CALIFORNIA: Defense

A picturesque gaffer, who traveled for years about California in a cart drawn by three burros, 74-year-old Peter Voiss supplemented the meagre income he made from prospecting by posing for snapshots. Two months ago, when Dentist Jasper Gattuccio refused to pay for taking a picture, Prospector Voiss shot him dead (TIME, May 11). On trial for murder last week, the whiskery oldster sat calmly in a San José. Calif, court while his attorney argued: “Dr. Gattuccio brought about his own death by stealing an old man’s living for his own amusement. . . . The only home the old man had in the world was his cart, his beloved burros, a little flapjack flour and a frying pan. That cart was his castle and he had a right to defend it even to death.” After deliberating an hour, the jury acquitted Peter Voiss.