Page:Redd v. State (1897).pdf/7

ARK.] "Section 2230. A conviction cannot be had in any case of felony upon the testimony of an accomplice, unless corroborated by other evidence tending to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense, and the corroboration is not sufficient if it merely shows that the offense was committed, and the circumstances thereof. Provided, in misdemeanor cases a conviction may be had upon the testimony of an accomplice." Criminal Code, § 240.

The testimony of witness McKay, as concerns defendant Johnson, was to the effect that while Redd, Johnson, and others of the mill hands had been previously taking their meals at his boarding house, yet at the time of the death of Skipper none were eating at his house except Johnson; that, on the day previous to the death of Skipper, Johnson, who was the engineer at the mill of Skipper & Lefew, told him (witness, whose residence it seems was on the road leading from the town of Baxter, where Skipper's store was located, to the saw mill, a short distance up the Bayou Bartholomew from Baxter) "to tell Mr. Skipper that there were some logs down the drift [which] were about to get away, and to tell him the next morning when he passed my (witness') house." This is the basic evidence upon which defendant Johnson was sought to be shown as connected with the murder of Skipper. The theory of the prosecution was that this direction by Johnson through McKay to Skipper was part and parcel of the general scheme to lure the deceased to the secluded spot where he was murdered.

Witness McKay said further, in this connection, that about 6 o'clock a. m. of the day Skipper's body was found, Johnson came to his house for breakfast, and seemed to be in a great hurry, so much so that he finally went off without his breakfast, saying that he had some work to do at the mill that day. He went off just as witness was sitting down to the table to eat breakfast.