Woodbury v. State, 34658

• Decision Date: 23 May 1962
• Docket Number: No. 34658,34658
• Citation: 172 Tex.Crim. 379,357 S.W.2d 399
• Parties: Dennis WOODBURY, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 399

357 S.W.2d 399

172 Tex.Crim. 379

Dennis WOODBURY, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 34658.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

May 23, 1962.

Billy J. Moore, Ennis, Forrester Hancock, Waxahachie, for appellant.

Weldon Holcomb, Dist. Atty., Tyler, Leon B. Douglas, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

MORRISON, Judge.

The offense is murder; the punishment, life.

Officers were called to investigate a burglary of a Vine Street drug store in Tyler early in the morning of November 9. One of them answering the call found deceased's automobile parked on a side street near the Vine Street store. In it, he found blood and a woman's black scarf.

The operator of a nightwatching service in the city passed through this same side street shortly before midnight, or thereafter, and observed appellant standing by the side of a 1956 black Oldsmobile bearing license number RF 9234 and observed appellant's co-principal Joan Brock seated therein. Because of the suspicious nature of the circumstances, he jotted down the make, year and license number of the automobile and transmitted such information to the officers.

Two ambulance drivers observed a 1956 black Oldsmobile parked back of their funeral home property in another part of the city about midnight on the night in question, became suspicious, shone their lights thereon, and were informed by appellant's co-principal that they were looking for their victim (who lived in a nearby apartment house). Both she and appellant were identified. She was dressed in tight black trousers, black upper garment, and black scarf over her head.

It was shown that the Vine Street drug store's supply of narcotics and barbiturates was missing when the store was opened for business on the morning of November 9, and a number of items were identified at the trial by the person who had placed the store's code thereon.

It was shown that appellant's wife was granted permission to park appellant's Oldsmobile in a carport at an address other than the one where she and appellant lived in the city of San Antonio, and it was discovered at such address by the San Antonio police and Tyler peace officers on the same day. Immediately in front of the 1956 Oldsmobile, license number RF 9234, which appellant's wife had placed in the carport, in an elevated storage cabinet, a box containing a quantity of narcotics and barbiturates was found and identified at the trial as having come from the Tyler drug store owned in part by the deceased. Appellant and his co-principal were arrested at appellant's home in San Antonio by virtue of a warrant and were returned to Tyler.

After their incarceration at Tyler, Joan Brock tried first to take the officers to the place where deceased's body might be found but was unsuccessful in her efforts. Appellant's aid was then secured and, after first having marked the location on a map, he directed the officers to a spot 76 feet from a side road in Angelina County, where in heavy underbrush appellant said, 'There he is,' and deceased's body was found with a bullet wound in the chest and one in the head, and a cord twisted tight around his throat with the aid of a screwdriver.

State's witness Joan Brock, upon being returned from the Department of Corrections where she was serving a life sentence for this offense, gave at the trial this version of the events connected with this homicide. She stated that in the course of plying her trade as a prostitute she became acquainted professionally with the deceased, that he later took her to his drug store where he delivered certain narcotics to be sold by her in Houston, and an even division of the proceeds of the sale to be effected. Some time later, while in San Antonio, she spoke to appellant...