People v. Wilson

SPENCE, J. Defendant was charged by indictment with the murder of two women, Virgie Lee Griffin and Lillian Johnson, whose bodies were found in the Barclay and Joyce Hotels respectively, in Los Angeles on November 15, 1944. He entered pleas of guilty and of not guilty by reason of insanity to both counts of the indictment. After a jury trial he was found sane at the time he committed both offenses. His motion for a new trial was denied. Each offense was fixed as murder of the first degree and defendant was sentenced to the death penalty on each count of the indictment. This is an automatic appeal under section 1239 of the Penal Code.

The facts and circumstances surrounding the killings as disclosed by the record are as follows:

About November 12, 1944, defendant, who was thirty-four years of age, left his employment at a shipyard near Wilmington, California, and shortly before noon on November 14, 1944,. purchased from a hardware store in Los Angeles a knife with about a seven-inch blade. He represented himself as a cook to the salesman who sold him the knife. At 1 p. m. on the same day he secured a room at the Barclay Hotel and signed the register, “Mr. and Mrs. O. S. Wilson, Shelby-ville, Indiana.” Shortly thereafter, at an unidentified bar, defendant met a partially intoxicated young woman, later identified as Virgie Lee Griffin, with whom he had been theretofore unacquainted. In consideration of $5.00 she accompanied him to his hotel room. Soon after the couple reached the room, defendant went out and got a fifth of whiskey. [187]After returning to the room he choked the woman and then indulged in an orgy of stabbing, cutting, and severing parts of the woman’s body, using the knife he had just purchased. He claimed to have had no sexual experience with her and none was proved. He also claimed that the choking took place during an argument following a demand by the woman for $20 after reaching the room. Defendant stated his original plan was to cut up the body of his victim so as to carry it out of the hotel in package form. To this end one leg was severed, but the plan was then abandoned because of the difficulty of its accomplishment. Instead the several parts of the body were placed in a closet of the room. As defendant was leaving the hotel at about 11 a. m. on November 15, he met the hotel maid in the hall, handed her $1.00 and told her not to go into the room as his wife was tired and he wanted her to rest. At the hotel office he tried to rent the room for another night but was unable to do so. Before leaving the room defendant had attempted to strap the knife to his body with adhesive tape but without success. The knife, empty whiskey bottle, and some wrapping paper were later found in the room.