Larson

The defendant was duly informed against for the murder of his wife, and upon trial by jury was convicted of murder in the first degree. Judgment of death was pronounced. We have here an appeal by defendant from such judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

It is seldom that we find an appeal so utterly destitute of merit as the one before us.

The claim that the evidence is legally insufficient to support the verdict is entirely without foundation. While it is true that no living person saw the actual killing of deceased other than the perpetrator of the homicide, and that the evidence was entirely circumstantial, it is idle to assert that there was not enough in the evidence to warrant the conclusion beyond all reasonable doubt on the part of the jurors that the defendant was guilty as charged.

Mrs. Larson was found unconscious and dying in the hills above Casa Verdugo, a short distance from Glendale, on the afternoon of June 22, 1913, by a man and a woman who were taking a walk, and who were attracted by groans to the place where the body was, it having been moved aside and out of sight from the pathway. She died very shortly thereafter. She had been…