Commonwealth v. Aduayi
| Decision Date | 06 December 2021 |
| Docket Number | SJC-12109 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Edward ADUAYI. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Dennis Shedd, Lexington, for the defendant.
Michael McGee, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
Present: Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.
On April 3, 2015, the defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree in the stabbing death of twenty-eight year old Karneetha Sanders, with whom the defendant had been involved in an extramarital relationship. On the evening of July 7, 2010, the victim's family and boyfriend reported her as missing to the Randolph police department. A search ensued, leading the police to the defendant's family store in Randolph in the early morning hours of July 8, 2010. There, they found the defendant and the victim's partially dismembered body. The victim had been stabbed eighty-three times.
At trial, the defendant conceded that he had stabbed the victim, but he asserted a lack of criminal responsibility for her death. In this direct appeal from his conviction, the defendant challenges the judge's decision to seat a juror who disclosed concerns about infidelity during voir dire; the manner in which the defendant's interview with police had been redacted; and the judge's instruction to the jury on the consequences of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Having carefully reviewed the defendant's claimed errors, as well as the entire record pursuant to our duty under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, we discern no reason to grant a new trial or to reduce the degree of guilt. Accordingly, we affirm the conviction.
1. Background. We recite the facts that the jury could have found, reserving certain details for our discussion of particular issues.
a. The Commonwealth's case. The Commonwealth proceeded at trial on theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty. The jury convicted the defendant of murder in the first degree under both theories.
After he came to the United States from Nigeria, the defendant lived in Abington with his wife and adult children; his family began selling hair products and beauty supplies at various stores in the Commonwealth. The events at issue center around a store in Randolph, where the victim shopped. There, she met the defendant, and the two began having an affair. In addition to the sexual relationship, the defendant bought the victim food, sent her money, gave her hair products, and drove her to and from work.
In April or May of 2010, the victim began dating Raymond Ruffin, but stayed in contact with the defendant.1 The victim's aunt, who was aware of the victim's relationship with the defendant, testified that the aunt "was under the impression that [the victim] was dwindling away from [the defendant] to date ... Ruffin." Ruffin testified to having been aware that the victim had been "involved with somebody," but said that he thought the relationship had ended. On July 6, 2010, Ruffin spent the night at the victim's apartment in Randolph. The next morning, at around 9:30 A.M. , Ruffin left for work while the victim remained in bed; she was uninjured.
The Commonwealth introduced cellular telephone records for the defendant's and the victim's telephones, to show their communications and movements on July 7 and 8, 2010. These included both call records and cell site location information (CSLI), which were introduced by two State police officers, one of whom was an expert on digital evidence, and one of whom was an expert on CSLI.2 Between 10:33 and 11 A.M. on July 7, 2010, the defendant's telephone called the victim's telephone six times, but the calls were not answered. Between 12:19 and 12:34 P.M. , four additional such calls were placed. The victim called the defendant twice, once at 11:04 A.M. and again at 12:22 P.M. One of these calls connected and lasted two minutes and thirty-five seconds; the other call was canceled before connecting. CSLI showed that the location of the cellular telephones converged during this period. From 10:30 to 11:30 A.M. , the victim's telephone connected to cell towers in Randolph, and the defendant's telephone connected to a tower in Boston. From 11:31 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. , the victim's cellular telephone remained in Randolph, while the defendant's cellular telephone moved from Boston to Braintree to Abington and then to Avon. At 12:32 and 12:34 P.M. , both telephones connected to cell towers in Randolph.
The victim did not report to work at 3 P.M. , the usual start of her shift. Between around 6 and 8 P.M. , the defendant drove a red Nissan Murano sport utility vehicle (SUV) to pick up his sons, who were coming home from work. After dropping them off at the family home in Abington, the defendant left in the Nissan Murano. He stopped at a department store in Avon and a package store in Randolph, where he bought two bottles of Corona beer. A package store employee noticed that the defendant was wearing pink sandals and joked about them. The defendant told the employee that they belonged to his daughter and that he had been in a hurry.
