House v. State

The appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree and was sentenced to death. For a reversal he questions the sufficiency of the evidence and a number of the trial court’s rulings.

House, a man of twenty-four, and the decedent, Ernestine Coley, a girl of nineteen, were residents of Phillips county. On the afternoon of July 26, 1958, the two met on the street in the community of Oneida, and the girl solicited a ride into Helena, where one of her relatives was in a hospital. While House was waiting for the girl to change her clothes he made the statement to a friend that he was going to…