He had been drinking heavily, and some patrons believed he was excessively drunk; others thought he appeared to suffer a small seizure. Clarence said he would take the man to a hospital. Police checked all the hospitals within a mile radius. They determined the vagrant had not been admitted to any of them. He has never been identified and, because of his resemblance to Clearance, some believe he may have been the man found burned to death in the Roberts barn.
Several years after Clarence supposedly died in the fire, a dead man walking was reportedly sighted. An acquaintance believed he had seen Clearance and an unknown woman in his tavern in April Other acquaintances think they saw him in and The grand jury found the fire was an attempt to make the vagrant appear to be Roberts and that he had committed suicide.
He was ruled to have orchestrated the scheme to avoid paying his debts by having the insurance companies award Geneva his life insurance proceeds. Geneva insisted her husband had died in the fire. Still, the Wabash Live Insurance and Modern Woodmen of America challenged her claims, saying the evidence was insufficient to declare Clarence dead.
Geneva filed an action against the insurance companies. The case dragged for several years. When it finally came to trial in , a judge ruled in favor of the insurance companies, concurring that insufficient evidence existed to prove that Clarence Roberts was deceased.
Devastated by the ruling, both financially and mentally, Geneva had to move to a smaller home on the outskirts of Nashville. She became a recluse; when people arrived at her home, she would always greet them outside at the back door. She never let anyone, including family members, into the house. Strangely, she was a diabetic who rarely drank. The man never let anyone get close to him. Police set up surveillance on her home, but they never saw him.
Some believed Clarence Roberts had returned to Nashville. Soon, coincidence or not, a second catastrophic fire came. After it was extinguished, firefighters found her body in the ashes.
Several hours later, a second body was found in another part of the house. It was identified as that of Clarence Roberts. The second fire was a clear case of arson, and police determined Geneva had been murdered. Elberta recalled that he changed a lot around this time. She described it as, "turning a light on and turning a light off. These investments failed. By fall , he knew that he was in serious trouble. In October, one month before the first fire, Sheriff Warren Roberts, Clarence's own brother, repossessed two of his vehicles.
Clarence and Geneva were left desolate and desperate. Bob recalled that Clarence had become depressed and possibly suicidal around this time. At pm on the night of November 18, , firemen arrived to find the garage barn of the Roberts home ablaze. The heat was so intense that they stood helplessly by as the structure burned to the ground. When the fire had cooled, they made a grisly discovery.
A body, burned beyond recognition, laid beneath the rubble. A half-melted shotgun was by its side. The body was so badly burned, it was difficult to identify it as human. Jack Bond, the county coroner, feared that Clarence had finally paid his debts by taking his own life.
When the body was found, Jack assumed that he had shot himself. He figured that he had too many worries in his life, so he decided to commit suicide. When they arrived at the funeral home, they started looking for gunshot wounds. They were surprised to not find any. The police wondered how Clarence's suicide could have been accomplished without a gunshot wound. Detective Don Kuster sifted through the debris. Hidden in the ashes, he found Clarence's Masonic ring.
Despite the intense heat, it was virtually undamaged. It was in excellent shape and did not appear to have been melted.
He did not believe that the ring could have withstood the heat of the fire without having any damage to it. He believed that the ring was planted. This was only the first of a series of unusual discoveries. The policies named Geneva as the beneficiary. In addition, a test showed that the body found in the blaze had type AB blood. Clarence's blood type was B, based on records from the US Army. If it was not the body of Clarence, then who died in the fire? On November 17, two days before the blaze, Clarence was spotted in a bar in the nearby community of Morgantown also in Brown County , befriending a vagrant.
The man was described as about 5'7" to 5'9" and was about the same age as Clarence. The two were together, but Clarence apparently did not know his name. He told the man that he had some odd jobs at his house that needed done. The man agreed to go with him. As they were leaving, the man collapsed from some unknown cause. Clarence said that he would take the man to the hospital.
Detective Kuster later checked all of the hospitals within a mile radius and found that the man had not been admitted to any of them. Two theories divided Nashville: one that Clarence had killed himself, and second, that he murdered the vagrant in order to collect the insurance money.
It is even claimed he watched from the woods as the flames destroyed the evidence of his crime. Bob believes that Clarence was suicidal; however, he does not believe that he was homicidal.
Elberta, on the other hand, believes that he was definitely capable of murder. Clarence was either dead or missing and Geneva was left alone. Her fortune changed dramatically from riches back to rags. She was forced to move to the outskirts of town. The bodies of a man and woman were found Sunday in a century-old house where Geneva Roberts had lived since her husband, Clarence, either was burned to death or disappeared in November, John Pless, forensic pathologist at Bloomington Hospital, identified the woman's body from the weekend fire as Geneva Roberts and tentatively identified the man's body as Clarence Roberts.
