Stamper v. Com.

• Decision Date: 30 August 1979
• Docket Number: No. 790292,790292
• Citation: 257 S.E.2d 808,220 Va. 260
• Parties: Charles Sylvester STAMPER v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia. Record
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 808

257 S.E.2d 808

220 Va. 260

Charles Sylvester STAMPER v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.

Record No. 790292.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

Aug. 30, 1979.

Edward D. Barnes, Richmond (Denis C. Englisby, Nikas, Englisby & Barnes, Richmond, on brief), for appellant.

James E. Kulp, Deputy Atty. Gen. (Marshall Coleman, Atty. Gen., Thomas D. Bagwell, Asst. Atty. Gen., on brief), for appellee.

Before I'ANSON, C. J., and CARRICO, HARRISON, COCHRAN, HARMAN, POFF and COMPTON, JJ.

COCHRAN, Justice.

Under the procedure required by Code §§ 19.2-264.3 and -264.4, Charles Sylvester Stamper was convicted on November 17, 1978, of three capital murders during the commission of armed robbery in violation of Code § 18.2-31(d). ¹ The jury fixed his punishment for each offense at death, as authorized by Code § 18.2-10(a), and the trial court, after receiving the report of the probation officer, required by Code § 19.2-264.5, entered judgment on February 9, 1979, upon the jury verdicts.

The evidence adduced against Stamper was entirely circumstantial. On Saturday, March 25, 1978, Richard Wrenn, who worked as a breakfast cook at Shoney's Restaurant in Henrico County on Saturdays and Sundays, came to work at approximately 6:35 a. m. He found that the glass in the lower part of the front door had been shattered and glass was scattered on the sidewalk outside the door. Wrenn crawled through the door and discovered the bodies of Steven Staples, the morning manager, and Agnes Hicks, the morning waitress, both of whom had been shot and killed. He noticed that the office safe was open and that it contained change but no currency. Wrenn notified the police and called an ambulance. Other evidence disclosed that Franklin D. Cooley, the janitor, also had been found shot; he had been removed to a hospital where he died several hours later without regaining consciousness.

The evidence established that Staples's death resulted from a wound to the upper chest inflicted by a .22 caliber copper-colored coated bullet. The bullet made a downward path from its point of entry above the collarbone. Powder burns indicated that the weapon had been fired within inches of the victim. Staples's skull had been fractured by a heavy instrument approximately 3/8-inch in width, and there were multiple lacerations on his head and a cutting-type mark on his neck. A piece of angle iron was lying on the floor near Staples's body. A trail of smeared blood extended from the office safe to the place where Staples's body was found. Cooley also died from a .22 caliber copper-colored coated bullet fired into his head from a distance of a few inches. Mrs. Hicks was struck in the head by two bullets, one copper-colored coated and the other plain lead, fired from a greater distance. Staples and Mrs. Hicks died at approximately 6:00 a. m.

On the day of the crimes the night manager closed the restaurant at 12:30 a. m. He left at 1:00 a. m. after ascertaining that the safe was locked and the place was secure. He estimated that the safe then contained approximately $4,500 in cash. Cooley was inside the restaurant at that time, but he had no key to the building. Cooley's only means of exit, prior to the arrival of Staples, who had a key, was through a fire exit, but this door, when opened, sounded an alarm which could be turned off only with a key.

A friend drove Mrs. Hicks to work at approximately 5:30 a. m. He saw Staples and another man, whom he did not recognize, inside the restaurant. Staples opened the front door and admitted Mrs. Hicks.

A witness observed a "yellow-green" car parked near Shoney's between 5:40 and 5:50 a. m. on the day of the crimes. At approximately 5:50 a. m. another witness drove past a parking lot used by Shoney's employees and saw a yellow car leaving the lot.

Uncontradicted evidence revealed that Shoney's did not open for business until 7:00 a. m., that only employees were permitted to enter the building prior to opening, that Staples, and possibly Mrs. Hicks, had a key to the door, that the locks and combination to the safe had recently been changed and Staples was the only one of the three employees who knew the combination, and that employees knew that opening the fire exit would set off an alarm. When the police arrived to investigate they found that all doors were intact except the shattered front door. An inventory revealed that $3,983.77 in cash was missing from the safe, and that $350.15 in coins and loose change remained.

