Bonham v. State

• Decision Date: 21 November 1984
• Docket Number: No. 68928,68928
• Citation: 680 S.W.2d 815
• Parties: Antonio Nathaniel BONHAM, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 815

680 S.W.2d 815

Antonio Nathaniel BONHAM, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 68928.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas En Banc.

Nov. 21, 1984.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 20, 1985.

Robert A. Shults, Kristine C. Woldy, Houston, for appellant.

John B. Holmes, Jr., Dist. Atty. and Winston E. Cochran, Jr., Rusty Hardin and Wilford Anderson, Asst. Dist. Attys., Houston, Robert Huttash, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

Before the court en banc.

OPINION

McCORMICK, Judge.

This is an appeal from a conviction for capital murder. Punishment was assessed at death.

This case originally came before us in November of 1982. Appellant raised three grounds of error relating to the sufficiency of the evidence, the sufficiency of the indictment, and the voluntariness of his confession. On January 18, 1983, the appeal was abated because the trial court had made no written findings of fact as to the voluntariness of appellant's confession in accordance with Article 38.22, V.A.C.C.P. Bonham v. State, 644 S.W.2d 5 (Tex.Cr.App.1983). The cause is now before us again with a supplemental transcript containing the trial judge's written findings of fact and conclusions of law. We now turn to the merits of the case.

Appellant contends that the evidence is insufficient to prove that he acted intentionally in causing the death of the victim. Appellant argues that, although he admitted in his written confession that he ran over the victim with the car, his confession does not contain a clear statement of intent. Furthermore, he argues the State's other evidence does not show an intent to kill and thus the evidence is insufficient to satisfy the element of the requisite culpable mental state.

The pertinent part of the indictment under which appellant was convicted reads as follows:

"... the Defendant, heretofore on or about July 9, 1981, did then and there unlawfully while in the course of committing and attempting to commit the Aggravated Robbery of Marie Jones McGOWEN, hereafter styled the Complainant, intentionally cause the death of the Complainant by driving an automobile over the Complainant's body.

According to appellant's confession which was introduced into evidence at trial, the victim, a sixty-two year old instructor at Massey Business College in downtown Houston, arrived at the college at approximately 7:00 a.m. on July 9, 1981. ¹

The appellant ambushed the victim on a sidewalk outside the business college and hit her on the back of the head with a brick, causing her skull to be fractured. The appellant then laid the victim in some bushes, took her car keys and drove her car up to the sidewalk. He placed the victim, who was apparently bleeding very badly, in the trunk of the car. According to appellant's own confession, he then proceeded to drive to a location where he raped the victim. After raping her, appellant drove the victim to a sparsely populated area on Schurmier road. There he put the victim out of the car and as she was sitting on the side of the road, he ran over her with the car. Evidence showed that when he struck her with the car, the car became lodged on the body. After unsuccessfully trying to back the car off the victim, appellant then put the car in reverse. When this did not work, appellant abandoned the car, leaving the victim crushed under the car.

Other evidence adduced at trial showed that when other business college instructors and students arrived at Massey Business College that morning they found Mrs. McGowen's personal belongings scattered around the ground and a pool of blood on the sidewalk. The police were called as was Mrs. McGowen's husband. Later that afternoon, at approximately 4:00 p.m., Officer W.J. Roper, who was on regular patrol, found Mrs. McGowen's car on Schurmier Road. Believing it to be an abandoned stolen car, he ran a check on the license number and found it as being wanted in a possible homicide. Homicide detectives were called as was Mrs. McGowen's husband. Officer Roper testified that when he found the car, it was partially in the ditch. Looking inside the car, Officer Roper saw a brassiere and a pair of woman's underwear in the back seat of the car. There was blood on both the front and back seats of the car. The officer also found blood on the front of the car. As Officer Roper walked around to the ditch-side of the car he found that the rear wheel of the car was mired in mud and a brief case had been placed underneath the rear wheel as if an attempt had been made to drive the car out of the mud.

