Biddy v. State

277 So. 2d 115
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 8, 1973
Docket47095, 47100
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 277 So. 2d 115 (Biddy v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Biddy v. State, 277 So. 2d 115 (Mich. 1973).

Opinion

277 So.2d 115 (1973)

Mrs. Carolee BIDDY
v.
STATE of Mississippi.

Nos. 47095, 47100.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

January 8, 1973.
Rehearing Denied February 26, 1973.

*116 John R. Poole, Charles S. Wright, Harry Kelley, Jackson, for appellant.

A.F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Karen Gilfoy, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

ROBERTSON, Justice:

Mrs. Carolee Biddy was indicted by the Hinds County Circuit Court Grand Jury for the murder of her 6-year-old stepdaughter, Mona Biddy. A change of venue was granted to the Circuit Court of Jackson County, where appellant was tried for murder, but convicted of manslaughter by a Jackson County Petit Jury. She was sentenced to serve a term of 20 years in the State Penitentiary.

About 7:55 A.M. on December 3, 1970, appellant called the Jackson Police Department to report the disappearance of Mona Biddy, her mentally retarded stepdaughter. A massive search was conducted by the Jackson Police Department, law enforcement officers of Hinds and Rankin Counties, three or four hundred National Guardsmen, and many civilians and students.

On December 8th, five days after her reported disappearance, Mona's body was found by two fishermen in a cove on the Rankin County side of the Barnett Reservoir. Her body was at the water's edge and water from time to time would lap over it.

The first assignment of error was that the corpus delicti was not proven to the exclusion of every reasonable theory consistent with innocence.

*117 The corpus delicti in a homicide case consists of two fundamental facts: (1) The fact of the death of the deceased, and (2) The fact of the existence of a criminal agency as the cause of death. Pitts v. State, 43 Miss. 472 (1870). Both facts of the corpus delicti may be proved by circumstantial evidence. Perkins v. State, 160 Miss. 720, 135 So. 357 (1931).

On the afternoon of December 8, 1970, immediately after the body had been found, Dr. Forrest Bratley, a skilled and experienced pathologist, performed a complete autopsy on Mona's body at the University Medical Center in Jackson. His detailed written findings (a part of the record) ended with Dr. Bratley's positive opinion that the most probable cause of death was suffocation. The report also stated:

"The complete postmortem examination does not reveal any natural cause of death nor is there any evidence of any traumatic injuries which could have caused death. The toxicological examination does not reveal the presence of any poison in the blood or stomach contents."

On June 24, 1971, Mona Biddy's body was exhumed, and a second autopsy performed by Dr. Forrest Bratley in conjunction with Dr. Donald Dore, Jr., the pathologist at the Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, Mississippi. This autopsy was performed at Barrytown, Alabama, where the child had been buried.

This second autopsy was performed for the express purpose of determining whether Mona had swallowed any Liquid Plumr prior to her death. No signs or indications of any kind were found that the child had swallowed any caustic or corrosive substance. After a very detailed and thorough examination on the witness stand, Dr. Bratley stated that in his opinion death was caused by suffocation and that this suffocation was by external application of force by someone stronger than the child. Dr. Bratley never waived in his opinion as to the cause of death, even though he was extensively cross-examined as to other possible causes of death and the fact that findings of death by suffocation are similar to findings of death from heart disease, shock, laryngeal spasm, bronchial spasm, respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest. From his knowledge gained from personally performing the first and second autopsies, he clearly and decisively negatived any other cause of death. On the second autopsy, he and Dr. Donald Dore found no evidence whatsoever of Liquid Plumr or other caustic or corrosive substance in Mona's digestive tract or vital organs. If Mona had had laryngeal spasm it would have had to have been caused by drinking Liquid Plumr or other caustic substance.

Dr. Howard Nichols, a skilled and experienced pediatrician of Jackson, who had been Mona's doctor for the first 1 1/2 years of her life, after a detailed study of both autopsy reports testified that it was his considered opinion that the probable cause of death was suffocation due to external pressure over her nose and mouth. He further testified that it was his opinion that Liquid Plumr was not involved in Mona's death.

Dr. Arthur Hume, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University Medical Center and Toxicologist for the Mississippi Crime Laboratory, examined and tested blood samples, tissues of vital organs, gastric contents and other samples from Mona's body on December 9th, 1970, the day after her body was found, for poisons and drugs. Dr. Hume testified that he would consider Liquid Plumr a poison. He found no poison of any kind in her system. He did find a slight trace of dramamine, a stomach settler.

Dr. Milton Helpern, the chief medical examiner of the city of New York, after examining the autopsy reports, testified that he could not state with certainty the cause of death. He testified as to possible causes only.

*118 Dr. Lucien L. Leape, a pediatric surgeon with the University of Kansas Medical School, who had made a special study of problems linked with lye ingestion by children, testified that he could not say what was the cause of death. He did testify that he had never heard of any child dying as a result of swallowing Liquid Plumr.

The testimony of all of these witnesses, and the exhibits introduced, were for the consideration of the trial jury. We feel that there was ample evidence in the record to prove the corpus delicti beyond a reasonable doubt and to the exclusion of every reasonable theory consistent with innocence.

The next assignment of error was that the two oral statements made by appellant were inadmissible under the fifth, sixth, and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

It must be remembered, in discussing this assignment of error, that the appellant and her husband, Ted L. Biddy, asked the Jackson Police Department for its help in locating their mentally retarded daughter. Every lead that the police would get was discussed and examined with the Biddys. The police were in constant touch with the Biddys and the Biddys with them. Both were apparently interested in what had happened to Mona Biddy.

It must also be kept in mind that, at the specific instance of the Biddys, the Jackson Police Department and its trained and skilled investigators and indeed the law enforcement officers of both Hinds and Rankin Counties and of the State of Mississippi, had expended a tremendous amount of time and effort and thought into solving the problem of what had happened to Mona.

On December 15, 1970, the police had found another item of clothing apparently worn by Mona at the time of her disappearance, so they contacted Mrs. Biddy, and she called her husband. The end result was that Mr. and Mrs. Biddy came down to police headquarters.

Lieutenant Wesley L. Reeves, Jackson Police Department, who had been on the case from the beginning, in the presence of Lieutenant Price of the Jackson Police Department, and Thomas Zebert, County Attorney of Rankin County, asked Mrs. Biddy to go over once again the details of Mona's disappearance. Reeves testified that after she had done this:

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Related

Calvin L. Williams v. State of Mississippi
Mississippi Supreme Court, 1993
State v. Pennewell
598 P.2d 748 (Court of Appeals of Washington, 1979)
Dixon v. State
306 So. 2d 302 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1975)

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277 So. 2d 115, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/biddy-v-state-miss-1973.