Coleman v. Com.

• Decision Date: 09 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. 821816,821816
• Parties: Roger Keith COLEMAN v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia. Record
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 864

307 S.E.2d 864

226 Va. 31

Roger Keith COLEMAN v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.

Record No. 821816.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

Sept. 9, 1983.

Stephen E. Arey, Tazewell (Terry L. Jordan, Grundy, on briefs), for appellant.

Jacqueline G. Epps, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen. (Gerald L. Baliles, Atty. Gen., on brief), for appellee.

Before CARRICO, C.J., and COCHRAN, POFF, COMPTON, THOMPSON, STEPHENSON, RUSSELL and THOMAS, JJ.

COCHRAN, Justice.

Tried by a jury under indictments charging him with the rape of Wanda Faye Thompson McCoy and with the willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing of the same victim during the commission of rape, capital murder as defined in Code § 18.2-31(e), Roger Keith Coleman was found guilty as charged. The jury fixed his punishment for rape at confinement in the penitentiary for life. In the second part of the bifurcated proceeding required by Code §§ 19.2-264.3 and -264.4 in the capital murder case, the jury fixed Coleman's sentence at death. On April 23, 1982, after considering the probation officer's report, the trial court imposed the death sentence; in the same order, the court entered judgment on the jury verdict in the rape case. ¹ We have consolidated the automatic review of Coleman's death sentence with his appeal of his conviction of capital murder and have given them priority on our docket.

The evidence against Coleman was entirely circumstantial; it will be stated in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth. Bradley D. McCoy, 21, testified that on the date of the murder he and his wife, Wanda Faye McCoy, who was 19, lived on the outskirts of Grundy in a rented house at Long Bottom on Slate Creek. The McCoys, who had been married for two and one-half years, had no children. Wanda was not employed; her husband was a parts clerk for United Coal Company, working the second shift from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. On March 10, 1981, at 2:15 p.m., McCoy went to work, leaving Wanda at home alone.

McCoy testified that about 9:00 p.m. he telephoned Wanda "to see if she was okay." They talked about 10 or 15 minutes, discussing among other things how they would spend an anticipated income tax refund. McCoy said he always telephoned his wife at this time, when he took a break from work, because she was "more or less afraid to stay by herself" and was "shy." She did not indicate anyone was with her and McCoy believed she would have told him "if anyone was there or had been there that day."

At the end of his shift, McCoy drove home in his car, arriving about 11:15 p.m. Although Wanda usually left the porch light on for him, no outside lights were shining when he knocked on the door; Wanda usually kept both the storm door and the wooden front door locked. Receiving no answer, McCoy opened the storm door, which was unlocked, then opened the front door with his key, and entered the living room. He saw that the coffee table had been moved, there were "slight drips of blood on the floor," and the light and the television were on. He called for Wanda but heard nothing. Going to the back bedroom, where a light was on, he found his wife lying on her back on the floor. Her hair was pulled over her face, she had a wound in her chest, and there was blood beside her head. Her arms were stretched behind her head and her legs were lying straight out and apart. She appeared to be dead; McCoy did not touch her. He found no signs of forced entry into the house.

McCoy telephoned his father, Max McCoy, known as Hezzie, who lived 400 to 500 yards away, and told him that Wanda had been killed. McCoy turned on the porch light, initially waited for his father, but after a few minutes ran to meet him. After Hezzie called the sheriff's office at 11:21 p.m., McCoy and his father returned to McCoy's house, looked at the body but did not touch it, and met the police officers who began to arrive.

McCoy said that Coleman's wife was a younger sister of Wanda's, that the Colemans lived in the home of Coleman's grandmother, which was a five-minute walk from the McCoy house, and that on the night before Wanda's death the Colemans stopped by the McCoys' but only Coleman's wife came into the house.

Sergeant Steven D. Coleman, of the Buchanan County Sheriff's Department, arrived about 11:25 p.m. accompanied by another officer. He tried to check Wanda's neck for a pulse but found it "so badly torn up" that he could not do so. There was a large gaping hole in the front of her neck; a pool of blood was around her head.

Other local and state law enforcement officers promptly came to the McCoy house to assist in the investigation. Randall S. Jackson, Chief of Police for the Town of Grundy, arrived about 11:27 p.m. He observed what appeared to be bloodstains on the floor and wall of the living room, and "tracks of blood, where something had been dragged" through the hallway and into the bedroom in which he found Wanda's body. Jackson felt her wrist, which was "very warm," but found no pulse. He sent an officer for Dr. Thomas D. McDonald, the medical examiner, and arranged to secure the premises. At daybreak, Jackson measured the depth of Slate Creek, located 75 to 100 yards from the McCoy house, at 10 to 12 inches.

