People v. May

The appellant, Merril May, was indicted for murder in the second degree. The indictment charged that on July 21, 1939, in the town of Henderson, Jefferson county, he shot and fatally wounded with a shotgun one Joseph Sidor, without premeditation and deliberation but with a design to effect death. He stands convicted on circumstantial evidence.

"Upon the trial the proof of corpus delicti developed the following facts: On the night of July 30, 1939, two fishermen on Henderson Pond discovered floating face downward the body of a young man. No water was found in the lungs of the decedent although…