Barfield v. State

• Decision Date: 13 December 2022
• Docket Number: 2021-KA-00660-COA
• Parties: JUSTUS BARFIELD APPELLANT v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI APPELLEE
• Court: Mississippi Court of Appeals

JUSTUS BARFIELD APPELLANT
v.
STATE OF MISSISSIPPI APPELLEE

No. 2021-KA-00660-COA

Court of Appeals of Mississippi

December 13, 2022

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 05/13/2021

NESHOBA COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT NESHOBA COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: JAMES A. WILLIAMS

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY: CASEY BONNER FARMER

DISTRICT ATTORNEY: STEVEN S. KILGORE

BEFORE WILSON, P.J., GREENLEE AND EMFINGER, JJ.

EMFINGER, J.

¶1. Justus Barfield was found guilty of accessory after the fact to murder by a jury in the Neshoba County Circuit Court. He was sentenced to a term of twenty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with ten years to serve and the last ten years suspended, followed by five years of supervised probation. Following the denial of his posttrial motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, a new trial, Barfield filed a notice of appeal of his conviction and sentence.

FACTS

¶2. On October 20, 2019, Tyrone Broxton got a call from James Kelly who indicated that he needed Broxton's help. As a result, Broxton went to the Sandhill community to Kelly's

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mother's old trailer. When he arrived, Kelly told Broxton that a couple of months earlier, his house was robbed by DeMarquis Houston and three other men. Kelly said that the robbers had held his children and their mother "at gunpoint." Kelly had arranged for Joanna Brook Gilmer to bring Houston to the trailer that night, so Kelly and Broxton went to the laundry room in the back of the trailer to wait for them to arrive.

¶3. Sometime after 10 p.m. that night, according to Gilmer, she picked up Houston at the Pendleton Square Apartments. They were supposedly going to Kelly's trailer to get high. Kelly was supposed to meet them there and bring them some weed. When they arrived at the trailer, it did not appear that anyone else was there, so they went into the trailer to wait. Gilmer messaged Kelly who indicated that he was on the way. Gilmer and Houston watched television, and they started having sex. At that point, Broxton and Kelly came out from the back of the trailer where they had been hiding. Kelly pointed a gun at Houston and told him to stay on the couch and not to scream, or he would kill him. While Gilmer was getting dressed, Kelly zip-tied Houston's hands and feet. After Gilmer left, Kelly questioned Houston about the robbery, and Houston identified the others involved. Broxton stepped outside to smoke, and Kelly followed a few minutes later after he put tape over Houston's mouth. When Broxton asked Kelly what he was going to do, Kelly said that Houston was going to be here for a couple of days, but he also said he was going to kill him. While they were outside talking, they heard a commotion inside the trailer. When they went inside, they saw Houston "seizing up, rolling around like he was having a seizure." Broxton said Houston was still naked, zip-tied, and had duct tape on his mouth. When it was clear that Houston was

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dead, Kelly asked Broxton if he knew where to put a body. Kelly asked Broxton for help putting the body in a freezer. When they could not find a rachet strap to secure the freezer, Kelly told Broxton he could leave. Broxton testified that he had no further connection to the disposition of Houston's body after he left the trailer.

¶4. Ian Caleb Thompson testified that in October 2019, he was living on his family's land with his ex-girlfriend and was working in his family's farming business. At that time, Barfield was unemployed and living with them. Thompson had gone to high school with Kelly, and they continued to visit one another frequently. Thompson testified that Kelly and Barfield were close friends and that Kelly would often visit at Thompson's house. When Thompson went home for lunch on October 21, 2019, Kelly was at his house visiting with Barfield. Thompson joined them, and Kelly told them what happened with Houston and about having Houston's body in a freezer. He described how he had tied Houston up and that he had thrashed around and died. Kelly told them that he needed to get rid of the body and that he had a friend in Louisville that had a place he could hide it. After Kelly left, Thompson and Barfield talked about what a "crazy situation" Kelly had described.

¶5. Thompson testified that later that evening, between 8 and 9 p.m., Kelly came back to the house with Houston's body in the freezer in the back of his truck. Kelly wanted to hide the body in Thompson's pond, which was across the road from his house. According to Thompson, Kelly asked them for their assistance. They talked for about ten to fifteen minutes and developed a plan to put the body in the pond. Thompson said, "[W]e can do this," and went and got his forklift (loader). Kelly and Barfield waited for Thompson to come back.

