Heck v. State

Decision Date06 April 1990
Docket NumberNo. 15S00-8711-CR-1081,15S00-8711-CR-1081
PartiesRoy HECK, Sr., Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
CourtIndiana Supreme Court

Kathleen A. Dayson, Indianapolis and Joseph W. Votaw, III, Lawrenceburg, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen. and Michael Gene Worden, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

GIVAN, Justice.

A jury trial resulted in the conviction of appellant of Voluntary Manslaughter, for which he received a sentence of fifteen (15) years.

The facts are: The appellant, Roy Heck, Sr., and the decedent, Rickie Heck, were husband and wife. In August of 1985, Rickie started dissolution proceedings against appellant. Sometime between January 5 and 6, 1986, while the dissolution proceedings were pending, the decedent disappeared.

In late October of 1986, her decomposed remains were found buried on appellant's farm. Dr. Lee Lehman, a pathologist, testified that he performed an autopsy on the remains of the decedent in October of 1986, but because of the advanced decomposition of the remains, he found no demonstrative cause of death. However, after further consideration, the pathologist's report was changed, and because of a broken jaw, which he believed had been inflicted near the time of death, he theorized the probability was that the decedent had died as a result of a severe blow to the head.

Near midnight on January 6, 1986, a number of witnesses in the vicinity of the trailer in which the decedent lived heard an argument between the decedent and another person. Some of these people did not see the other person, while others stated that they saw the decedent arguing with a tall young man. One of these witnesses, Tessie Standriff, stated that her trailer was near the decedent's trailer and that she heard the argument and could identify appellant as the person arguing with the decedent. She stated that she could not identify him by his face but could identify him by his voice.

At trial, she testified that appellant told the victim she was coming home because she was his wife. However, during a pretrial deposition, she had indicated she had not heard such a statement. The evidence shows that Mrs. Standriff was Philippine and had a limited use and understanding of the English language.

Some of the witnesses testified they heard screaming and gunshots that night. Following the decedent's disappearance, appellant told various relatives that she had told him she was taking a trip to Florida. When Roy Heck, Jr. went with appellant to the decedent's trailer, he noticed food still on the stove. He also noticed the trailer was messed up, which was unusual for his mother. The following day, Junior observed one of his mother's suitcases in appellant's home.

A few weeks before the victim's disappearance, appellant had beaten her and was scheduled to go to trial on charges stemming from that incident the week the victim disappeared. When he failed to appear in court, he was arrested. While in jail, he was visited by his daughter, Roberta, and his girlfriend, Shirley Slaughter. He asked them to sprinkle pepper over the site of a sinkhole on his farm (this is the location where the body eventually was found). He also asked them to remove the victim's possessions from his home, including spare purses and a suitcase, before the police searched the house. The women complied with the request the next day. The suitcase contained items of female apparel. The purse contained the victim's drivers license, social security card, make-up, and other such items.

Appellant also requested that the two women telephone the police pretending to be the victim. Shirley attempted to comply with appellant's request. Appellant later told Roberta to keep quiet about her mother's purse and drivers license.

Robert Cuneo testified that he and his father were in the roof repair business and that in times past appellant had permitted them to dump old shingles on his farm. Shortly after the victim's disappearance, appellant contacted the elder Cuneo and asked him to dump some old shingles in the area where the victim's body later was found. He told Cuneo that he wanted the shingles dumped there to cover up the smell of some soured corn. Robert Cuneo testified that the area appeared to have been recently dug out and smoothed over.

In March of 1986, Roberta was in Florida with Eleanor Slaughter, Shirley's mother-in-law, and Shirley's daughter, Shawn Theis. She observed that Eleanor had the victim's ring in her possession with other jewelry to be sold. Eleanor told her that appellant had given her the ring to sell. Appellant later claimed that he had obtained the ring when the victim threw it at him during an argument.

In October of 1986, appellant was served with a warrant to search his farm and in particular the sinkhole site where the victim's remains later were found. Shortly after the warrant was served, appellant left and went to Tennessee. However, he returned shortly and turned himself in to the police.

Appellant claims the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction and couples this with his claim that much of the evidence submitted was inadmissible. Appellant contends the State's evidence fails to disclose the cause, means, manner, place, or time of the victim's death. It is true that none of these facts was established by direct evidence. However, a jury's verdict may be based solely upon circumstantial evidence. Rowan v. State (1982), Ind., 431 N.E.2d 805.

