State v. . Gragg

Citations

• 30 S.E. 306
• 122 N.C. 1082
• 1898 N.C. LEXIS 404

Syllabus

<p>Indictment for Murder — Trial—Sufficiency of Evidence.</p> <p>When, on the trial of one indicted for murder, it appeared that, by the explosion of dynamite under a house, two persons sleeping there were killed; that defendant was overseer of a public road and kept dynamite in his possession for use in making the road; that dynamite was also kept and used by other persons in the neighborhood; that defendant had been employed by the deceased M, who had dismissed him, and that they had quarrelled about it; that defendant had been unfriendly with the deceased B, of whose attentions to a widow, to whom defendant had been engaged, he was jealous; that he had said if the deceased and the widow should (marry they should never live together in this country; that he and B had “made up” but defendant had saidit was only “from the teeth out;” that there were some tracks made by an 8 or 9 shoe on the hillside a few hundred yards from the place of the homicide which was the size of shoe defendant wore; that the day after the homicide the defendant looked pale and nervous; Held, that, as the evidence did not exclude every reasonable supposition that it could have been done by some one other than the prisoner, it did not justify the jury in finding a verdict of guilty.</p> <p>Clark and Montgomery, J. J., dissent.</p>