People v. Murphy

WASTE, C. J.

Defendant was indicted for the murder of his wife in Los Angeles County. The cause was tried by the court sitting without a jury, a jury having been waived. At the conclusion of the evidence defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to suffer the extreme penalty. He appeals from the judgment.

The evidence is conclusive that the decedent died as the result of injuries inflicted upon her by the defendant while administering to her a severe and apparently unprovoked beating. Defendant concedes the sufficiency of the evidence connecting him with the homicide. He states in his opening brief that “the deceased died on December 11th (1926), as a result of the injuries inflicted by appellant”. The details of the cruel treatment imposed upon the decedent, who at the time had been married to the defendant for approximately two weeks, need not be set forth at any great length. Suffice it to say that the defendant, by the use of a belt, belt buckle and his fists had bruised and battered his victim’s entire body and had broken her jaws. Other treatment of a sordid and shocking nature need not be described. The injuries were inflicted on the evening of November 30, 1926, while the parties were in their apartment in Long Beach. They proved fatal eleven days later. Defendant was not apprehended until July, 1933, approximately six and one-half years after the commission of the homicide. He was arrested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and returned to this state for trial.

At the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, the defendant took the stand in his own defense. He testified that during the day on which the homicide was committed he had purchased and consumed approximately three bottles of “bitters” possessing an alcoholic content in excess of fifty per cent by volume; that he remembered being in the apartment with his wife, the decedent, during the early part of the fatal evening; that the next thing he remembered was that he found himself wandering aimlessly along an ocean pier; that he concluded he “must have hurt” the decedent; that he returned home and found his wife suffering from the effects of the beating imposed; that he begged her forgive

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ness and undertook to make her comfortable during the remainder of the night; that he left the next morning when the owner of the apartment informed him the police were seeking him; that subsequently upon learning of his wife’s death he left the city and state. As already indicated, he successfully avoided apprehension for several years. Defendant called no other witnesses.