[Download] "State Missouri v. Thelma Fern Grant" by Supreme Court of Missouri " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: State Missouri v. Thelma Fern Grant
- Author : Supreme Court of Missouri
- Release Date : January 11, 1963
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 65 KB
Description
On January 21, 1962, Homer Oral Taylor, a tavern operator, was fatally shot with a shotgun held in the hands of defendant,
Thelma Fern Grant, in an apartment adjacent to or adjoining the tavern operated by Taylor, in Jackson County, Missouri, in
which Taylor and defendant, not married to each other, then and had lived together more than two years. Defendant was charged
by an information filed in the Circuit Court of Jackson County with murder in the first degree. When the case came on for
trial, at which defendant and her counsel (who also represents here on this appeal) were present, counsel for the State, in
open court, reduced the charge against defendant to murder in the second degree. Upon trial, at which defendant testified
the shotgun was accidentally discharged, the jury returned a verdict finding her guilty of murder in the second degree and
assessing her punishment at ten years imprisonment in the State Penitentiary. Her motion for new trial thereafter timely filed
was overruled, due allocution was granted and the trial court adjudged her guilty and sentenced her to imprisonment in the
Women's Reformatory at Tipton for a term of ten years in accordance with the verdict. Certain of the errors urged on appeal
necessitate a detailed statement of the evidence. The evidence adduced in behalf of the State supports a finding of these facts: At 7:12 p.m. on the day of the shooting, defendant
called the Grandview Police Department and talked with the Police Dispatcher. After identifying herself, she said, "I killed
Homer, I mean it this time." He asked her where she was. She repeated the foregoing statement. He again asked for her address
and she said, "You know where I am, come on down." He asked if she was in the apartment or in the tavern and she said she
was in the apartment. He knew where it was and sent Police Officer Couch to answer the call, who went to the apartment occupied
by Homer and defendant, knocked at the locked kitchen door and called to defendant, who admitted him into the kitchen. She
wore a robe over a nightgown. Asked "what was the matter", defendant said she had "finally killed Homer." Asked where Homer's
body was, she led Officer Couch through the living room, where she pointed to a shotgun lying on a divan. They then went through
a narrow hall into the bedroom, where he saw Homer's body, covered with a blanket up to the base of his skull, lying upon
a bed. He pulled the blanket covering Homer's body down below his shoulder. Homer was lying on his left side, his head resting
upon his left arm, which was extended outward and flexed upward, resting on a pillow. The discharge from the shotgun had entered
the right side of the base of his neck above the collarbone. There had been a heavy flow of blood from the wound across the
neck and chest to the bed.