74 Ga. 869 | Ga. | 1885
Two youths — one verging into manhood, the other a mere bojr — were seen out hunting together. The elder carried a double-barrelled shotgun; the boy, a small single-barrelled shotgun. Each had a dog along with him. The elder returned safely home with dog and gun; the other, with his dog and gun, did not return. The agonized father and mother, with such neighbors as they could get to aid them, scoured the neighboring country in search of the lost boy, only in age just entering the twelfth year, and their only child. Vainly the woods were explored all night; the missing dog was whistled for and called for, as well as the lad whom he followed, and not until late in the afternoon of the next day was the mystery unravelled, and the body of the boy found in Ohapel creek, a short distance from its flow into the Ohattooga river. The back of his head was found shot almost away, a large hole made in, and shot were extracted from the face and the front parts of the head,
Nor could it have been accident. Not accident of his
The irresistible conclusion is that the boy was murdered — heinously, shockingly murdered; and but a single issue is left for trial, and that is, who did the atrocious deed ?
The jury have replied that the perpetrator is the youth of some sixteen summers, who left their homes that afternoon with the murdered boy, and who returned without the lad ; that he returned also with his hands stained with the blood of the boy, and with the mark which God put on Gain’s forehead, branded by truth, of which God is still the author, on his youthful brow. “ Be sure thy sin will find thee out” Omniscience has declared, and His word is truth itself. The presiding judge who tried the case approved this verdict as the truth, and the youthful plaintiff in error says it is not; and as the last resort, save the mercy of the governor which may pardon the crime, he invokes the interference of this court to review the case again, examine the law and investigate the facts, and determine whether the truth has been ascertained and declared by the court below and his guilt legally established.
The great question is this: Do the circumstances proved and exhibited in this record show, beyond all reasonable doubt, the guilt of the accused; or, in other words, do the links in this chain of circumstances so twine around and bind the accused as to make the knot, tied by all combined, hold him as it can hold no other person; or, in the
The case is put on law as favorable as possible for the accused, and on account of his youth, we shall scan closely the facts, and see how they fit the law. If they hang loosely about it, the law, clothed with such a garment, will bid this youth go free; but if facts make such a suit as the law can wrap its folds around and move easily in clothing interwoven so with law and facts that none can see a thread amiss between the two, then, young as he is, he must abide the consequences of his crime. It relieves us that the kindness and mercy of the jury make his punishment, not the loss of life, but imprisonment for life.
The facts are that he went out to hunt with the boy, and no one but himself was ever seen with the lad; that when he returned without him, he was much agitated and excited, so much so as to excite attention from those he met, and to elicit the question, what was the matter with him; that he made some incoherent reply that he was sick; that he was seen coming hastily from the jilace where the dog’s blood and hair were found, and where the smoke from a gun was seen to curl over the spot, and no other human being was seen that evening to come from that direction with or without a gun ; that a person was seen to shoot the gun that made the smoke others saw, and the witness believed it was he, from his appearance at a distance; that two shots of a gun, with some ten or fifteen minutes between them, were heard in that direction, answering to the shooting the boy and then the dog; that lie misrepresented the place where he last saw the boy and parted with him, locating it in a field on the other side of the river; that he did this the next day in reply to a question from the boy’s mother, and soon thereafter went with another person over on the side of the river where the murder was committed, he asking this other person to go
Therefore, on the issue, whether or not this accused did the deed, there is no link in the evidence which points to any other person, or which fastens suspicion elsewhere; but all cluster around this unhappy youth, and hold him in their folds with the grip of an anaconda All things' are possible in the providence of the Almighty, and it is possible that he may not have been the slayer; but, beyond all reasonable doubt, the facts this record unfolds make him guilty. These facts consist with no other hypothesis. Turn and twist, them as you please — shake them up as you would a kaleidoscope — and every shape the several stones assume when they settle, however various otherwise, impresses the eye of the searcher for truth with his guilt.
If, then, suicide and accident can, neither of them, consist with these circumstances, and some one is a murderer, which is shown in the former part of this opinion, the same circumstances can consist with no other, as that murderer, than this unhappy youth.
We are unable to see how the entire law on this subject can be better put than in the foregoing words. They cover everything needful to be said touching the quantum of circumstantial evidence necessary to convict, and the clearness with which each portion of that quantum must be proved.
Judgment affirmed.