At around 11 P.M. , the victim's aunt and mother and Ruffin went to the Randolph police department to report the victim as missing. The victim's aunt told police that she thought the victim might be with the defendant. She described the defendant as "being of African descent with the name Eddie" and "in his late fifties." She also provided the name of his hair products business. Police identified the defendant and began searching for both him and the victim. At around 12:30 A.M. , an officer went to the store in Randolph; there were no vehicles in the parking lot, and the store appeared closed and empty. Officers contacted the victim's cellular service provider and requested that it "ping" the victim's cellular telephone every ten minutes.3 The victim's cellular telephone was at latitude and longitude positions in Milton, Randolph, Avon, and Holbrook until about 3 A.M. , when it was located at a road in Randolph near the defendant's family business. Police returned to the store and saw a red Nissan Murano parked behind the building. Believing that the driver might have been inside, officers knocked on the doors and windows of the building, but they received no response. They remained in the area, and at around 5:30 A.M. , police heard a banging noise coming from the store's rear bulkhead door, which was locked. Officers asked the person on the other side to open the door, but he said that he was locked inside. Emergency responders forced open the door and saw the defendant standing at the bottom of the basement stairs.
Detective David Clark of the Randolph police department testified to the defendant's demeanor and statements at the store. Clark met the defendant outside the store and noticed that he appeared nervous and sweaty. The defendant was wearing a black shirt and underwear and had blood on his thigh. Clark asked the defendant "if [the victim] was with him." The defendant said that she was inside and that she had stabbed herself. Clark then read the defendant the Miranda rights and asked, "[I]s the victim inside?" The defendant acknowledged that he understood these rights and then responded that she was in a barrel. Another officer thereafter handcuffed the defendant and took him to the Randolph police station. While being transported to the station, the defendant asked, "Am I in trouble?"
Police found the victim's partially dismembered body in a trash barrel in the basement. In a trash bag on the top of a furnace, they found her left hand and forearm, a hair extension attached to a piece of scalp, and a bloodied meat cleaver. Bloodstains on the meat cleaver matched the victim's deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) profile.
Stains on the floor tested positive for blood, but DNA testing was not conducted on those samples. Police found other bloodstained items in the basement, including a pair of women's pants and pink sandals. They also recovered two empty Corona beer bottles and a pair of men's pants. Inside the pockets of the men's pants, police found the defendant's and the victim's cellular telephones, and a receipt dated July 7, 2010, with the time 9:40 P.M. , indicating the purchase of a meat cleaver and a lighter from the department store at which the defendant had stopped. Both cellular telephones tested positive for nonvisible blood. Experts also examined the interior of the Nissan Murano, which tested positive for the presence of nonvisible blood. DNA swabs from the SUV revealed a mixture of three DNA profiles, including the defendant's and the victim's.
The medical examiner identified eighty-three knife wounds on the victim's body. She stated that, based on an analysis of the hemorrhaging around each wound, forty-nine of them likely were inflicted before the victim died. The medical examiner also noted that the victim had more than ten blunt impact injuries to the head
, torso, and extremities. She testified that the victim died from blood loss from the cumulative effect of the multiple wounds. In her opinion, the stab wounds were made by a blade about one inch wide and up to five inches long.
At around 6:30 A.M. on July 8, 2010, police again gave the defendant Miranda warnings. The defendant waived his Miranda rights and agreed to speak with police. Officers then interviewed him for approximately four hours at the Randolph police station. An officer noted that the defendant had a cut on his hand, but the officer determined that the cut did not require medical treatment. A forensic scientist who collected samples from the blood on the defendant testified that the defendant also had a cut on his foot. The defendant initially told the officers that the victim had stabbed herself multiple times. He said that when he went to meet with her at about 1:30 P.M. on July 7, 2010, he told her that he wanted her to move on from their relationship, that he was tired of financially supporting her,...
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