Redman v. State

287 S.W.2d 676, 162 Tex. Crim. 524, 1955 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1672
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 14, 1955
Docket27854
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 287 S.W.2d 676 (Redman v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Redman v. State, 287 S.W.2d 676, 162 Tex. Crim. 524, 1955 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1672 (Tex. 1955).

Opinions

BELCHER, Judge.

The offense is murder by attempted abortion; the punishment, confinement in the penitentiary for four years.

The state’s testimony shows that the police identified a body as being that of Betty Ledel at a hospital and then went directly to appellant’s clinic where appellant told them that Betty Ledel was removed from her clinic a short time before their arrival.

Homicide Detective Howerton testified that during his investigation and prior to the arrest of appellant that “We asked her (appellant) * * * what the purpose of Mrs. Ledel’s visit was at the place and she said she had come to her some weeks prior to that — she thought she was pregnant and wanted something done about it; didn’t want to have a child, and I asked her what occurred, and she said that she had inserted an instrument fn her womb and injected air into her womb and I asked her where it occurred. * * * She showed me the table that the woman was lying on, and that after she had injected the air into her womb with the instrument she became choky, couldn’t get her breath. * * * and she called an ambulance. I asked her what she did with the instruments she used in this case * * * and (she) carried us to a garbage can where she had placed the instruments; she picked the lid up from the garbage can and I removed the instruments from the garbage can that she said she had used on this occasion.” These instruments were identified and shown to be a pair of snips, a cannula, a syringe, and a speculum.

[526]*526Witness Howerton further testified on cross-examination that appellant told him that the deceased thought she was pregnant, visited her on two or three occasions about ten days apart, and that if the the deceased was pregnant, that she, appellant, didn’t know it.

Dr. Fitzwilliam testified that he performed an autopsy on the body of the deceased which disclosed that the uterus was enlarged, filled with tissue of pregnancy, contained a small, live and normal embryo, which showed a six or seven week pregnancy; that he found evidence of air in the veins around the uterus, the heart, and in the veins and arteries leading to the brain; that the injection of air into the uterus of a pregnant woman would be highly dangerous and would likely cause a premature birth, and that the embryo here would probably have been expelled if the death of the deceased had not occurred, and that in his opinion air embolism caused deceased’s death. On cross-examination, Dr. Fitzwilliam testified that the embryo appeared normal, but could have been dead for a few hours; and that there are no positive outward signs of pregnancy at six or seven weeks known to medical science.

The written confession of the appellant was introduced in evidence and contained the following: “* * * About the 8th of October, 1954, a girl named Betty Ladel came to see me. She told me she thought she was pregnant. About a week over her time. And asked me if I could help her get rid of the baby. I told her the danger of everything and she said she was not afraid, I told her I would rather her to go somewhere else and have the baby stopped in twenty four hours, because my work is slow. I do it by shooting a little air up into the womb, (uterus) By going through the cervix into the uterus, where the embryo is carried. She told me she wanted me to do it. * * * The first day she came to me, I shot a little air up into her uterus or womb. I used a syringe for air that’s laying there on your desk, Mr. Cochran. I used a female speculum that’s laying there too, Mr. Cochran, to open her vagina. I didn’t know for sure she was pregnant. I have felt enough of them up inside the vagina to tell. After I shot the air up into her, I told her to come back every other day. She came back. Each time she came to see me, I pumped a little more air into her womb or uterus. Asking her if she could feel it. Sometimes she’d say, T do’, and sometimes she would say T don’t feel it’. Yesterday morning, which was October 19, 1954, she came back to see me; she came in and I took her upstairs. I laid her on a table used for females. * * * Then I inserted the speculum in her vagina to open it up, and [527]*527then I put the cannula to the mouth of uterus — it is the cannula that I am holding here, Mr. Cochran, to the mouth of the uterus then I gave her about five syringes full of air through the cannula into the uterus. I asked her if she could feel it and she said not very much. And she looked up at me and said I feel choky, and then she passed out. I used artificial respiration. I picked her up in my arms and laid her on the floor. And I slung water at her to try to revive her, and then I had a lady downstairs to call an ambulance. The ambulance came and got her and took her to Harris Hospital. After this happened I called a friend and asked her what to do and she said throw all that stuff away. So I went upstairs to get the instruments that I had used, and I had just come downstairs when Mr. Howerton and Mr. Armstrong and another detective walked in. I told them I’d be with them in a minute and I kinda hid the instruments that I had used on Betty Ladel behind me, and I stepped into the back and put the instruments in a garbage can. Then I came back out to talk to Mr. Howerton and I admitted to him what I had done and he asked me what I had used on Betty Ladel, and I took him out (to) the garbage can and showed him exactly where I had hidden them and what I had used. He asked me if I had performed an abortion on her and I told him no, but I wasn’t telling him the truth. And I gave these instruments to Mr. Howerton and Mr. Armstrong and the other detective. After she had told me that she felt choky, and after I laid her on the floor, I noticed she was bleeding from the vagina.”

Appellant testifying in her own behalf stated that the deceased came to her about fourteen days before her death, and was run down physically, worried, and thought she was pregnant; that she examined her, found no indication of pregnancy, determined that she had a misplaced uterus for which she gave her about eight treatments by injecting air into the uterus which she said was the common method used by naturopaths for treating a misplaced uterus; that she told the deceased that air injections were dangerous to pregnant women and that if she was pregnant to go to another place, and that the deceased replied that she was not afraid. She testified that she hid the instruments at the suggestion of a friend. Appellant admitted, on cross examination, that she voluntarily made and signed the statement introduced by the state, but testified that several of the matters contained therein were incorrect, that is, that the deceased did not “ask me if I could help her get rid of the baby” as therein set out, and the statement therein that she was not telling Howerton the truth when she told him that she had not performed an abortion on the deceased was incorrect because [528]*528her statement about not telling him the truth referred to the money paid her by the deceased for treatments.

Drs. Bletner and Walker, naturopaths, testified that the injection of air was an accepted practice among naturopaths for treating a misplaced uterus, and that such treatment would not likely cause an abortion.

It was shown that the appellant had a license to practice naturopathy.

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Related

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474 S.W.2d 492 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1971)
Bruce v. State
402 S.W.2d 919 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1966)
Byrd v. State
373 S.W.2d 745 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1964)
Hagans v. State
372 S.W.2d 946 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1962)
Sheffield v. State
371 S.W.2d 49 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1962)
Stewart v. State
324 S.W.2d 228 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1959)

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Bluebook (online)
287 S.W.2d 676, 162 Tex. Crim. 524, 1955 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1672, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/redman-v-state-texcrimapp-1955.