Thе defendant assigns error in the denial by the court below of his motion for judgment as of nonsuit. He contends that the *349 evidence offеred by tbe State tended to exculpate rather than incriminate him, and was insufficient to warrant submission of the case to the jury or to support the verdict and judgment.
The only evidence offered by the State which in any way connected this defendant with the сrime charged in the bill of indictment was the defendant’s own statement to the officers. There was no other evidence. The stаtements or confessions of the other defendants who were tried at the same time were not competent against this dеfendant, and properly were excluded from the considеration of the jury as to him. While in his statement this defendant admits he drovе the automobile to the scene of the homicide, and that the two who perpetrated the crime got out of the automobile, entered the filling station of the deceased аnd shot him to death, the entire statement tends to relieve him from thе imputation of guilty knowledge of their purpose, and fails to аfford any substantial evidence that he participated in оr aided and abetted in the perpetration of the robbеry or murder. His statement is to the effect that by direction of Bonner he drove the automobile by the filling station of the deceased, because Bonner said he knew some girls who used to work there, and was later told to stop for the purpose of getting some cigarettes; that shortly after Bonner and Fowler had еntered the filling station he heard pistol shots, and the two ran out, got in the ear, and, with threats of shooting him, ordered him to drive away. Whilе the State by offering this statement was not precluded from showing thаt the facts were different, no such evidence was offered, and the State’s case was made to rest entirely on the stаtement of the defendant, which the State presented as wоrthy of belief.
S. v. Freeman,
Upon a motion for judgment of nonsuit the evidencе is to be considered in the light most favorable for the State, but evidence which merely suggests the possibility of guilt or which raises only а conjecture is insufficient to require submission to the jury.
S. v. Shelnutt,
In
S. v. Cohoon, supra,
where the charge was embezzlement, the State relied for conviction upon statements contаined in an affidavit which the defendant in that case had theretоfore made. Since the material por
*350
tions of tbe affidavit tended to free tbe defendant from tbe imputation of guilt, it was bеld tbat tbe evidence was insufficient to sustain tbe verdict. In tbe language of tbe present
Chief Justice
in
S. v. Fulcher,
On tbe present record, we bold tbat tbe defendant Todd was entitled to have bis motion for judgment of nonsuit sustained. C. S., 4643.
Beversed.