Gray v. State

The offense is murder; punishment fixed at death.

On the night, of the 24th of September, 1923, the deceased, Otis Ballard, disappeared. About four days later his body was found in a creek some miles distant. It was badly swollen and decomposed, stripped of its clothing, and had fastened to it with a barbed wire a heavy piece of iron. The evidence reveals without controversy -that on Monday night the deceased was killed by a blow or blows upon his head with a piece of iron; that at that time he was in the vicinity of a certain schoolhouse. situated at Mt. *943Pleasant, where he had gone in company…