Dr. McDonald, who lived nearby, arrived at 11:35 p.m. He made a superficial examination of Wanda, confirmed that she was dead, but did not move her pending the arrival of a State Police special investigating unit. Wanda was lying on her back, partially clothed, with her panties around her left ankle, arms over her head, and legs extended. She had a large laceration of the neck and two puncture wounds in her chest. Dr. McDonald determined that the cause of death was the "slashing wound to the throat." The body was still warm, rigor mortis had not set in, and Dr. McDonald estimated that Wanda had died about 10:30 p.m., or within 30 minutes before or after that time.

A neighbor testified that when she took the trash out of her house about 10:30 p.m. she saw the porch light burning at the McCoy residence.

The Commonwealth offered color photographs showing the scene of the crime and different views of the victim's body. Over Coleman's objection, the trial court admitted 14 of the photographs after excluding two as repetitious and one as inflammatory.

The victim's body was removed to Roanoke where Dr. David W. Oxley performed an autopsy on March 12. Dr. Oxley testified that death was caused by a "slash wound" of the throat with cutting of the "right carotid artery, jugular vein and larynx." He also found two stab wounds in the chest. One, measuring 1 1/4 inch by 1/16 inch, with a depth of 4 inches, had penetrated the heart and lung. Because there was little or no hemorrhaging from this wound Dr. Oxley concluded it had been inflicted after death. The other, measuring 1 3/4 inch by 1/16 inch, also with a depth of 4 inches, had penetrated the liver; Dr. Oxley was of opinion that this wound was inflicted after death or close to the time of death. He described the neck wound as a single cut, two to three inches in depth without "hesitation marks," leading from the right side of the neck to the left and downward.

Dr. Oxley found two foreign hairs in the victim's genital area. He submitted these, samples of her pubic hairs, blood, swabs from her mouth, hands, vagina, and rectum, and the panties found wrapped around her left foot, to Elmer Gist, Jr., a forensic scientist.

Out of the presence of the jury, the trial court conducted a hearing on the admissibility of statements made by Coleman on March 11 and 12 to Jack E. Davidson, Special Agent with the Virginia State Police, one of the investigating officers. Davidson testified there were several suspects, including Coleman, whose activities police were "exploring at that particular time." He and another officer went to Coleman's grandmother's residence on March 11 and asked Coleman "if it was all right, if he could talk to us." According to Davidson, Coleman said "sure," and the interview was conducted, beginning at 12:32 p.m., as the two sat in Davidson's car; the other officer remained at the house.

Davidson explained that he did not give Coleman Miranda warnings because the suspect was "not in an accusatory status" but was "in an investigative status." Davidson said Coleman was not under arrest and was free to go at any time. The officer was unable to record his interview because of a malfunction of the equipment, but he made notes of Coleman's statement. Coleman was a coal miner, employed by T J and M Coal Company. His statement was exculpatory, purporting to account in detail for his time on the night of the killing. Thus, he said he left his home at 8:30 p.m., left the Speedy Market at 9:05 p.m., went to other listed places at specified times before and after finding that his shift at the mine had been terminated, and arrived at 10:50 p.m. at the bathhouse in town where he took a shower and changed his clothes before returning home.

When Davidson asked Coleman for the clothes he wore that night, Coleman turned over to him a plastic bag of clothing and a knife. In the bag was a pair of dirty blue jeans; the bottom 10 to 12 inches of each pants leg were wet. Davidson had the clothing delivered to the Bureau of Forensic Science in Roanoke.

On March 12, Davidson interviewed Coleman again. Davidson testified that Coleman was still a suspect, but was free to leave if he wished to do so, and was not given Miranda warnings. Davidson told Coleman that he had investigated the mine site and found there was no water there to get his blue jeans wet. Coleman then said when he took a shower at the bathhouse, he probably laid his blue jeans down and water from the shower got them wet. Subsequently, Coleman relinquished another knife to Davidson. Coleman was arrested on April 13.

Over Coleman's objection, the trial court ruled the statements of March 11 and 12 were admissible because Coleman gave them when he was neither under arrest nor in a "custodial...