Harris v. State

BEAUCHAMP, Judge.

The appeal of Tommis Harris is from the death penalty assessed by a jury in Tarrant County for the murder of Mrs. Edna Earl Allen, a white woman, by striking her with a ham mer and with a metal weight and by striking and stabbing her with an ice pick.

The victim’s husband worked in a grocery store in Grand-view, Johnson County, and the tragedy was committed in their home about a mile from the town at something like 4 o’clock in the afternoon of August 8, 1940. There is evidence of ravishing her body in addition to the murder, and the State’s theory is that the murder was…