Max Ellerman, who came into the Police station in a jail cell and locked them up. He took a .38 caliber gun from the marshall and thereafter used it to compel the town marshall and Mr. Ellerman to get into the car with him, and they drove to Huntington on some pretext. They later came back, and appellant again placed the town marshall and Mr. Ellerman in the jail. Then he left with a shotgun and a .38 caliber pistol and started across to a warehouse. By this time, apparently, the violent death of Mrs. Good had been discovered. The state police apprehended appellant after he had hidden in a rest room in the building. They discovered on the toilet there a case of shells and a .22 caliber Berretta pistol.
A ballistics expert testified that he fired this gun and took the bullet he had fired and examined it for markings, and he then compared it with a bullet found beside the body of the victim. The expert testified both bullets were fired from the same .22 caliber Berretta pistol. We may add that a shell was found in the jail which the appellant had ejected from the .22 caliber pistol, with hammer marks on it similar to hammer marks made on shells fired from the .22 Berretta pistol. The evidence further shows that the appellant's clothing had blood on it, and this blood was analyzed by an expert who testified it was the same type blood as that of the victim. There was testimony that the appellant had no abrasions or wounds on him from which any blood of his would have discolored his clothing.
There was further testimony that a witness mowing a Methodist church yard across the street from the home of the widow, Lillie Good, saw a man dressed as the appellant was dressed on the day in question, enter the premises and go on the porch at approximately 2:30 p.m. on the day of the alleged crime. The identification of this individual is quite plain from the fact that it is stated he was wearing distinctive clothing with large lettering across the back which read 'NATIONAL VAULT SERVICE'. On the issue of insanity, medical experts testified that the appellant was sane. There was considerable evidence that the appellant was drinking intoxicating liquors On appeal, we cannot weigh the evidence. We can only reverse for insufficiency of evidence when there is no evidence of probative value to support the verdict of the jury. We find the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict of the jury.
on the afternoon of the date of the alleged crime.
The only other question remaining for consideration is that certain exhibits (pictures of the scene and the victim of the crime, and bloody clothing of the victim and the accused) were too gruesome for the jury to see, and therefore were prejudicial to the appellant. The pictures showed the victim as she was found immediately after the discovery of her death. It is true, they are gruesome and revolting, but they are certainly relevant to prove the crime, the corpus delicti, and the res gestae. If the scene had been cleaned up to make it less gruesome and less revolting, complaint could then have been made that it was not a true picture of what had happened and therefore was...
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Wilson v. Phend, 17574.
...an amended motion filed tardily by Bangs were denied and the conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Indiana. Wilson v. State, 247 Ind. 680, 221 N.E.2d 347 (1966). In June 1968, petitioner filed a belated motion for a new trial. After considering the State's answer and various affid......
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Schmidt v. State
...One could hardly expect such a picture to be other than gruesome. This does not mean that it was inadmissible. Wilson v. State (1966), 247 Ind. 680, 221 N.E.2d 347, 9 Ind.Dec. 401; Brown v. State (1969), Ind., 247 N.E.2d 76, 17 Ind.Dec. 296. We hold the trial court did not err in allowing t......
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Brown v. State
...in and severely limited by the cases before and after it and has very little meaning, if any, as a precedent.' Wilson v. State (1966), 247 Ind. 680, 685, 221 N.E.2d 347, 350. We therefore hold the trial court committed no error in the admission of state's exhibit #3 in evidence, and in over......
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