People v. Buffington

Appellants have been convicted of murder, first degree, based upon an indictment alleging that they assaulted and killed a female companion. There is no dispute that for several hours early in a January morning the female was riding about Onondaga County with defendants and one William Buffington, a brother of defendant Buffington. It is further conceded that during this period she was brutally assaulted, killed, and her body left in a lonely wooded area. The trial, however, produced a close factual issue as to whether she was murdered by defendants, as William Buffington, the principal…