In the case at bar, there is ample evidence to support a finding that appellant had a history of battering his wife, including a criminal charge for which he was to go on trial near the time of her disappearance. There also was evidence that at the time of the victim's disappearance, appellant had stated falsely to others that his wife had gone on a trip. He also removed luggage and personal items from her trailer to his home, then instructed his girlfriend and his daughter to remove those items before police came to the house.

Further, appellant's conviction is supported by the fact that the victim's remains were found buried on appellant's farm, that he caused others to dump old shingles on the site of her burial, and that when police obtained a search warrant to search his farm he left the state. His flight was relevant although appellant did return to Indiana of his own volition and turn himself in to the police. The jury also was entitled to believe that a man fitting appellant's general description was heard engaged in a heated argument with the decedent at her trailer on the evening she disappeared.

Appellant claims the State failed to prove by any credible evidence the cause of the decedent's death. It is true that when the remains were first examined by the pathologist, he stated that due to the state of decomposition he could not state a cause of death. However, upon further consideration, he observed that the presence of a broken jaw, which had occurred at approximately the time of death, could indicate a blow to the head which might have been severe enough to have caused death.

This Court has held that the cause of death may be established by circumstantial evidence. Patterson v. State (1988), Ind., 532 N.E.2d 604. There is ample circumstantial evidence in this case to support the jury's determination that the victim had met a violent death at the hands of appellant.

Appellant attacks the testimony of State's witness Tessie Standriff, whose trailer was situated near the trailer of the victim. She testified that on the night of the victim's disappearance, she heard the victim having a heated argument with a tall man. She was unable to identify his face, but she said she recognized his voice as appellant's.

Appellant points out that during the investigation Standriff came to the police department and asked to hear the voice of appellant on a tape recorder. The police complied with her wish. She verified that the voice was the same voice she had heard on the night of the victim's disappearance. Appellant contends that this constituted an impermissibly suggestive identification of appellant's voice in that Standriff knew she was listening to the voice of appellant at the time she made the identification.

It is true that this Court has held that it is improperly suggestive for police to inform a lineup observer that the suspect is in the lineup. Chambers v. State (1981), Ind., 422 N.E.2d 1198; Young v. State (1979), 272 Ind. 1, 395 N.E.2d 772. However, this was not a lineup or voice identification instituted by the police officers.

Standriff suspected that the person she had seen and heard was the husband of the victim, and she came to police headquarters knowing that they had tape recordings of appellant's voice and she wanted to assure herself that she was correct in believing the person she had heard was in fact appellant. This certainly does not fall within the framework of a police-engineered lineup or voice identification.

Rather than a thing to be condemned, Standriff's action was a proper and conscientious thing to be condoned. She merely was striving to make sure she had not made an error in the voice identification. We see nothing in this episode to taint her in-court identification of appellant's voice and her statement that the voice was the same voice she had heard on the night of the victim's disappearance.

Appellant also contends that Mrs. Standriff's testimony should not be believed because during the early stages of the investigation she had stated that she had not heard the man state that the victim should come home with him because she was his wife. However, at trial she testified that such was the conversation she heard. This inconsistency was fully disclosed to the jury. It also was disclosed that Mrs. Standriff was from the Philippines and that she had a very limited understanding and use of the English language. The jury was entitled to determine whether this fact contributed to the...

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  • Heck v. Humphrey, et al.
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    ...appeal to the Seventh Circuit was pending, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld his conviction and sentence on direct appeal, Heck v. State, 552 N.E.2d 446, 449 (Ind.1990); his first petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Federal District Court was dismissed because it contained unexhausted cl......
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    ...appeal to the Seventh Circuit was pending, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld his convictionand sentence on direct appeal, Heck v. State, 552 N.E.2d 446, 449 (Ind.1990); his first petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Federal District Court was dismissed because it contained unexhausted cla......
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    ...came into evidence through the police officer and its admission affirmed on the same basis. Four justices concurred. In Heck v. State (1990), Ind., 552 N.E.2d 446, 451, cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1308, 122 L.Ed.2d 696, the court found admissible "to show the reason for the offic......
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