Opinion by
Clyde “Blue Top” White, appellant, the second of three jointly indicted for the murder of Henry D. Foster to be separately tried, was found guilty of murder in the second degreе on evidence which is the same in all important particulars as that relied upon to sustain the verdict found against John Turza, the first of the trio brought to trial, and upheld by us in
Com. v.
*141
Turza,
The important legal questions raised by present appellant being the same as those raised by appellant in the Turza case, the two appeals were argued together. Here, as there, it is urged that there was a failure of the Commonwealth to satisfy the requirements of the rule that the extra-judicial admissions or confessions of one accused of crime are not receivable in evidence until the corpus delecti has first been independently established, and on the same grounds; further, that,there is an insufficiency of сredible evidence to sustain the verdict. These contentions, which are the principal ones, are dismissed for reasons which are discussed at length in the opinion in the Turza case. The other questions here raised relate to two rulings on evidence, to neither of which any exception was taken.
The CommonAvealth’s prоof of appellant’s participation Avith Royston and Turza in the robbery and killing of Foster included testimony of the chief investigating' officer, relating to the finding of four tAventy-dоllar bills hidden in the frame of a picture hanging on the wall of appellant’s apartment, eight twenty-dollar bills concealed under some papers in a cupbоard in Turza’s room and five twenty-dollar bills on Royston’s person, and to the procurement of voluntarily signed statements, received in evidence, in which all three admitted, intеr alia, that the money thus found came from Foster. On cross-examination, counsel for appellant asked the officer whether, having noted the serial numbers, he hаd endeavored to check, through the Federal Reserve System, the possible source of these particular bills, which question was objected to by the district attorney and the objection sustained. Appellant now contends that *142 the question should have been allowed as a test of the officer’s credibility and that the ruling constitutes reversible error.
The contention is without merit and is adequately disposed of by the following quotation from the opinion of the court below: “A loose belief seеms to be entertained that anything may go in on cross-examination, but this notion should be abandoned. . . . By no process of reasoning could officer Moffat’s assertion thаt he had found the four twenty-dollar bills in the defendant’s room be discredited by showing that the witness did or did not endeavor to trace the serial numbers from the Federal Reserve Bаnk into a bank with which Mr. Foster dealt. Such a record might or might not exist. . . . Counsel are not entitled in this manner to insinuate to a jury what they cannot prove.” It is obvious that the sole purpose of the question, which related to nothing that the witness had testified to in chief, was to create an unjustifiable inference in the minds of the jury that had such inquiry been madе it would probably have disclosed that the bills found in appellant’s possession were not, as he himself had admitted they were, part of the proceeds of the Foster robbery, and thus to develop appellant’s own case under the guise of cross-examination. The question was therefore properly disallowed by the сourt below:
Dixon v. Minogue,
The other ruling of which appellant complains was likewise proper. Called as a witness on his own behalf, appellant admitted, on direct examination, that, on December 31, 1938, he had voluntarily signed the confession which was in evidence, but testified that he had done so in an effort to cover up another robbery and murder, for which he and Royston had been convicted before being brought to trial on the present indictment, which he considered more serious and which, as he testifiеd,. was actually the source of the money found in *143 his room. Royston, testifying for appellant, admitted that he, too, had signed, on December 31, 1938, a full confession of the murdеr of Foster, involving the other two. And, when Turza was called for appellant, he similarly admitted that he had signed statements that the money found in his room had belonged to Foster. Both of these witnesses, however, also denied the truth of their admissions, making the same explanation that White had made. Following this testimony appellant’s counsel сalled a member of the bar of Westmoreland County, offering to prove by him that appellant, as well as Royston and Turza, had stated to him, subsequent to February 8, 1938, and while thеy were incarcerated in the Westmoreland County jail awaiting trial there in the “Scottdale Case,” that, contrary to their written confessions, they had not particiрated in the murder of Henry D. Foster but that the money found in their possession came from the Scottdale robbery. It is contended that these statements, which were excluded, should have been received for the purpose of restoring the credit of the witnesses, because they were consistent with their present testimony and were mаde at a time when it was to their interest to say that the money came from a source other than the Scottdale robbery.
As this Court pointed out in
Lyke v. Lehigh Val. R. R. Co.,
After a careful review of the entire record we are all of opinion that there are no trial errors therein, that the charge of the trial judge was fair and entirely adequate, and that the evidence was not only amply sufficient to justify the jury in believing beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant was guilty of the murder of which he stands convicted, but that it would have warranted a verdict of murder in the first degree.
Judgment affirmed.