Conklin v. State, 41665

• Decision Date: 27 June 1985
• Docket Number: No. 41665,41665
• Citation: Conklin v. State, 254 Ga. 558, 331 S.E.2d 532 (Ga. 1985)
• Parties: CONKLIN v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 532

331 S.E.2d 532

254 Ga. 558

CONKLIN v. The STATE.

No. 41665.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

June 27, 1985.

[254 Ga. 574] Kenneth D. Feldman, John Thomas Chason, Atlanta, for Robert Dale conklin.

Lewis R. Slaton, Dist. Atty., Atlanta, Benjamin H. Oehlert III, Asst. Dist. Atty., Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., Mary Beth Westmoreland, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

CLARKE, Justice.

This is a death penalty case. Appellant, Robert Dale Conklin, was convicted in Fulton County for the murder of George Crooks. The case is here for consideration of Conklin's direct appeal, for review of the case under the Unified Appeal Procedure (252 Ga. A-13 et seq.), and for the sentence review required by OCGA § 17-10-35. ¹ We affirm.

THE EVIDENCE

Several of Conklin's enumerations of error question the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the conviction for malice murder and the death sentence imposed for that offense. These enumerations do not seriously question the sufficiency of the evidence to show that Conklin "caused the death of" George Crooks (OCGA § 16-5-1(a)) and we need not dwell at length on this aspect of the state's proof except to note that papers and other tangible items found near the body, evidence found in Conklin's apartment, and his own statements and testimony overwhelmingly establish that he killed George Crooks.

