Mcwatters v. State Of Fla.
| Decision Date | 02 June 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. SC07-51.,SC07-51. |
| Citation | 36 So.3d 613 |
| Parties | Eugene W. McWATTERS, Appellant,v.STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
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Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Jeffrey L. Anderson, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, FL, for Appellant.
Jason Pollack, Assistant Attorneys General, West Palm Beach, FL, for Appellee.
Eugene Wayman McWatters, Jr., was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of sexual battery with great force arising from the 2004 strangulation murders of Jackie Bradley, Christal Wiggins, and Carrie Ann Caughey. McWatters was sentenced to death for each murder. This case is before the Court on appeal from the convictions and death sentences. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the convictions and sentences.
Bradley was killed on or around March 28, 2004, and Wiggins and Caughey were killed within a few hours of one another on or around May 31, 2004. The cases were consolidated for trial. The evidence presented at trial established the following.
Thomas Field testified that in March 2004, he lived at a campsite in the woods in Stuart, Florida. He testified that while Jackie Bradley did not live at his campsite, Bradley stayed at the camp for days or weeks at a time. He stated that he, Bradley, and several others spent the afternoon of Monday, March 28, 2004, in the camp drinking and talking, and that McWatters joined them before dark. Field, Austin Cottle, Sr., and Terry McElroy testified that later that evening, they witnessed a conversation between Bradley and McWatters in which Bradley stated a desire to go somewhere to bathe and McWatters offered that she could go to his cousin's house. Field and McElroy testified that they saw McWatters and Bradley leave together.
Sergeant Sanford Shirk, a deputy sheriff for the Martin County Sheriff's Office, testified that he was called to the scene of a body discovered on the morning of March 31, 2004. The body, later identified as Bradley, was located in a canal connecting two ponds. Bradley was wearing a T-shirt and a bra, which were bunched up into her armpits. Nearby, other clothing was found. Sergeant Shirk explained that after draining the canal, law enforcement officers found 177 pounds of rocks where the body had been. No similar rocks were found elsewhere in the length of the canal, and the rocks were similar to rocks used in a nearby storm water runoff basin located at the end of Garden Street. Sergeant Shirk explained that he had worked on dozens of rape-homicide cases and explained factors that in his experience are common characteristics of rape-homicides.
Sergeant Brian Bergen, of the Martin County Sheriff's Office, testified that Jessica Aleman, McWatters' cousin, whom he considered his sister, lived in a duplex on Garden Street that was within 100 feet of where Bradley's body was found. Sergeant Bergen explained that he spoke with Aleman as part of his effort to canvass the area. McWatters lived with Aleman and was present at the interview. Sergeant Bergen described McWatters as “uninterested and unemotional.” Later in the trial, Sergeant Bergen testified that along with Sergeant John Silvas and Sergeant John Cummings, he interviewed McWatters on April 2, 2004. A recording of the interview was played for the jury. During the interview, after initially denying knowing Bradley, McWatters stated that he last saw Bradley two weeks earlier at a business called Able Body. He repeatedly denied offering to take anyone to his cousin's house to shower, denied leaving Field's camp with Bradley, and denied having sex with Bradley.
Charles A. Diggs, M.D., Deputy Associate Medical Examiner for District Nineteen, testified that at the time of discovery, Bradley's body was markedly decomposed and her upper clothing was disheveled. He opined that the state of decomposition was consistent with the body having been outside for three to five days. He testified that toxicology testing revealed that Bradley had a bowel alcohol level of .237 grams per deciliter.1 Dr. Diggs testified that he did not find any external lacerations, contusions, or hemorrhages. He stated that the injuries contributing to the cause of death were fractures of the thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone and that hemorrhaging in the soft tissue around these structures indicated that Bradley was alive when the bones and cartilage were broken. Based on these injuries, he opined that Bradley was killed by manual strangulation. Dr. Diggs stated that with manual strangulation, loss of consciousness can occur in as little as twenty to thirty seconds but can take longer. He stated that the strangulation mechanism must be applied for about three minutes to cause death. Although Dr. Diggs agreed on cross-examination that he could not rule out a consensual sex act followed by a murder, based on factors that in his experience are common to rape-homicides, he opined that within a reasonable degree of medical probability a rape-homicide occurred in Bradley's case.
