holding photographs taken after autopsy surgery are admissible to show nature of injuries unless “results of surgery have obfuscated the results of the crime”
How later courts described this case
- holding photographs taken after autopsy surgery are admissible to show nature of injuries unless “results of surgery have obfuscated the results of the crime”
- dissenting opinion on motion for rehearing
- “Where a general verdict is returned, and the evidence is sufficient to support a finding under any of the counts submitted, no error is shown.”
- different manner and means of committing murder
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
OPINION ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
DOUGLAS, Judge.
Appellant urges that the trial court erred in admitting testimony that the deceased was planning to change her will. There is no proof that appellant knew that she had planned to change her will so that he would or would not be left property over the value of $400,000 as provided for in the will that had already been signed.
Assuming that it was error to admit the testimony, does its admission amount to reversible error? Let us look to some of the testimony already mentioned in the opinion on original submission and additional evidence that appears in the record. Even though the trial judge cautiously and wisely instructed the jury that this was a circumstantial evidence case, the evidence led to the conclusion that appellant and no other committed the murder. Appellant parked his car out by the fence in the back so that it would not be seen. He usually parked it where it could be seen.
From the testimony of Shirley Seiber and Freddy Wilson, the plumber, no one but appellant was in the house with the deceased at the time of the homicide. If anyone else had been in the house, they would have seen them. Appellant had blood on his chin, his face, hands and arm as well as on his clothing. He gave several contradictory versions to those who were at the house shortly after the homicide.
After these different versions, appellant then volunteered to Captain Edge “ . I did not tell you the whole or exact truth about everything,” and “I hid the murder weapon, a jacket, and the gloves.” The officer found a metal pipe with blood and flesh on it and a coat with a pair of blood stained gloves in one pocket. The officers found a copy of a will executed by the deceased on top of a security box on a table. This was the only instrument outside the box.
Appellant had attempted to get the deceased to advance him some money for developing a club but she had refused. He knew the contents of the will in which he was the major beneficiary. On the day of, and just a short time before the murder, appellant in an attempt to obtain a loan for building a country club, listed twenty-two acres of land valued at $400,000 in the name of “Apple-Bailey.” This showed he thought that he was about to own the land that day. Appellant had made statements that he could not live on the $2,000 a month that he was making as a pilot.
The proof in this case shows that appellant and no other killed the deceased. There is no indication that anyone else was suspected of committing the crime. Appellant was the only person in the house at the time of the homicide. His statement to the officer where he had hidden the murder weapon, gloves and jacket turned out to be true and is almost, if not, direct evidence of *325 his committing the crime. A motive to get the property because he could not live on his income and that he wanted the property and he wanted it immediately was proved.
The error, if any, in admitting the complained of testimony is not sufficient to reverse this cause. Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.