Wilson

Defendant was charged by indictment with the murder of two women, Virgie Lee Griffin and Lillian Johnson, whose bodies were found in the Barclay and Joyce Hotels respectively, in Los Angeles on November 15, 1944. He entered pleas of guilty and of not guilty by reason of insanity to both counts of the indictment. After a jury trial he was found sane at the time he committed both offenses. His motion for a new trial was denied. Each offense was fixed as murder of the first degree and defendant was sentenced to the death penalty on each count of the indictment. This is an automatic appeal under section 1239 of the Penal Code.

The facts and circumstances surrounding the killings as disclosed by the record are as follows:

About November 12, 1944, defendant, who was thirty-four years of age, left his employment at a shipyard near Wilmington, California, and shortly before noon on November 14, 1944,. purchased from a hardware store in Los Angeles a knife with about a seven-inch blade. He represented himself as a cook to the salesman who sold him the knife. At 1 p. m. on the same day he secured a room at the Barclay Hotel and signed the register, “Mr. and Mrs. O. S. Wilson,…