State v. Tempest

• Decision Date: 11 January 1995
• Docket Number: No. 93-339-C,93-339-C
• Citation: 651 A.2d 1198
• Parties: STATE v. Raymond D. TEMPEST, Jr. A.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 1198

651 A.2d 1198

STATE v. Raymond D. TEMPEST, Jr.

No. 93-339-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Jan. 11, 1995.

Jeffrey Pine, Atty. Gen., Annie Goldberg, Aaron L. Weisman, Asst. Attys. Gen., for plaintiff.

William A. Dimitri, Jr., William C. Dimitri, Dimitri & Dimitri, Edward J. Romano, Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

MURRAY, Justice.

OPINION

This case comes before us on appeal by the defendant, Raymond D. "Beaver" Tempest, Jr. (defendant), from his conviction of murder in the second degree. The defendant contends that the trial justice erred in numerous respects and that as a consequence his conviction should be reversed. The relevant facts of the instant case set forth in the following text are gleaned from a voluminous record.

On February 19, 1982, at approximately 3:30 p.m., Douglas Heath (Heath) returned to the triple-decker apartment house at 409 Providence Street in Woonsocket, whose second-floor apartment he shared with his wife and his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, Lisa LaDue (LaDue), formerly Lisa Wells. Below them, in the first-floor apartment, lived Susan Laferte (Laferte) and her husband, Ernie, the owner of the building, along with their daughters Nicole, aged three, and Marie, aged fifteen months. The third-floor apartment was occupied by Doreen Picard (Picard) and her boyfriend, Raymond Beaulieu.

Upon entering the house through the back door, Heath noticed Nicole crying on the first-floor landing next to the doorway leading down to the cellar. Heath asked Nicole where her mother, Laferte, was. Nicole replied that her mother was downstairs, lying down.

After finding the door to Laferte's first-floor apartment locked, Heath proceeded down the stairs leading into the cellar. From his vantage point at the bottom of the stairway, Heath saw a body "basically sitting" between the washer and drier at the far end of the cellar. Because there was "so much blood," Heath could not recognize the body as that of Picard, who was subsequently pronounced dead at 4:30 p.m. of the same day. As he began his approach toward Picard's body, Heath looked to his left and noticed a second body, that of Laferte, lying unconscious and face down in a "puddle of blood." Fearing that the unrecognizable body was that of his stepdaughter, LaDue, Heath ran upstairs, calling out LaDue's name; LaDue answered, whereupon Heath told LaDue to go downstairs and get Nicole while he called the police.

LaDue had arrived home shortly before her stepfather, at approximately 3:20 p.m. She proceeded to check the mailbox located at the front porch of the tenement house. After gathering the mail, LaDue walked around the exterior of the house and noticed a "big maroon car" parked in the driveway adjacent to the bulkhead leading into the cellar of the house. By the time of the victims' discovery, LaDue testified, the maroon car had disappeared and a rescue vehicle was parked in its place.

Entering through the back door of the house, LaDue saw Nicole in the "hallway crying saying her mother was downstairs sick." Believing that Nicole was just trying to get attention because LaDue heard "some moving around downstairs" at this point, she went upstairs to wait for her stepfather, Heath. Within a few minutes, LaDue saw her stepfather pull into the driveway and a few moments later heard him frantically calling out her name from the first floor.

Although severely beaten, Laferte survived her attack. However, she testified that because of the injuries sustained as a result of the assault she had "no recollection" of who had attacked her. Laferte had known defendant prior to the assault, having been the maid of honor in his wedding. Apparently she was also having an extramarital affair with defendant at the time of the attack. ¹ Prior to the crime, Laferte and her husband, Ernie, had arranged to mate their pit bull terrier with defendant's pit bull. In return for the use of his pit bull defendant was to receive the pick of the subsequent litter.

The defendant in turn had promised the dog to John Allard (Allard), who at the time was living with Sherri Richards (Richards), defendant's former sister-in-law. On the morning of February 19, 1982, Allard and defendant arranged to meet at Allard's house in order to pick up the dog from Laferte. At approximately 12:30 p.m. defendant walked over to Allard and Richards's house with his two children whom Richards had agreed to watch. According to Richards, Allard and defendant were picked up by Allard's brothers between 1:20 and 1:30 p.m.

