Smith v. Commonwealth

Mrs. Rhoda Hankins was killed at her home in a little settlement on Dry Fork, in Tazewell county, on December *7067, 1935, at about six o’clock in the morning, then dark. Some one with a shotgun shot through her window and killed her almost instantly as she stood by a stove in the kitchen. For that murder Mrs. Rosa Smith was indicted. She has been tried, found guilty of murder in the second decree and sentenced to twenty years in the State penitentiary.

Mrs. Hankins and her husband, Earl Hankins, were tenants of William Smith, husband of the defendant. Their homes were about a hundred yards apart.…