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Thompson pulled the forklift up to the truck, and he and Kelly slid the freezer over onto the forks. Thompson drove the forklift across the road to the pond, and Kelly and Barfield followed along close beside the forklift. When they got to the edge of the pond, Thompson put the pallet down; he and Kelly pushed the freezer into the pond, but it floated. When they realized that it was not going to sink, Barfield stood on the bank of the pond and watched while Thompson and Kelly struggled to get the freezer back on the bank.

¶6. Once the freezer was back on the bank, Thompson testified that the three men discussed what to do next. Thompson and Barfield told Kelly they were not going to touch the body. After Thompson carried the forklift back to his shop, he got in his Jeep and went back to the pond to pick up Kelly and Barfield. They all went to Thompson's shop, and Thompson told Kelly to "get whatever you need." Kelly got a trap, a strap, and other materials. The three men then went back to the pond and dropped Kelly off so that he could submerge the body. Thompson and Barfield went home. Kelly showed up at their house about 3 a.m. and took a shower but left without talking to anyone.

¶7. Thompson testified that he did not go back to the pond the next day. He stated that because he worked in the area, he would look at the pond from a distance. He knew that Barfield also checked the pond from time to time because they would have conversations about it. Barfield, at some point, told Thompson that he saw something "protruding from the water." Barfield and Thompson went to the pond together and observed what they believed to be a body part. Thompson then contacted Kelly and told him that he needed to come do something because it was obvious there was something out there in the pond.

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¶8. Thompson further testified that Kelly did not offer him or Barfield anything for their help. He confirmed that the pond is in Neshoba County. On cross-examination, in response to leading questions, Thompson testified that Barfield did not drive the forklift, did not touch the freezer, did not drive any vehicle, did not pick the pond as the location to put the body, did not assist in putting the freezer in the pond, did not choose the trap or straps, and did not call Kelly and tell him to come back after they saw a body part. Thompson said that Barfield did nothing himself, physically, to put the body in the pond.

¶9. On re-direct examination, Thompson confirmed that Barfield was the first person Kelly talked to about the need to get rid of the body. Thompson reaffirmed that they were all together throughout the period he testified about on direct examination. He confirmed that he and Barfield checked the pond in the days and weeks after the incident. He again stated that it was Barfield who first saw Houston's body floating in the pond.

¶10. Investigator Derek Wyatt of the Neshoba County Sheriff's Department was assigned to the case of Houston's disappearance. Suspects were developed through Crime Stoppers and letters received by law enforcement. Kelly and Broxton were the primary persons of interest. Wyatt discovered that Kelly was wearing a court-ordered GPS monitoring device during the period of Houston's disappearance. A search warrant was served upon the monitoring company, and law enforcement obtained timed-location information for Kelly during the relevant time period based upon witness interviews. This led the investigation to Kelly's trailer where Wyatt found all the flooring had been ripped out and placed in a burn pit. Some tips had said that Houston's body was in a pond or a lake. Also from the GPS

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information, several ponds were identified in the general area of Kelly's trailer. Wyatt testified that the information placed Kelly at "[Thompson's] residence, all around the chicken houses, all around the shop, and the GPS actually put his monitor out in the water in the pond." Wyatt testified that the information shows Kelly was in this area from about 9:30 p.m. to almost 2:30 a.m. on October 21-22, 2019.

¶11. Neshoba County Sheriff Eric Clark testified that when he took office in January 2020, he assumed the responsibility for the ongoing investigation into Houston's disappearance. Based upon information obtained during Wyatt's investigation, Sheriff Clark testified that a search warrant was obtained for a pond on Thompson's property in February 2020. Law enforcement used two six-inch pumps and started removing the water from the pond. Houston's body was found wrapped in a tarp and attached to a feed trough. The body and the trough had been submerged by the use of forty-five-pound dumbbell weights, cinder blocks, and other things used to weigh it down.

¶12. At the time of Barfield's trial, Kelly was awaiting trial on a charge of capital murder. Gilmer and Broxton had already pled guilty to manslaughter, and Thompson had pled guilty to accessory after the fact of murder. Barfield was tried, and the jury found him guilty of accessory after the fact to murder. He appealed his...