## Facts

- Shirley Mae Biddle, a 25-year-old mother with six children, lived with her husband in Norfolk, Virginia.
- Police found Biddle’s three-month-old infant dead in the apartment on January 22, 1964; circumstances suggested severe neglect, and an autopsy was requested.
- The infant’s weight had dropped from 5 pounds 8 ounces at birth to 4 pounds 5½ ounces at death.
- Medical evidence described the infant as extremely dehydrated and malnourished, with indications the child had not eaten for several days; the autopsy attributed death to malnutrition.
- Detectives observed there was food available in the apartment.
- Police also observed another young child in the home in an unclean and neglected condition.
- Biddle first told police the infant had been fed regularly; in a later statement, she admitted days would elapse between feedings and suggested her husband would not mind if the baby died because he believed the child was illegitimate.
- Biddle waived a jury trial; the trial court convicted her of first-degree murder and sentenced her to 20 years.

## Issues

1. Whether Biddle’s second statement to police was inadmissible because she was not advised of a right to remain silent.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove first-degree murder, or instead supported only manslaughter based on negligent omission of a parental duty.

## Decision

- The court held the second statement was admissible because the trial judge’s finding of voluntariness was supported by the circumstances; lack of a silence warning was a factor, not an automatic bar.
- The court reversed the first-degree murder conviction because the Commonwealth did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Biddle acted with malice in failing to feed the child.
- The court treated the proven conduct as neglect establishing a criminal homicide by omission, but insufficient to establish murder absent proof of malicious omission.

## Legal Principles

- A parent’s failure to perform a legal duty (such as feeding an infant) can constitute homicide by omission.
- If death results from a malicious omission of a legal duty, the offense is murder; if the omission is negligent only, the offense is manslaughter.
- In assessing voluntariness of a statement, failure to advise a suspect of a right to remain silent is considered as one circumstance bearing on voluntariness under then-prevailing law, rather than a categorical exclusion rule.
- Murder by omission requires proof of malice (malice aforethought) beyond a reasonable doubt; serious neglect alone does not establish malice.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed admission of Biddle’s second statement as voluntary but reversed her first-degree murder conviction because the evidence proved neglect causing death without proving the malice required for murder based on a parental omission.


Biddle v. Commonwealth, 141 S.E.2d 710 (Va. 1965)