## Facts

- David Curtiss Stephenson was indicted for murdering Madge Oberholtzer based on a course of conduct that included abduction, physical and sexual assaults, restraint, and delayed access to medical care.
- The State alleged the acts were part of a single transaction contributing to death, including that Oberholtzer ingested poison while “distracted” by pain and shame caused by Stephenson.
- While under Stephenson’s control in Hammond, Oberholtzer secretly purchased bichloride of mercury tablets and ingested them in a hotel room.
- After she became seriously ill, Stephenson provided minimal aid and delayed obtaining medical treatment despite her repeated requests for a doctor during the return trip to Indianapolis.
- A physician later treated her at her parents’ home; Oberholtzer made statements that she did not expect to recover and gave a detailed account of events, which the trial court admitted as a dying declaration.
- Medical testimony attributed death to combined factors, including shock, deprivation of food and rest, poison effects, infection, and lack of early treatment, rather than a single exclusive cause.
- A jury convicted Stephenson of second-degree murder and he received a life sentence; he appealed, challenging the indictment, evidentiary rulings (including the dying declaration), instructions, and sufficiency of evidence on causation.

## Issues

1. Whether the victim’s self-administration of poison constituted a superseding cause that relieved Stephenson of homicide liability.
2. Whether the indictment properly included allegations of imprisonment and refusal of medical aid as part of a single transaction causing death, and whether those allegations were subject to being struck or quashed.
3. Whether a plea in abatement could be based on an asserted lack of sufficient evidence before the grand jury.
4. Whether the victim’s narrative statements to her physician were admissible as a dying declaration.

## Decision

- The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and life sentence for second-degree murder.
- The court held the jury could find Stephenson’s unlawful acts caused a mental condition rendering the victim “distracted and mentally irresponsible,” so her ingestion of poison did not break causation.
- The court upheld the indictment’s inclusion of wounding, imprisoning, poisoning (through her ingestion), and refusal of medical aid as necessary allegations supporting a single-transaction theory of causation.
- The court rejected the plea in abatement premised on alleged insufficiency of grand-jury evidence.
- The court upheld admission of the victim’s statements as a dying declaration based on evidence she spoke under a settled belief of impending death.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant may be guilty of homicide when the defendant’s unlawful conduct foreseeably produces a mental state in the victim that leads to self-destructive action; the victim’s act is not a superseding cause if it flows from mental irresponsibility caused by the defendant.
- Proximate cause in homicide may be found where the defendant’s acts are a natural and probable cause of the victim’s death, evaluated across the entire sequence of wrongful conduct.
- An indictment may allege multiple contributing acts as part of one transaction culminating in death when each allegation supports the State’s causation theory and is not mere prejudicial surplusage.
- On a motion to quash, the indictment’s allegations are taken as true for purposes of testing legal sufficiency.
- Claimed insufficiency of evidence presented to the grand jury is not a proper ground for a plea in abatement in a criminal prosecution.
- A dying declaration is admissible when the declarant speaks under a settled expectation of impending death; the trial court may admit a detailed account of events if that foundation is supported by the evidence.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed a second-degree murder conviction, concluding that a victim’s suicide attempt did not necessarily sever causation where the defendant’s felony conduct could be found to have foreseeably produced mental irresponsibility and where the death resulted from a combined set of injuries and omissions within a single course of criminal conduct.


Stephenson v. State, 205 Ind. 141, 179 N.E. 633 (Ind. 1932)