189 Mo. 295 | Mo. | 1905
The defendant was indicted at the April term, 1904, of the circuit court of the city of St. Louis, for the murder, in the first degree, of August Raphael, at said city on the 16th day' of March, 1904.
The cause was regularly assigned for trial' to Division No. 8 of said court.
The defendant was formally arraigned upon said indictment, and entered a plea of not gmlty thereto, and on the 10th day of May, 1904, was put upon his trial and convicted of murder in the first degree. Motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were filed in due time, heard and overruled and exceptions properly saved, and from the judgment pronounced the defendant appealed to this court.
The evidence upon which the verdict and judgment
August Raphael was murdered- in his own home, at No. 2213 South Tenth street, in the city of St. Louis, between the hours of 11 a. m. and 1 p. m., on the 16th day of March, 1904. . He was then seventy-seven years of age, and his family, residing with him at that time, consisted of his wife, eighty-three years of age, and their grandson, Herman Raphael, about the age of seventeen years. The defendant Henry Heusack was the son-in-law of Raphael and his wife, and lived with his wife and son at No. 1759 South Eighteenth street in said city. Heusack was addicted to the excessive use of intoxicating liquor, and was somewhat under its influence on the day of the homicide.
The house in which Raphael lived was located on the west end of a lot twenty-five feet wide and extending from Tenth street on the east, to the alley on the west. The alley.runs north and south, and connects with Ann avenue on the north and Shenandoah street on the south. On the east end of said lot, fronting on Tenth street, there was a building covering the full width of the lot, consisting of three rooms. This building was owned by Raphael, the deceased, and was rented and occupied by a club of twelve or fifteen young men, who met there for social purposes two or three ovenings each week. The Raphael home fronted on the alley and to the west. It was a one-story house with a basement. The basement was not occupied by,the Raphael family. They lived in the first story, consisting of three rooms, the front room being next to the alley, a door opening from it to the middle room on the east, and a door from the middle room east to the kitchen. The kitchen and a kind of porch outsidq formed the east end of the Raphael home. Between this east end of the Raphael home and the west end of the building used by the club, there was an open space from thirty to fifty feet in length. But in thi§
On Wednesday morning, March 16, 1904, the day of the murder, Herman Raphael left home about a quarter of seven, and went to his work for the St. Louis Cordage Company, leaving his grandparents alone at their home, his grandfather being up and around, and his grandmother sick in bed. About 3:30 in the afternoon he heard his grandfather had been killed and immediately returned to his home. The same morning Philip Bernhard and one or two other members of the club were in the club rooms, cleaning up the rooms, and making preparations for a box party to be given by the club the following Saturday night. Bernhard saw old man Raphael in the yard in the morning and talked with him. He saw him again a second time about five minutes before eleven o’clock as Bernhard was leaving the club rooms for home, going out the back way to the alley. The defendant testified that he called at the Raphael home between nine and ten o’clock in the morning, then went home and in about three-quarters of an hour returned. As Bernhard was leaving the premises about eleven o’clock, he met the defendant at the alley gate on his way to Raphael’s the second time. The defendant asked Bernhard if the old man was home, and being answered in the affirmative, he went in and Bernhard went home. Mrs. Rhomatka and her daughter-in-law were washing that day. About half past eleven in the morning, while hanging out the clothes in the back yard, adjoining the Raphael home,
When found, old man Raphael’s body was lying with his face down, the right arm underneath and the left arm extending out with the hatchet across it, his head toward the door of the middle room. The hatchet, yhick had belonged to old man Raphael, was covered
Dr. G-radwohl testified that he was* connected with the coroner’s office as post-mortem physician. He performed the autopsy on the body of August Eaphael, the deceased, on the 16th of March, 1904; that he was a white man and looked to be about seventy years of age. The principal.injuries were upon the head; upon the back part of the head were numerous cuts in the scalp, one that ran from the top of the back part down to the right side of the nape of the neck; another one ran forward to the right ear and another one which ran to the left ear; below these the skull was fractured. The back part of the skull was completely caved in and the brain matter oozed out, and on the left temple, a depressed fracture, as if it had been made by some round instrument -like the head of a hammer, about two and a quarter inches in diameter, and from this point where the skull was fractured there were lines of fracture leading down to the base of the skull. There were several fingers fractured. The end of the little finger was broken and the second bone of the second finger. Prom the character of the wounds, some of them were made with the sharp edge of a dull instrument. The man’s death was caused by the fracture of the skull and hemorrhage into the brain; the back of the head was all caved in.
The defendant lived about eleven or twelve blocks from the Eaphael home. He went to the Eaphael home three times between nine and one o’clock of that day. He testified that he had work at the arsenal, and that he started for that point between nine and ten in the
The officers thereupon took the defendant in charge, and on the way to the police station, Bernhard was in the patrol wagon with defendant and defendant said to him, “Do not say anything, we will explain it down'at the station.” “These fellows are so wise let them find out.”
