State v. . Coffey

On Sunday evening, 5 April, 1936, about the hour of 7:30 p.m., Hardie Coffey was shot and killed while sitting with his family in the front room of his home in Avery County, teaching his little girl her music lesson. The murderer stepped up on the front porch, shot through a glass window, and hit the deceased in the back just under the left shoulder. He died almost instantly without speaking.

The evidence which tends to connect the defendant with the killing is circumstantial. Nevertheless, it points unerringly to his guilt. S. v. Melton, 187 N. C., 481, 122 S. E., 17. The defendant had been…