Allard and defendant arrived at Laferte's first-floor apartment, picked out a puppy, and left without incident before 1:45 p.m., according to Carol Rivet (Rivet), Laferte's sister, who was then present in the apartment. The defendant subsequently arrived back alone at Richards's apartment between 2 and 2:30 p.m. in a car borrowed from his brother John Tempest. Upon arriving at the apartment, defendant informed Richards that he was going to meet his brother-in-law Bobby Monteiro (Monteiro) ² at Sylvia's Lounge in Woonsocket, return his brother's car, and walk back to Richards's apartment. The defendant then left. The next time he arrived back at Richards's was between 4:30 and 4:45 p.m. Approximately five minutes before, Allard had arrived home with a pit bull puppy.

Richards stated that defendant was in her driveway "standing on the outside of Bobby Monteiro's car with the door partly open talking to" Monteiro. Monteiro's car was described by Richards as "huge," "maroon," and "four door." Richards testified that defendant was wearing the same clothing that he had been wearing when he arrived except that he had changed his boots. Additionally he had a bite or scratch mark on his wrist that had not been there earlier. The defendant also appeared to have been drinking shortly before his arrival.

Around 5 p.m. defendant and Allard went out to get a pizza. During that time defendant's brother Gordon Tempest (Gordon), ³ then a detective sergeant and second in command of the Woonsocket police department's night division, called. Gordon called to inform Richards about Laferte. Richards responded that both defendant and Allard had been there earlier in the day. Gordon then told Richards to have defendant either call or come by the station. When defendant and Allard arrived back, Richards informed them of Gordon's call. Both were in shock over the incident and subsequently decided to walk over to the police station, not returning until 10 or 11 p.m.

The next day, February 20, 1982, defendant arrived back at Allard and Richards's apartment. The three of them, Allard, defendant, and Richards, sat around the kitchen table to discuss "what happened the day before about Sue [Laferte] and to think about who did it and to decide what we were going to say." The three made an agreement to say that defendant had been at Allard's father's house with Allard. ⁴

In the years following Picard's death defendant admitted his responsibility for the murder to numerous people. One of these somewhat bizarre incidents occurred at the end of 1982 or early in 1983, when John Guarino (Guarino), who lived in the apartment above defendant, went out with him to the Providence nightclub Allary's (now Sh- Booms). During the course of a few drinks, while seated at a table, Guarino, "out of curiosity," asked defendant if "he committed the murder." Guarino testified that defendant

"told me he went into the basement of the house where the Picard girl lived and he said that he had--his right hand was moving up and down when he was talking to me and he told me that he hit one of them over the head and another woman came down [into the cellar] and he had to beat her up, too."

Guarino testified he did not take defendant seriously at this point because while explaining what he had done, defendant was "kind of laughing." However, Guarino did take it seriously enough that upon arriving home, he woke up his then-girlfriend Donna Bousquet (Bousquet), presently Donna Carrier, and told her what defendant had said.

A few weeks after this conversation, defendant came to Guarino and Bousquet's apartment and appeared "very, very nervous." According to Guarino, defendant stated that the cops were outside watching his house. He also threatened Guarino, saying that Guarino had better keep his mouth shut in reference to their conversation at Allary's. Additionally defendant again admitted his responsibility for the murder but added "they have no proof."

This entire conversation was overheard by Bousquet who was sitting in the next room a few feet away. She stated that defendant "was very upset because Sue [Laferte] was going to tell Jane (defendant's wife at that time) something and that he and Jane had just gotten back together." She further testified that defendant said that "the other girl came down the stairs at the wrong time, saw him hitting Sue. He couldn't let her get away and he had to do her, too." He also explained that when he left, no one saw him come in and that he was well aware that the two women were seriously injured.

On numerous other occasions defendant also admitted his culpability to Ronald Vaz (Vaz), a man with whom defendant occasionally snorted cocaine. The first of these occasions was two days following the murder. According to Vaz, defendant was jogging when Vaz pulled his car over to talk with him. In the ensuing conversation, defendant questioned Vaz, asking, " 'Danny [Shaw] told you everything about it?' " Vaz replied that Shaw had. This response prompted defendant to reply that defendant was in serious trouble and that " '[t]hey'll get me for this one * * * my father won't get me out of this one.' " ⁵

In the following months defendant, during a series of visits to Vaz's house, gave fairly detailed accounts of what had occurred. Vaz testified that defendant stated that he had left the crime scene with Shaw and Monteiro in Monteiro's big maroon car. The three had stopped...