Nature of the Case
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Facts
D married the deceased (W) in 1955 when he was serving in the Army in California. During a tour of duty in Greenland, D's wife and two children lived with his parents in New Jersey. D returned to the United States on emergency leave in order to move his family to their own quarters. D was forced first to secure a 'compassionate transfer' back to the States, and subsequently to resign from the Army in July of 1960, by which time he had attained the rank of Chief Warrant Officer. D was a hard worker, earned a substantial salary and bore a very good reputation among his neighbors. In 1958, W suffered a fractured skull while attempting to leave D's car during an argument. This contributed to her mental disorder which was later diagnosed as a schizoid personality type. In 1959 she underwent psychiatric treatment at the mental hygiene clinic in Aberdeen, Maryland. She complained of nervousness and told the examining doctor 'I feel like hurting my children.' This sentiment sometimes took the form of sadistic 'discipline' toward their very young children. Upon her discharge from the clinic, the doctors considered her much improved. In January 1962, D was selected to attend an electronics school for nine days. W greeted this news with violent argument. At W's suggestion, he put a loaded .22 caliber pistol on the window sill at the head of their common bed, so that she would feel safe. On the evening of January 16, 1962, D returned home and told his wife that he had been temporarily assigned to teach at a school in Chambersburg, which would necessitate his absence from home four nights a week. This news resulted in a violent argument at the dinner table and continued until four o'clock in the morning. They went into the bedroom a little before 3 o'clock. W laid with her back to D and would just talk over her shoulder. D testified that he became angry and more angry especially what she was saying about my kids and sometime between 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning he remembered the gun on the window sill over my head. She was asleep, and he reached up and grabbed the pistol and brought it down and shot her twice in the back of the head. D approximated that five minutes elapsed between his wife's last remark and the shooting. D then wrapped his wife's body in a blanket, spread, and sheets, tied them on with a piece of plastic clothesline and took her down to the cellar. He tried to clean up as well as he could. Later that night he took his wife's body to a desolate place near a trash dump. He then took the children to his parents' home in Magnolia, New Jersey. He was arrested the next Monday in Chambersburg where he had gone to his teaching assignment. D plead guilty and was tried without a jury. An expert testified that D did not premeditate the killing. D was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. This appeal resulted.
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