Two people who lived or worked in the area told police that they had seen a black male driving Mrs. McGowen's car along the road between 11:15 and 11:30 that morning. Both men testified at trial that the driver of the car was a black male with short hair who appeared to be sitting very low in the seat. One of the two positively identified appellant as the driver of the car. Another witness, Oliver Ruble, testified that he left his home on Schurmier Road between 11:30 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. on the morning of July 9. He noticed that a car later identified as belonging to the victim had become stuck in the ditch. Ruble related that he got out and looked to see if anyone was in the car and needed assistance, but there was no one in the car.

When Mrs. McGowen's husband reached the scene, he found police searching the surrounding area for his wife's body. Mr. McGowen gave the police his set of car keys and when they looked in the trunk, they found blood smeared all over the inside of the trunk. McGowen testified that when he saw the briefcase underneath the rear tire, he wanted to make sure it belonged to his wife so he squatted down in the ditch and saw that his wife's body was pinned underneath the car.

Homicide detectives who were at the scene when the victim's body was found testified that the car was sitting so low that it was impossible to see underneath the car without kneeling down on all fours. After Mr. McGowen had spotted his wife's body, but before the wrecker lifted the car off the body, there was no clearance under the car for anyone to even reach under the car. Detectives found no skid marks at the scene and there was no evidence to indicate that the car had slid into the ditch. Finally, officers testified that when the body was finally recovered the victim's wedding ring, gold necklace and purse were missing.

Detective G.C. Shultz testified that appellant was arrested at his father's house on July 17, some eight days after the commission of the offense. After being in custody a short time, appellant agreed to give a written statement. Shultz testified that appellant appeared to be very calm and collected and showed no remorse when giving his confession.

The autopsy report showed that Mrs. McGowen's death was caused by a fracture to the skull, a crushed chest and a broken neck all sustained when she was run over by the car. In addition as a result of being run over by the car, she sustained contusion hemorrhages and lacerations of the brain, subdural and epidural hemorrhage and hematoma, a fractured pelvis, open crushing fractures of the ankles, multiple contusions and lacerations of the head, trunk, back and extremities, and burn lesions of the back, left hip and left elbow. As a result of the sexual assault upon her by appellant the victim also suffered contusions, hemorrhage and lacerations of the external genitalia. Dr. Eduardo Bellas, the assistant medical examiner who performed the autopsy, testified that Mrs. McGowan's head injuries were consistent with being hit on the right side of the head with a car bumper. The crushing wounds to the victim's ankles were consistent with being rolled over by an automobile tire. Finally, he testified that the injuries to the victim's genitalia indicated that forcible intercourse had occurred prior to the victim's death.

Finally, Sgt. Steve Fowler of the Houston Police Department, who testified that he was trained in the field of accident reconstruction, testified that in his expert opinion the car bumper struck the right side of the victim's head as she was in a semi prone or sitting position. The victim was thrown on to her left side and her legs automatically tucked up underneath her. The vehicle then came to rest upon the victim's body. The vehicle was then put in reverse and the victim was then rolled over onto her right side, still in a tucked up position. Fowler testified that this body movement was evident from the presence of burns on the body apparently from the exhaust pipe and catalytic converter. The car again became stuck upon the body and the weight of the car began compressing the body into the ground. At this point the car was again put into forward gear, evidenced by the fact that a portion of the victim's blouse was caught up on the undercarriage of the car and pulled in a forward motion away from the victim's body.

In analyzing the sufficiency of the evidence the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Wilson v. State, 654 S.W.2d 465 (Tex.Cr.App.1983); Denby v. State, 654 S.W.2d 457 (Tex.Cr.App.1983); Freeman v. State, 654 S.W.2d 450 (Tex.Cr.App.1983). It must also be remembered that the jury is the exclusive judge of the credibility of the witnesses and of the weight to be given their testimony. Daniels v. State, 600 S.W.2d 813 (Tex.Cr.App.1980). The State argues correctly that this function extends not only to live testimony from the witness stand but also to statements made in written confessions which are introduced into evidence at trial. Clearly from their verdict, the jury chose to disbelieve appellant's exculpatory statements made in his written confession and introduced into evidence by the defense. That is their prerogative and we can not disturb their finding.

If we were looking at one act...