From the evidence that the front door had been broken from the inside the police deduced that the crimes had been committed by one or more persons, familiar with the interior arrangement of the restaurant and the operating routine of the business, who had been permitted to enter before the time of opening. Stamper had been employed as a breakfast cook at Shoney's for two months, working from 6:30 a. m. to 2:00 p. m. Mondays through Fridays, but working on Saturdays only if another cook did not report. Prior to March 25 he had given notice of his intention to quit because of his wife's pregnancy and his need for more money. Although Stamper was scheduled to work on Monday and Tuesday after the Saturday on which the crimes were committed, he did not report until Wednesday. He then worked for a week or longer before terminating his employment.

On the day of the offenses, the investigating officers began to interview Shoney's employees and former employees. That evening they stopped Stamper shortly after he had driven from his parents' home in his wife's yellow Ford Torino automobile in which his wife and a friend were passengers. At the request of the officers, Stamper and his wife, accompanied by an officer, proceeded to police headquarters for questioning. When asked by the police if they could search the car, Stamper conversed by telephone with his father, after which he and his wife signed a written consent to the search. Stamper informed the police that the automobile had been under his control throughout the day.

Glass particles were seized from the floorboard of the car on the driver's side. Seven of the 36 particles seized were found, upon analysis, to "match, in optical properties" glass from the broken front door at Shoney's. The expert witness could not say that the glass particles found in the car came from Shoney's, but he found the number of matching fragments to be "significant".

On either Monday or Tuesday after the crimes, Stamper visited a used car lot and tried out a 1972 Lincoln automobile, offered for sale at $3,500, which he expressed an interest in purchasing. Stamper told the manager that he had a $1,500 down payment in his pocket and would finance the balance. The manager gave Stamper loan application forms to complete at home, but Stamper never returned.

At the time of the offenses, Stamper was in financial difficulty. He was delinquent in payment of rent for his apartment, and he had been served with a notice to pay or vacate the premises. On March 30, he paid the rent and late charges by money order.

Stamper was also delinquent, as of March 8, in payments on his account at a jewelry store, and the merchant obtained a judgment against him in the sum of $63.55, plus court costs of $5.50. On April 5, Stamper paid the sum of $63.55. On April 8, he paid the balance of $5.50, bought a watch from the same merchant for $180, on which he made a down payment of $100, and guaranteed payment by a friend of $355, the balance of the purchase price for a ring after the friend had made a down payment of $50. No further payments were made on either the watch or the ring.

On May 13, a set of keys belonging to Staples was found in the woods near the home of Stamper's parents. These keys fit the 1969 Ford automobile which Staples had borrowed from his brother and driven to work at Shoney's on the day of his death.

On October 16, a .22 caliber revolver was found covered with dirt in the same wooded area where the keys had been discovered. There were two Winchester Western and two Remington unfired cartridges, one empty chamber, and four empty cartridge casings in the revolver. According to the expert testimony of Cecil Moorhead, a forensic scientist in the field of firearms identification, the sequence of firing the cartridges had been: Winchester Western, Winchester Western, Remington, and Winchester Western. It was "most likely", in his opinion, that the first two bullets fired were copper-colored coated; he found that the bullets removed from the bodies of Staples and Cooley were copper-colored coated. The fragments of lead bullet removed from the body of Mrs. Hicks could have been fired from the Remington cartridge case, and the copper-colored coated bullet fragment also removed from Mrs. Hicks could have been fired from the other Winchester Western cartridge case.

By test firing the revolver, Moorhead determined that the general characteristics of the test bullet and the bullets removed from the bodies of the victims were similar and that the width of the lands and grooves and the direction of rotation of the bullets were the same. However, the bore of the revolver was pitted with rust, and this condition precluded Moorhead from making a positive identification of the revolver as the murder weapon.

At the conclusion of the Commonwealth's evidence, Stamper's motion to strike the evidence was overruled. The only evidence adduced by Stamper was the testimony of his wife, Darlene, who testified that she was 71/2 months pregnant at the time of the crimes; that she was at home asleep in bed between 5:00 and 6:00 a. m. on that day; that her husband was there in the same bed; that she awakened between 6:30 a. m. and 7:00 a. m. that morning; and that they had breakfast together.

At the conclusion of all the evidence, Stamper again moved to strike the Commonwealth's evidence, and the motion was overruled. After the jury had returned its verdicts, Stamper's motion to set aside the verdicts was...