State v. Johnson

The defendant was found guilty in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County of the crime of rape and his punishment assessed at death, from which he has appealed.

The evidence for the State shows that Frank Faenger and his wife, Mabel Faenger, and their six-year-old daughter, lived in a small house near the village of Afton in St. Louis County. This house is in a field and stands back from the public highway. On the morning of Tuesday, March 9, 1926, defendant, a negro aged twenty-six, left his home in St. Louis and went out in the vicinity of Afton. Walking on the track of the Frisco Railroad he…