The following evidence was presented about the Christal Wiggins and Carrie Ann Caughey homicides. Joseph Hebert and Cyndi Lynn Kaman testified that they, McWatters, and others, including Wiggins, were at Donna Nicholson's house on Driftwood Avenue on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend 2004. Hebert explained that sometime between 9 p.m. and midnight, he suggested that the group go to his hotel room. McWatters was not invited. Wiggins was invited but stayed behind with McWatters. Hebert testified that as they left, he saw McWatters and Wiggins walking together towards the Li'l Saints store. After about forty-five minutes to an hour, the group returned to Nicholson's house. McWatters and Wiggins were not there.
Erin Elizabeth Cassidy testified that at around 12:30 a.m. on the Monday of Memorial Day weekend 2004, she observed Caughey smoking crack cocaine with a man in his room at the Heritage Inn in Hobe Sound. Cassidy testified that Caughey and the man left the hotel at around 1:30 a.m. and that while the man returned around 3 a.m., Caughey did not return. Jerry Arthur Prevatt testified that between Sunday night and Monday morning of May 30-31, 2004, he stayed at the Heritage Inn and used drugs with Caughey. He explained that at around 2:45 or 3 a.m., he dropped Caughey off in the Li'l Saints parking lot at her request. He stated that he saw McWatters approach Caughey and that the last person he saw her with was McWatters.
Sergeant Shirk was recalled to testify. He testified that on June 3, 2004, he was called to the area of Lincoln Street in Port Salerno, where a body later identified as Caughey had been found about fifteen to twenty feet into a secluded, wooded area. He explained that she was nude from the waist down, her shirt and bathing suit top were pushed up into the armpit area, and she was covered with dead vegetation and vines. He stated that the positioning of clothing was similar to that on Bradley's body. Sergeant Shirk explained that two sandals were found approximately twelve feet apart from one another and that a pair of jeans with what appeared to be grass or dirt stains on them were also found in the woods.
Dr. Diggs was recalled to testify about his autopsy of Caughey. He opined that the state of decomposition was consistent with the victim having been dead for four days. Dr. Diggs testified that Caughey had cocaine and cocaine metabolic products in her system. He explained that two styloid processes were broken and that the hyoid bone was broken at the joint. He did not find any other injuries. Dr. Diggs concluded that Caughey's death was a homicide by manual strangulation. Again, based on the presence of factors that in his experience and training were associated with sexual battery, Dr. Diggs opined that the crime was consistent with a rape-homicide or an attempted rape-homicide.
Detective Joey Obermeyer, a crime scene detective for the Martin County Sheriff's Office, testified that he was called to the Cove Road area on June 7, 2004, because another body had been discovered. That body, which was later identified as Wiggins, was partially skeletonized due to decomposition. He testified that the victim was wearing a shirt and a bra, which were pulled up toward her neck, and a sock. Detective Obermeyer testified that in the vicinity of the body, he found “a number of different spots of dirt in this area that [had been] recently disturbed, which was not consistent with nature.” He opined that the spots were indicative of a struggle. A pair of women's panties was found nearby in a tree.
Sergeant Shirk was recalled to testify about the scene where Wiggins' body was discovered. He explained that Wiggins was found to the south along the same lake as Caughey's body. He stated that he saw the same clearing discussed by Detective Obermeyer and agreed that the disturbed dirt was indicative of a struggle. About thirty feet from the clearing, he discovered a pair of women's white sneakers in some palmetto bushes. When asked how the three homicides were similar, Sergeant Shirk responded that “[a]ll three scenes had signs that they were sexually motivated crimes, and all three of these victims appeared to be white [females] with some similar builds.”
Dr. Roger Mittleman, M.D., District Medical Examiner for the Nineteenth Circuit, testified that Wiggins was found in a severe state of decomposition, resulting in a partial skeletonization of her remains. Dr. Mittleman found a small amount of cocaine and alcohol in her system and trauma to the neck, including a broken or missing piece of the hyoid bone and a crack in the thyroid...
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