People v. Lindley

161 P.2d 227, 26 Cal. 2d 780, 1945 Cal. LEXIS 193
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 30, 1945
DocketCrim. 4614
StatusPublished
Cited by80 cases

This text of 161 P.2d 227 (People v. Lindley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Lindley, 161 P.2d 227, 26 Cal. 2d 780, 1945 Cal. LEXIS 193 (Cal. 1945).

Opinions

EDMONDS, J.

When he was charged with having murdered a 13-year-old girl, William Marvin Lindley pleaded not guilty, but before the date set for trial it was brought to the attention of the court that a doubt had arisen concerning his sanity. Following a hearing upon that issue he was committed to the Mendocino State Hospital. Ten months later he was released to the sheriff and brought to trial upon the murder charge. The case is now before, this court upon an automatic appeal from the judgment imposing the death penalty, which was entered upon the verdict of the jury finding him. guilty and the order denying a new trial.

The record discloses that on August 16, 1943, two days before Jackie Hamilton, the victim of the tragedy, was found under conditions which resulted in her death shortly afterward, she had arrived at Yuba City with her father and mother and three sisters, Willa Mae, Barbara, and Shirley, who were then 17, 15, and 3 years of age, respectively. The family established a camp at a place which was between the levee of the Feather River and the stream. Clumps of trees dotted the area and the terrain was irregular. Some 200 yards to the northeast, built directly on the stream, was a boathouse inhabited by William Owens, his nine-year-old son, a man called Shorty, and Lindley. Owens had known Lindley for about five years and had always called him “Red.” The men maintained a store in the boathouse, selling soft drinks and merchandise to the riders and campers who frequented the vicinity.

The Hamilton family made camp about noon on Monday [783]*783but did not go to the boathouse that day. On Tuesday, Barbara went down to find out where they could get water,' and visited the boathouse several other times. The next day, a little boy took the three older girls, Willa Mae, Barbara and Jackie, across the river in a boat. On the opposite bank they saw a sheepherder and his flock. When they returned Barbara and Jackie went in swimming, and later Willa Mae joined them.

Meanwhile Mr. Hamilton had become acquainted with the men at the boathouse. He agreed to drive Owens and “Red” to a place a few miles outside the city where they could collect wages due them for peach picking. The three men left in the automobile shortly after noon. Some time later Barbara and Jackie left the water. They went up to the boathouse to change to dry clothing. Shorty was the only man there, and he told Jackie to wrap herself in a blanket and get her clothes from a tub in which she had placed them. She did so, and Barbara helped her dress in the men’s restroom. Jackie then said she would go back to camp.

Willa Mae, still in the water, saw “quite a ways off,” “a man with a brown hat and khakis ... in the willows. . . . It looked like he was shaking a pole going back and forth. Shaking the willows.” About this same time, which was probably around 2 o’clock, the three men had returned from town after completing their errands and making grocery purchases, and within five minutes after their arrival “Red” had taken some ale which they had bought and walked with it in the direction of the boathouse. Owens had stayed in camp to visit with Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton.

“Red” was wearing a khaki suit, a “kind of brown khaki,” shirt and pants, and a brown hat. It was a brown hat, or one similar to it, that had been given to him by Owens.

When Jackie reached the camp, 200 yards from the boathouse, her father, Owens, her mother and Shirley were there but “Red” had left. Owens was drinking from a jug of wine bought in town; Mr. Hamilton had about two tablespoons of it. Jackie did not mention having seen “Red” on the way. She stayed only about five minutes and then walked ■ back toward the river. During this brief interval Barbara was at the boathouse; Willa Mae had left the water and started back to camp for dry clothes. The man was still in the willows when she left the river, so she took the trail to the house, [784]*784without passing the place where he was. “He was there when I got through swimming,” she testified, “in the willows and I just went on to the house. I kind of got scared and went to the house.” She did not recognize the man as anyone she had seen and she had never met “Red.” After reaching camp she stayed there quite a while, then changed her clothes and took Shirley down to the boathouse. On the way there, she did not see or look for the man in the willows.

Meanwhile at the boathouse “Red” had come in and joined Barbara and Shorty about 15 or 20 minutes after Jackie left for camp. He did not mention having stopped in the willows on the way, or having met and injured Jackie, if he did so. His whereabouts over the period of 15 minutes is not accounted for unless he was the man in the willows. He sat around drinking beer and smoking one cigarette after another.

Five or six minutes after “Red’s” arrival, Willa Mae came in with Shirley, and about 15 or 20 minutes after that two boys, Richard and Lawrence, who were riding horses, stopped at the boathouse. The group talked for 20 or 25 minutes and then the two boys went to get their horses. Willa Mae, the baby and Barbara started to walk toward the camp. A period of 60 or 70 minutes had then elapsed since Jackie left the boathouse and paid her five-minute visit to the camp.

The group of young people came upon Owens sitting on a hump of bermuda grass on the hill. He had left the camp after sitting around with Mr. Hamilton for an hour or an hour and a quarter. He said he was taking sand out of his shoe. That took him three or four minutes, and he then went on down to the boathouse and joined Shorty and “Red.” Three or four minutes. after he reached the boathouse, and while Barbara, Willa Mae, and the baby were watching the two boys mount .their horses, they heard Jackie call out “help, I am drowning,” and similar cries. Willa Mae and Barbara were not alarmed as Jackie had been fooling them all morning by calling for help and pretending that she was drowning. Willa Mae went on to camp with the baby and told her mother she guessed her sister had fainted. She knew Jackie had not been well because of successive bouts with rheumatic fever and its effect upon her heart, but she was “gaining and getting very stout. A very healthy looking little girl.”

Barbara remarked to the boys, “She is fooling; she has been fooling all day like that,” but the boys said they would go down and see. Richard went part way on his horse and [785]*785called, “you are not going to drown in the sand.” But Jackie had recognized Barbara’s voice and said “help, Barbara, help.” Then Barbara also cried out for help and the father went to the aid of the girls. He placed the time of the cry as 10 minutes or less after Owens left the camp. It was estimated as 3:15 or 3:20, or an hour and a quarter after the men returned from town.

Jackie was lying outside the willows on the sand. She was on her side with her face turned partly into the sand. There was a little spot of blood on her cheek, dry blood in her nose and “great big reddish blue purple spots on her little throat like somebody had hold of her throat.” According to her father's testimony, she said, “Daddy, that old red headed man; that dirty liar at the boathouse.” Barbara testified that in suggesting to her father, “Daddy, let’s take her to the boathouse,” Jackie replied, “No, that old man at the boathouse, he did it, the dirty liar.” The father also told the jury that she kept saying, ‘ ‘ The old red headed man, the dirty liar, did it.' ’

The clothing on the child was torn in front.

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Bluebook (online)
161 P.2d 227, 26 Cal. 2d 780, 1945 Cal. LEXIS 193, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-lindley-cal-1945.