Wilson v. State

199 So. 2d 445, 1967 Miss. LEXIS 1301
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedJune 5, 1967
DocketNo. 44097
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 199 So. 2d 445 (Wilson 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
Wilson v. State, 199 So. 2d 445, 1967 Miss. LEXIS 1301 (Mich. 1967).

Opinion

JONES, Justice:

The venue of this charge was in Bolivar County, from which county a change was granted to Coahoma County. On trial in the circuit court orí a charge of murder appellant was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in the state penitentiary. From this conviction she appeals. For the reasons hereinafter stated, we are compelled to reverse and dismiss the case.

Appellant, a widow, had known the deceased Dr. Ringold for a number of years prior to 1962 when she moved from Hammond, Louisiana, to Cleveland, Mississippi, where on July 4, 1964, she and Dr. Ringold were married. Appellant had a daughter who had become retarded from an attack of spinal meningitis. This child lived in the home with her mother, Mrs. Wilson, at the time of the tragedy hereinafter detailed. Dr. Ringold, a widower, also had one child by the name of Sadie Mae Buchanan. She [446]*446was approximately twenty-four years old at the time of her father’s death. Prior to their marriage, Mrs. Wilson and Dr. Ringold, as the appellant testified, “enjoyed each other’s company, going to dinner together and fishing and hunting together,” and had a “wonderful” friendship. After the marriage, they, together with her afflicted daughter, moved into the house owned by him in Cleveland, Mississippi, where they apparently lived happily for a period of three or four months. The decedent, Dr. Ringold, was a practicing physician, and enjoyed a good reputation and much popularity. Dr. W. T. Fitzgerald, who had practiced medicine in partnership with him for a number of years, testified Dr. Ringold became an alcoholic some years prior to his death. The relationship between the parties as husband and wife became increasingly unbearable until the fall of 1965 when they separated and Mrs. Wilson filed suit for divorce which was uncontested. It was an amicable separation, and the decree was granted November 10, 1965.

Appellant testified that after the divorce was granted she and the doctor agreed to be friends. On the night of Monday, November 15, following the decree and preceding the Friday on which the tragedy occurred, the doctor invited Mrs. Wilson to his apartment for dinner and she accepted. The father of the sheriff of the county, living in the same apartment building, came and had dinner with the doctor and Mrs. Wilson. Her undenied testimony was that they had a wonderful evening and discussed her impending trip to Mexico. Again, on Tuesday night, November 16, the doctor and Mrs. Wilson had dinner together. This time, the dinner was at her home, and consisted of some squirrels which the doctor had asked her to cook. There was no argument or unpleasantness on this occasion.

On Thursday, November 18, about 8:30 or 9:00 p. m., while Mrs. Wilson was making preparations for a trip to Mexico, she received a call from the doctor. He invited her to join him for dinner and when she replied that she was having a drink he told her to bring her drink. He also requested that she lend him a 20-gauge shotgun she had which had belonged to her first husband. It had a “polychoke” by which the shot pattern could be made larger or smaller. The doctor had had cataract operations and he thought this gun could be adjusted to give him a better pattern than his own gun. The gun was loaded with three shells, and Mrs. Wilson said she had loaded it back in October when she and her daughter moved into the house where they were living alone.

She went in her car with her drink and the gun to the apartment where the doctor lived. When she entered the apartment with her purse and drink in her hand (having forgotten the gun) she found Dr. Ringold shredding lettuce in preparation for a Mexican dinner. She finished her drink and, while Dr. Ringold was getting the oven hot, went to her automobile, got the shotgun (having been asked by the doctor if she had forgotten it), and returned to the apartment. When she re-entered, she laid the gun on the floor by the coffee table in the living room, but after he “stumped” his toe on the stock, Dr. Ringold requested that she lay it on his bed. After this, appellant testified that she and the doctor had a Mexican dinner of tacos; that they had had a drink while the tacos were cooking, and he had requested that she mend two of his coats before she left for Mexico.

After dinner they had another drink. Then she advised the doctor as to rearranging the furniture in the living room area of his apartment. They then entered the south bedroom to watch television, but the reception was bad. The doctor mentioned to her that she had left a pair of white gloves on the previous Monday night. He secured the gloves from a drawer, gave them to Mrs. Wilson, and she put them on the desk in the south bedroom. They were both fully clothed, and there is no evidence of anything improper having occurred.

[447]*447About 11:00 p. m. the doctor went to the kitchen to fix himself another drink and there received a telephone call. He returned to the bedroom and told Mrs. Wilson that he had gotten a call. She volunteered to drive him on the call, but this offer was declined. He asked her to wait for him.

After he left, she picked up a paper to read and then laid down near the head of the bed in the south bedroom. There she went to sleep. It seems she placed the last drink the doctor mixed for her on the desk by the bed at the time she laid down. She also testified that she removed a barrette from her hair and placed it on the desk.

The doctor returned to the apartment about 2:10 or 2:15 a. m. He stopped his car south of the apartment building on the east side of the street which runs in front of the apartments. Mrs. Wilson testified that she was awakened by the slamming of the apartment door. She glanced at her watch, saw the time, stood up, and began putting on her shoes. She was standing between the bed and the desk, when Dr. Ringold appeared in the doorway and asked where she thought she was going. His face was flushed and had a vicious expression. She requested that he get his coats which she was to mend, and he replied, “You are not going any place, get undressed and get in bed.” To this she replied that that was not in the bargain. His mood was described as violent when he started toward her with his hands and arms outstretched. She said the last time she had seen that vicious expression on his face was on the night of August 2, 1965, when he had struck her, knocked her down and broken her pelvis, which event will be hereinafter discussed.

She was standing on the east side of the bed, near the desk, or the southeast corner of the bed. When he started toward her, there was nowhere to go to escape him. She grabbed the gun off the bed for the purpose of frightening him. She pumped the gun, but he kept advancing and she backed as far as she could. He struck the gun, knocking it up, and it fired into the ceiling. She said that she pushed the doctor with the gun and when she pumped it again it went off and shot him. She had no knowledge of her finger being on the trigger.

Her testimony shows that after the doctor was shot she dropped the gun and blacked out. When she regained consciousness she was sitting in a chair at the desk by the bed in the south bedroom. She said the first thing she did then was to call the sheriff and the next thing was to call her sister, Mrs. Thornton. After that, it is her testimony that she remembered nothing until she was in the hospital with a blood pressure band around her arm and a nurse standing over her. She did testify she had a vague recollection of picking an unfired shell off the bed.

Dr. John P.

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Bluebook (online)
199 So. 2d 445, 1967 Miss. LEXIS 1301, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilson-v-state-miss-1967.