Grill

The defendant was informed against by the district attorney of the county of-Sonoma for the crime of murder in billing one W. S. Pearce; he was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to the state prison for life.

From the judgment of conviction and the order overruling his motion for a new trial he prosecutes this appeal. The deceased lived with his sixteen year old daughter in the country. The defendant had been stopping there for some time, working at times for others. A son of deceased had also been residing with him up to about two weeks before the homicide. The deceased and defendant were hunting together on Sunday afternoon, June 23, 1905; returned about half-past 7 in the evening. The deceased claimed to have left $19.50 between the mattresses of his bed and when he returned from the hunt it was missing and he accused the defendant with taking it. They quarreled. A disturbance was heard outdoors and defendant took the shotgun and went out the back door and deceased came to the front door and had undressed for bed. The noise seemed to have been made by a pet dog and defendant said he would shoot it, and deceased remarked, “You dirty son-of-a-bitch,…