Commonwealth v. Grimm

5 Pa. D. & C. 287, 1924 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 104
CourtFayette County Court of Oyer and Terminer
DecidedMarch 10, 1924
DocketNo. 16
StatusPublished

This text of 5 Pa. D. & C. 287 (Commonwealth v. Grimm) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Fayette County Court of Oyer and Terminer primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Grimm, 5 Pa. D. & C. 287, 1924 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 104 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1924).

Opinion

Van Swearingen, P. J.,

Members of the jury: You are trying the defendant on an indictment containing two counts. In one of these counts the defendant is charged with murder, and in the other he is charged with assault and battery with intent to kill and murder. If, under the evidence and the law as we shall state it to you hereafter, you find the defendant guilty of murder in either of its degrees or of voluntary manslaughter, then you need not give further consideration to the count of assault and battery with intent to kill and murder, because it will have been included in [289]*289your verdict already reached. But if you do not find the defendant guilty of murder in either of its degrees, nor of voluntary manslaughter, then you will give consideration to the count of assault and battery with intent to kill and murder under the law as we shall state it to you later.

The defendant, Fred Grimm, and the deceased, Ralph Goldsboro, lived near each other in what is known as Kyle Row, in the Borough of Fairchance, six or seven miles from Uniontown. Goldsboro and his wife did not live together very continuously, and Grimm suspicioned Goldsboro of being too intimate with Grimm’s wife. Discussions were had between the men, and the trouble finally was ended on the morning of Dee. 26, 1923, about eight o’clock, when Grimm shot Goldsboro several times with a Winchester repeating shot-gun; during the period of which shooting Goldsboro fired at Grimm twice with a revolver. Goldsboro had decided to leave on a trip to Florida on the day on which the shooting occurred, and in the morning of that day he left his own home, and upon reaching the street in front of his house, he turned toward the home of Grimm on an errand, as it is alleged by the Commonwealth, when Grimm, as contended by the Commonwealth, began firing at him from his yard and the road in front of his house with the shot-gun, and Goldsboro, after firing at Grimm twice with a revolver, retreated in the opposite direction, collapsing near the residence of Mrs. Ethel Gaskill, into whose home he was admitted. Mrs. Gaskill has testified that she heard the shooting, and that as she let Goldsboro into her house, Goldsboro with an oath, referring to Grimm, said: “I went out my gate and turned to go to the little store and saw Grimm in his yard with his gun raised toward me, and I turned in: the other direction and he opened fire on me.” There is evidence in the case that Goldsboro said he had heard that the defendant had made threats against him and that he had carried the revolver with which to protect himself.

Dr. R. E. Heath, who lives in Fairchance, was called and reached the injured man soon after the shooting. Dr. Heath has testified, and he is corroborated in this by other physicians, that Goldsboro had a bullet wound through his right eyelid, grazing the eyeball and passing over the nose; another bullet wound in his right hand or fingers; two bullet wounds in his right leg below the knee; and a bullet wound in the right hip, the bullet having entered from the side. Dr. Heath has testified that he dressed the wounds of the injured man, not at that time considering the wounds serious, but that he came back about one o’clock in the afternoon when Goldsboro complained of pain about the abdomen, arid that later in the afternoon he was back again when Goldsboro complained of the pain being worse and more acute. Dr. Heath has testified that he then took Goldsboro to the Uniontown Hospital, where he was operated on at once, and that when the abdomen was opened it was found that the intestines had been penetrated in. five places and the mesentery in two places by the bullet which had entered through the hip. Dr. Heath has said he saw Goldsboro several times while in the hospital, but did not attend him professionally, and that Goldsboro died on Jan. 10, 1924, at the hospital.

Dr. Heath was asked his opinion as to what caused Goldsboro’s death, to which, owing to the peculiar nature of the case, we sustained an objection. He then was asked if he knew what caused the death, and he said he did, and said that death was caused by the gun-shot wounds, lowered vitality of the patient, and subsequent pneumonia. He said that, in his opinion, the pneumonia was caused by the gun-shot wounds and injury to the intestines. He said death was due finally to pneumonia, although death was caused by the gun-shot wounds. He said many cases of pneumonia develop subsequent to [290]*290shock and operations, and that in this instance the pneumonia developed the day the patient died. He said, in his opinion, there was a causal connection between the wounds to the intestines and the pneumonia, and that without an operation the wounds in the abdomen would have been fatal. Dr. S. A. Baltz, the county coroner, testified that he attended the post-mortem examination of the body of the deceased, but that he did not know what caused the death. Dr. H. A. Heise, the pathologist at the Uniontown Hospital, testified that he conducted the post-mortem examination of the body of the deceased, although he had not seen the patient before death; that both lungs were extremely congested, and that, in his opinion, given without objection, the cause of death was a weakened condition due to the gun-shot wounds, resulting in pleurisy and pneumonia. He said the causal connection between the wounds to the intestines and the pneumonia was the weakened condition of the patient, although he could not trace it, but that lowered vitality, as well as severe cold, sometimes superinduces pneumonia. He said the pleural cavity contained a straw-colored fluid and pus, but refused to declare that the gun-shot wounds were the cause of the pneumonia.

There is the testimony of a number of the neighbors of these parties that Grimm fired a number of shots from his shot-gun in the direction of Goldsboro. Many of them have said that Grimm fired as many as five shots in that direction, and it was testified to by A. W. Bell, the county detective, that, after Grimm was in custody, he asked Grimm if the gun that was offered in evidence before you was the gun he shot Goldsboro with, to which the defend-an replied, “That’s the gun.” There is the testimony of a number of the neighbors that, after the shooting, the defendant said with an oath that he had killed Goldsboro, and many of them testified that, prior to that time, they heard the defendant say he intended to kill Goldsboro. There is evidence that, prior to the shooting, the defendant said he had made his wife leave home because Goldsboro had been coming there, and that he had watched for Goldsboro, intending to kill him, and had not “got” him, but would “get” him yet.

The defendant took the witness-stand in his own behalf and testified that he had known the deceased for ten or twelve years, and that they had been good friends until Oct. 31, 1923, when the defendant discovered that Goldsboro was unlawfully intimate with the defendant’s wife, and that thereupon the friendship between the two men ceased. The defendant testified that he had been told of this intimacy three or four days earlier than that by Goldsboro’s wife and his daughter, Mrs. Ward Kelley, and that on the date mentioned he went to work early in the morning, before daylight, and soon came back to his home and hid in the cellarway, watching for Goldsboro, who soon came to the house, but that Goldsboro’s attention was attracted to where the defendant was hiding by the actions of the defendant’s dog, which was in the yard, and that Goldsboro came and looked down into the cellarway and saw the defendant and that the defendant saw him, and that Goldsboro ran and jumped over the back fence and got away.

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Bluebook (online)
5 Pa. D. & C. 287, 1924 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 104, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-grimm-paoytermctfayet-1924.