Members of the Roberts family said the man was not Clarence and probably was a man who had lived in Mrs. Roberts' house off and on for the past six years. Roberts who lent her the house after the fire.
Roberts' house the past six years, Carson Roberts said. He said none of the family knew the man's name. They have painstakingly set forth the evidence most favorable to their position, and they have attempted to show lack of credibility in that evidence which is unfavorable to them. An appellate court will not weigh the evidence or assess the credibility of witnesses.
Grad v. Cross, Ind. The two adjectives which best describe the evidence in this case are "voluminous" and "conflicting. As their second theory the Roberts argue that, regardless of whether the body was proven to be that of Clarence Roberts, the wife and sons are entitled to a presumption of death under the statutory and common law because more than seven years had passed between the date of Clarence Roberts' disappearance and the date of the trial.
The insurance companies respond that, even if the wife and sons are entitled to a presumption of death due to the passing of time, the Roberts failed to prove that death occurred prior to the lapse of the life insurance contracts.
When a person is inexplicably absent from home for a continuous period of seven years, fails to communicate with those persons who would be most likely to hear from him, and cannot be found despite diligent inquiry and search, that person is presumed to be dead. Equitable Life Assurance Society v. James, 73 Ind. Lyons, 50 Ind. The Roberts introduced evidence from which the trier of fact could conclude that Clarence Roberts had been absent from home without explanation for a continuous period exceeding seven years, that he had not communicated with his family and friends during that period, and that diligent search for him had proven futile.
The Roberts insist that the burden of proof shifted to the insurance companies after the Roberts introduced evidence giving them the benefit of the presumption of death. In Fuller v. Supreme Council of Royal Arcanum, 64 Ind.
We quote also from Equitable Life Assurance Society v. James, supra, at page of 73 Ind. Clarence Roberts was having severe financial difficulties at the time of his disappearance.
His dealings with Wabash Life Insurance Co. Clarence Roberts allegedly had forged a signature in order to obtain a loan, and he knew that he was about to be called to answer for doing so. Roberts expressed dissatisfaction concerning his relationship with his wife and children, and he was seen on numerous occasions in the company of a woman who was not his wife.
This evidence could reasonably lead a trier of fact to a conclusion that Clarence Roberts had the motives and the financial ability to absent himself from his home indefinitely without communicating with his family and friends.
Roberts disappeared on the same day that a body was found in the debris left after his barn was destroyed by fire. Investigation of the fire revealed evidence of possible murder and arson. The trial court, as trier of fact, wrote in finding number eleven: "The evidence introduced at the trial of the cause further indicates that the disappearance of the insured, Clarence Roberts, on November 18, , is explainable by a reasonable hypothesis other than his death on that date.
The Roberts also ask this court to explore what role a presumption retains after controverting evidence has been introduced. In Kaiser v. Happel, Ind. The Supreme Court declared the instruction erroneous and reversed the judgment. In doing so, the Supreme Court stated that the ultimate facts can be established by direct or circumstantial evidence as well as by the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, but a presumption is not evidence. In the case at bar, the lengthy disappearance of Clarence Roberts, his failure to communicate with friends and family, and the fruitless search for Roberts amounted to circumstantial evidence of death, but the presumption of death was not evidence of the ultimate fact.
In Sumpter v. State, Ind. Justice Hunter also stated that, if the opponent of the presumption produces evidence which rebuts the presumption, the presumption serves no further purpose in the case.
In the case at bar, the Roberts had the burden of proof throughout the trial. Once they introduced evidence of the basic facts which gave rise to the presumption of death, the insurance companies had the burden of going forward with evidence rebutting the presumption of death.
If the insurance companies had not done so, the Roberts would have prevailed. The Roberts were then obligated to prove, by direct and circumstantial evidence and the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, the ultimate fact of Clarence Roberts' death. The trial court found that the Roberts did not prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the body found after the fire was that of Clarence Roberts and the Roberts did not prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Clarence Roberts died at any time prior to the expiration of the insurance policies.
The trial court correctly held the Roberts only to a standard of proving death by a preponderance of the evidence and not beyond a reasonable doubt. The Roberts contend that the trier of fact ignored evidence of Clarence Roberts' exposure to peril on the date of his disappearance. The trier of fact could reasonably have concluded that Clarence Roberts died in the fire because he was seen near the barn only minutes before the barn burned and he was absent from his home continuously after the fire, but the trier of fact was not obligated to reach that conclusion.
The Roberts also argue that they should prevail in this proceeding by application of IC , ; ; and Burns Code Ed. These sections provide for the administration of an absentee's estate and prescribe the date of presumed death for an absentee whose estate is being so administered. The Roberts insist that this provision is applicable to their factual situation and establishes the date of Clarence Roberts' death, for the purposes of collecting the insurance money, as November 18, King, 47 Ind.
In Prudential Insurance Co. Moore, Ind.
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