announced by our courts prescribing distinctly how the corpus
delicti in murder must be proven.

"The prisoner here stands charged with the highest crime. The law
demands, first, that the crime, as a fact, be established. The
fact that the victim is indeed dead must first be made certain
before anyone can be convicted for her killing, because, so long as
there remains the remotest doubt as to the death, there can be no
certainty as to the criminal agent, although the circumstantial
evidence indicating the guilt of the accused may be positive,
complete, and utterly irresistible. In murder, the corpus delicti,
or body of the crime, is composed of two elements:

"Death, as a result.

"The criminal agency of another as the means.

It is the fixed and immutable law of this State, laid down in the
leading case of Ruloff v. The People, and binding upon this Court,
that both components of the corpus delicti shall not be established
by circumstantial evidence. There must be direct proof of one or
the other of these two component elements of the corpus delicti.
If one is proven by direct evidence, the other may be presumed; but
both shall not be presumed from circumstances, no matter how
powerful, how cogent, or how completely overwhelming the
circumstances may be. In other words, no man can be convicted of
murder in the State of New York, unless the body of the victim be
found and identified, or there be direct proof that the prisoner
did some act adequate to produce death, and did it in such a manner
as to account for the disappearance of the body."