At the close- of the evidence for the State, the defendant demurred to the evidence, which demurrer was overruled by the court, and defendant excepted, and thereupon the defendant went on the witness stand in his own behalf. In addition to the statements of his already noted as to Ms presence in the house of old man Raphael between nine and ten o ’clock in the morning and about ten or fifteen minutes to eleven, he says he went back to his father-in-law’s about one o’clock, went into the front room and saw the old lady first and told her that her daughter, defendant’s wife, would be down in a few minutes. The old lady said to Mm, “Come in and see what the old man is doing.” That he went into the kitchen and saw the old man there and walked up to him and saw blood all around there and I got hold of him and then-1 run out as fast as I could
On cross-examination he stated he did not go to the arsenal, but went to Seventh street and Shenandoah, met a friend at Seventh and got as far as Broadway, and I changed my. mind and went back home; had a couple of drinks on my way back before I went home; then I wanted to go back to the arsenal and my wife did not want me to go out of the house and I said, “I must go to the arsenal to-day, because they are going to start up to-day;” I worked there; then I went back to Raphael’s the second time; I went down through the alley and into the house; saw my father-in-law this time; he was in the middle room; I talked with him just a minute; then I went back home, did not go to the arsenal; it must have been ten or fifteen minutes to eleven when I got down there this time. Admits he saw Bernhard, and asked him, “How is the old man in there?” Bernhard said, “I do not know;” that he just merely asked the question; he went on in, found the old man in there, and the old man told him he was going to kill a chicken, and he asked the old man if he wanted him to take it home, and he answered, “No, Emma would be down there pretty soon and it will be too much trouble anyway;” the defendant asked him to let him
Other facts and the objections to the instructions will be noted in the course of the opinion.
1. The heinousness of the crime of which the defendant was found guilty by the jury in the circuit court, and the grayity of the consequences to him, alike call for the most serious consideration.
The verdict is founded upon circumstantial evidence alone, and the law in such cases is that in order to sustain a conviction the facts and circumstances must
We have, then, the corpus delicti established beyond a reasonable doubt. It remains to be seen whether the evidence on behalf of the State established the criminal agency of the defendant, in the perpetration of the crime, for while it may be conceded that the old gentlemen was murdered in his own home, and by a hatchet belonging to him, unless the evidence was such as to justify the jury in reaching the conclusion that the defendant was his murderer, then the conviction ought not to stand. Was there such a failure of testimony on the part of the State? When we consider the age of the deceased, an old man seventy-seven years of age, and his simple life, residing alone with his aged wife and grandson, we naturally look for some motive in the perpetration of the crime. While a want of motive is no excuse for a’ crime when it is clearly established, it is often said that in a case depending mainly upon circumstantial evidence the want of a motive is an important consideration bearing upon the probability of guilt, but the investigation of human motives has found it to be a matter of great difficulty, and experience shows that aggravated crimes are sometimes committed from very slight causes and often without any apparent or discoverable motive. The character, in
II. Among other errors assigned defendant complains of the cross-examination of the defendant. In his cross-examination, counsel for the State inquired of defendant: “Have you ever been convicted of a crime ? ” to which the defendant answered, ‘ ‘ I was convicted here once in St. Louis, of a misdemeanor, and was pardoned; that was ' twenty-five or thirty years ago. ” Q. Have you ever been convicted but that once ? A. That is all. Q. Were you ever convicted in Arkansas? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ever know a man in Arkansas by the name of Jas. Gr. Senate? A. No, sir. Q. Were you in Arkansas about’86? Counsel for the defendant: I object to that question as being incompetent and immaterial; it throivs no light on this transaction at all. The Court: I do not hnow the purpose of it. Counsel for the State: The purpose of it is to continue on the question I ashed him about this man Senate, and with reference to that conviction I ashed him about in Arkansas. The Court: He mag answer the question; to which ruling the defendant duly excepted. It is insisted that this examination was highly prejud-
III. Objection is also made to the fourth instruction. That instruction is in these words: “You are instructed that it is not necessary to prove the defendant is guilty by the testimony of the witnesses who may have seen the offense committed. Guilt may be shown by proof of the facts and circumstances from which it may be reasonably and satisfactorily inferred. In determining whether the defendant is guilty or not, you should take into consideration all the facts and circumstances in evidence, the acts and conduct of the defendant, and his motive, if any, for doing or not doing the act charged as shown by the evidence, and if you find from all the facts and circumstances in evidence that there is no other reasonable conclusion than that he is guilty, you will so find, but to convict the defendant on circumstantial evidence alone the circumstances proven must be consistent with one another, and must, taken together, point so conclusively to his guilt as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis of his innocence.” That part of’the instruction complained of is as follows : “You are instructed that it is not necessary to prove the defendant guilty by the testimony of the witnesses who may have seen the offense committed. ’ ’ The argument of the defendant is that this is an implication