THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. BERNARDO TURNO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

The
appellant was found guilty of the crime of homicide with the
aggravating circumstance of abuse of superior strength, and sentenced
by the Court of First Instance of Zambales to suffer imprisonment for
seventeen years, four months and one day of reclusion temporal, with the accessories provided by article 59 of the Penal Code, and to pay the costs.

From the record it appears that on March 15, 1924, the accused had a
servant by the name of Guillermo Castrense, 13 years of age. The
accused told him to gather firewood, and upon his return, one Catalina,
with whom the accused apparently was living maritally, ordered him to
get more firewood. The deceased answered that he did not know where to
go to get more, and as Catalina insisted, the deceased grinned at her,
which was seen by the accused. The latter, thereupon, said to the
child, “make fun of me, but not of your aunt,” and ordered him to come
upstairs. As the child would not do so, through fear, the accused went
downstairs with a piece of bojo cane, and taking him by the
arm, beat him several times with the cane until it was broken into
pieces. The accused continued maltreating the child, kicking and
striking him on several parts of his body, and stamping him after he
had fallen to the ground, crying “father, father.”

The child
Castrense escaped from the house of the accused and arrived at the home
of his parents on the 16th of January. There he complained to his
father Vitaliano and his stepmother Ines Ejaus of pains in the chest,
the back and on the right side, saying that he was going to die. When
asked about the cause of said pains, he answered that the accused
Bernardo Turno had beat, illtreated, and trampled upon him. His body
exhibited various black and blue spots, he vomited blood at noon and
died on the following day. Doctor Castrillo, who made the autopsy of
the body shortly thereafter, found two scratches on the right side of
the frontal region; a scratch on the inner side of the right elbow; a
superficial wound about 2 centimeters wide on the right foot between
the tarsus and the phalanx; lineal scratches on both sides of the
thorax at the level of the axillar line, some extending from the back
to the front and others having a downward direction.

After
the autopsy of the body, it was found, upon opening the chest, that the
heart was normal, and the right lung exhibited blood flux on all the
surface of the outer part, specially on the upper lobe. The left lung
likewise exhibited hemorrhagic centers on the superior lobe, but not so
pronounced, as compared with the other lung. These flux of blood and
hemorrhagic centers show that the lungs had suffered a considerable
traumatism. (Exhibit A, fol. 9.)

Explaining the probable
causes and effects of the wounds found by him on the body of the
deceased, Doctor Castrillo stated that the blood flux and hemorrhagic
centers found by him on the lungs of the deceased must have been caused
by the blows received by the deceased, and the lineal scratches
appearing on the body indicate that he had been whipped; and that in
his opinion the pulmonary hemorrhage was the cause of his death.

We have studied the evidence introduced in this case, and are convinced
that the guilt of the accused is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. (U.
S. vs. Diaz, 15 Phil., 123.)

The defense alleges
that the deceased was an epileptic. Supposing this to be true, still
the symptoms and the conditions of the child previous to his death, and
the testimony of Doctor Castrillo, together with that of the witnesses
who saw the accused strike the child, clearly show that death was not
due to epilepsy, but the result of the blows inflicted by the appellant
on the person of the child Guillermo Castrense.

We find the
judgment appealed from to be in accordance with the merits of the case
and the law, and therefore the same must be, as is hereby, affirmed
with the costs against the appellant. So ordered.

Johnson, Malcolm, Ostrand, Johns, and Romualdez, JJ., concur.