The contested issues here include provocation, justification and the jury's finding that the murder "was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhumane, and that [it] involved depravity of mind by the perpetrator." See OCGA § 17-10-30(b)(7). Therefore, we set forth below those portions of the evidence which bear on these issues. We begin with Conklin's own statement, given after his arrest to law enforcement officers: "I first met George Crooks at a rest stop off of I-20 by Douglasville. Over a period of time we established a relationship. We would see each other every couple or three weeks. I moved out to my apartment on Copeland Road. Every now and then he would come over and spend the night or I would go over there and spend the night. We would usually get high, have sex and go to sleep. On Monday night, he came over, we got stoned. He didn't drink but I did. He was in Alcoholics Anonymous and would not drink, but he did get high that night. We got high by smoking pot. Later on that evening we went on and went to bed and I wanted to go to sleep and he wanted to play. He kept messing with me and it turned into a wrestling match. I got tired of it, told him to quit and he wouldn't. This went on for quite a while, an hour to an hour and a half, I guess. At this point I was getting pretty mad because he wouldn't leave me alone, so eventually he had me pinned on the bed sitting on my stomach. I was wrestling trying to get free. I was mad but he thought it was all a big joke. Eventually I got an arm free and I did hit him and he hit me back. He was still sitting on me. We were there struggling and I reached over and grabbed a screwdriver. I swung the screwdriver and it stuck into him. He rolled off the bed and I followed him screwdriver in hand. I held him down and I stuck the screwdriver in his ear, I wiggled it around and I realized what I had done and got scared. I went ahead and got a blanket and I tried to stop him from bleeding but I think he was already dead. So I wrapped him up in the blanket and I drug him into the bathroom. Since he was bleeding, I tried to put him in the bath tub and I couldn't. He was too heavy and the shower curtain was in the way. So I went ahead and got a screwdriver downstairs, took the shower curtain down. I was able to go ahead and get his body into the bath tub. He was still bleeding and everything. At this point I panicked. There was blood all over the place, I think it was on the sheets, I'm pretty sure on the blanket, walls and all over the bathroom. At this point, I stopped and tried to think about what to do. I came to the conclusion that since I was on parole, it wouldn't be in my best interest to get caught and have it discovered that I had killed this person. So I decided I had to get rid of the body some way. I couldn't move him, he was too big, too heavy, so I thought if I let the blood drain out he would be lighter, so I went ahead and got a steak knife from downstairs and tried to cut his throat and bleed him into the bathtub. That did not work too good. So I went ahead and tried to tie his feet up several ways so his feet was up and his head was down. Tried to use a neck tie but it broke. Eventually I just propped his feet up and left him like that with the water running. I went ahead and cleaned myself up and got the blood off of me. I tried to figure out what to do. I was scared and since I was on parole I didn't want to go to the police. I decided I had to get rid of the body some way, so I sat down and planned what to do. I couldn't pick him up and carry him, he was too big, and I didn't want to involve anyone else. So I decided I had to get rid of the body somehow and to get rid of his car and his possessions and everything else. By now it was Tuesday morning. I don't know what time. So I went ahead and took his keys and his wallet, honest face card, and I got into his car. I then went ahead and went to his apartment so I could get anything there that would connect me with him. I took a card with my name and number on it and the tape out of his answering machine then put another fresh tape in. Since I had his Honest-Face card and his checkbook, I drove around to several grocery stores and started to get cleaning supplies. The idea was to get cleaning supplies and the stuff to finish cleaning up the place at the apartment. While doing this I realized there was no way I could get rid of the body because I couldn't pick him up, so I thought if I were to cut him in half I could put him in a couple of garbage bags that I could remove him from the apartment. I also bought some other things, food, knives and other things, and I wrote some checks. After I did this, I brought all the stuff back to the apartment. He still hadn't lightened any from the bleeding all that much, so I used one of the knives to go ahead and cut his throat some more. It was a lot sharper than the steak knives. I realized I had to get rid of his car some how, so I drove it downtown. On the way downtown it ran out of gas so I pushed it into a parking lot. I think it was Sears in Buckhead. I wiped it down and took everything out of it and tried to catch a bus back to where I live; caught the wrong bus on the wrong road. I was on Paces Ferry Road. So I rode that bus to Paces Ferry Crossing and I caught a cab back to my apartment. When I got there I went ahead and went to work to cut him in half so I could get him out of there. After I had done that, he was still too big to move, too heavy, so I decided I had to cut him in smaller pieces. All of this I did in the bathtub. For most of the day I went ahead and worked on him. It was a big mess, I'm telling you. I decided there would be less of him to move if I could put some of him down the garbage disposal. Fortunately [sic], he would not fit, so I cut him up in even smaller pieces. These I was able to stuff into the garbage disposal, but it turned out that the garbage disposal would not accept him. So I pulled all that out, took it back upstairs to the bathroom and cleaned up the kitchen and everything the best I could. I then went ahead and cut the rest of him up in small enough pieces to put in the bags. Before I could get all of this done I got a call from a friend of mine who was in the neighborhood and he said he was going to stop over. Since normally I tell him to come over, I told him to come on over. It was D-- M-- and his wife. I cleaned up everything downstairs before he got there the best I could. Between 3:00 o'clock and 5:00 that evening, I had gone to a meeting for work. I was gone for a couple of hours. And D-- came over about 7:00 or 8:00 o'clock. Shortly after he was there, another friend showed up, S-- L--. And D-- and his wife left and S-- and I sat around and drank beers. After a while S-- left and I went back upstairs, finished putting him in the bags. I found that I couldn't even carry all the bags, so I went to K-Mart and bought a garbage can. I think it was also at Handy City I bought a push cart to put the can on so I could move the can. I went ahead and filled up the garbage can with these bags and they would not all fit, so I left some of the bags with George in them outside. Later on that night it started to rain, so I went ahead and took the trash can with the cart, took it to the dumpster, unloaded all the bags. Before I did this I cleaned up the bathroom. I also took the sheets, blankets and other stuff and put that in the trash can with him. I don't remember if it took two or three trips. I know it took at least two trips to get all that out there. I then went back and cleaned the apartment some more trying to get the blood and everything else up. Eventually I fell asleep on the couch and I woke up the next day. I had to be at work so I went ahead and took a shower, got ready for work and I was running late so I didn't finish cleaning up everything. I went out to my car, got into my car and drove around the building the way I usually go. But when I turned the corner, I noticed there was a tape across the road and people were digging stuff out of the dumpster. I didn't know if they would connect me with it or not but I decided it would be to my best interest not be around. So instead of going to work, I went ahead and drove around to try to figure things out awhile. I decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to go back to the apartment unless I knew for sure that I wasn't a suspect. Then I decided that it would be best that I left altogether and assume that I was a suspect until I found out otherwise. I went ahead and got all my money from my bank account using my bank card. I...