Lafrenz

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction of first degree murder and from an order denying a motion for new trial.

The victim of the murder was Walter J. Mathias, who conducted a small restaurant in the Mission district, near Nineteenth and Folsom Streets in San Francisco. On the morning of August 4, 1930, between the hours of 10 and 11 o’clock, he was found lying on the floor of the kitchen in the rear of his restaurant, unconscious and bleeding from a wound on the head, his skull having been crushed by a heavy blow inflicted with a blunt instrument. Without regaining consciousness he died about 3 o’clock in the afternoon of the same day. The police were unable to find any clue to the perpetrators of the crime until about a year and a half later. At that time, in March, 1932, one Henry Castro, living in San Mateo County, was confined in the county jail at Redwood City on a charge of failing to provide for his minor child; and while there he received a letter from his wife, through which the officers learned that Castro knew something about the murder of Mathias. Soon afterwards Castro related his story of the murder to the grand jury of the city and county of San…