Crain v. State
| Decision Date | 28 October 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. SC00-661.,SC00-661. |
| Parties | Willie Seth CRAIN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender and Paul C. Helm, Assistant Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, FL, for Appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General and Scott A. Browne, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee.
This is a direct appeal of convictions of first-degree murder and kidnapping and a sentence of death. We have jurisdiction.1 For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the State presented legally sufficient evidence of first-degree felony murder based on kidnapping with intent to inflict bodily harm, and therefore affirm the murder conviction and the sentence of death.
Willie Seth Crain, a then fifty-two-year-old Hillsborough County fisherman and crabber, was charged with the September 1998 kidnapping and first-degree murder of seven-year-old Amanda Brown. At the time, Amanda was three feet, ten inches tall and weighed approximately forty-five pounds. The evidence introduced at trial establishes that on September 9, 1998, Crain's daughter, Cynthia Gay, introduced Crain to Amanda's mother, Kathryn Hartman, at a bar in Hillsborough County. Crain and Hartman danced and talked for four hours, until 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, then went to Hartman's residence, a trailer located in Hillsborough County, where they remained for approximately thirty minutes. Amanda was spending the night with her father and was not present. However, two photographs of Amanda and some of her toys were visible in the trailer. Before Crain left, Hartman made it clear to Crain that she wanted to see him again.
The next afternoon, September 10, 1998, Crain returned to Hartman's trailer. Hartman testified that Crain smelled of alcohol and carried a cup with a yellow liquid in it. Amanda was present. Crain began talking to Amanda about her homework. He pulled some money out and told Amanda that if she got her homework right, he would give her a dollar. He eventually gave her two dollars. Crain and Amanda sat at the kitchen table playing games and working on her homework. At some point during the afternoon, Crain became aware that Amanda had a loose tooth. After wiggling the tooth, Crain offered Amanda five dollars to let him pull the tooth out, but she refused. Hartman testified that the tooth was not ready to be pulled out. Crain remained at Hartman's residence for approximately one hour. Before he left early in the afternoon, Crain accepted Hartman's invitation to return for dinner that evening.
Crain returned to Hartman's trailer shortly after 7 p.m. Crain still smelled of alcohol and carried the same or a similar plastic cup with a colored liquid. After dinner, Hartman and Crain played more games with Amanda. At some point, Crain mentioned that he had a large videotape collection and invited Hartman and Amanda to his trailer to watch a movie. Amanda asked if he had "Titanic," which she stated was her favorite movie. Crain stated that he did have "Titanic" and Amanda pleaded with her mother to allow them to watch the movie. Hartman was initially reluctant because it was a school night, but she finally agreed. Crain drove Hartman and Amanda approximately one mile to his trailer in his white pickup truck.
They began watching the movie in Crain's living room but were interrupted by a telephone call from Crain's sister. Crain said he did not get along with his sister and asked Hartman to speak to her. At the conclusion of a twenty- to twenty-five-minute phone conversation with Crain's sister, Hartman found the living room unoccupied. Hartman opened a closed door at the rear of the trailer without knocking, and found Amanda and Crain sitting on the bed in Crain's bedroom, watching the movie "Titanic." Both were dressed and Amanda was sitting between Crain's sprawled legs with her back to Crain's front. Crain's arms were around Amanda and he appeared to Hartman to be showing Amanda how to work the remote control. Hartman testified that although she was not overly concerned about what she observed at that time, she nevertheless picked Amanda up and sat Amanda beside her on the bed. Crain, Hartman, and Amanda then watched the movie together in Crain's bedroom. Crain testified at trial that they watched the movie in his bedroom because it was the only air-conditioned room in the trailer.
At some point in the evening, Amanda and Hartman used Crain's bathroom together. While they were in the bathroom, Hartman did not notice Amanda bleeding from any location that Hartman could observe. Hartman did notice a blue cover on the back of the toilet seat. Amanda did not use the bathroom at any other time that evening.
At another point in the evening, Hartman asked Crain if he had any medication for pain. Crain offered her Elavil and Valium. He also offered her some marijuana, which she declined. Crain told Hartman that the Elavil would "really knock the pain out" and would make her sleep for a long time. Hartman elected to take five, five-milligram Valium tablets.2 Crain took one Valium tablet.
Eventually, Hartman decided that it was time to leave. Crain drove Hartman and Amanda back to their residence and accompanied them inside. Amanda took a shower. While checking on Amanda during the shower and helping her dry off and get ready for bed, Hartman did not notice any sores or cuts on Amanda's body. According to Hartman, Crain suggested that Amanda should not go to sleep with wet hair, so Crain blow-dried Amanda's hair in Hartman's bathroom without Hartman present. According to Hartman, when Amanda went to sleep in Hartman's bed around 2:15 a.m., the loose tooth was still in place and it was not bleeding.
According to Hartman, she told Crain, who appeared to be intoxicated at that time, that he could lie down to sober up but she was going to bed. The time was approximately 2:30 a.m. Within five minutes of Hartman going to bed, Crain entered Hartman's bedroom and lay down on the bed with Hartman and Amanda. Hartman testified that she neither invited Crain to lie in her bed nor asked him to leave. Crain was fully clothed and Amanda was wearing a nightgown. Amanda was lying between Hartman and Crain.
Penny Probst, a neighbor of Hartman, testified that at approximately 12 midnight on September 10-11, 1998, she saw a white truck parked immediately behind Hartman's car in Hartman's driveway. In the early morning hours of September 11, Probst observed the truck parked at the side of Hartman's residence with the lights on and the engine running.3 Probst heard the truck leave after about five minutes.
Hartman slept soundly through the night. When she awoke in her bed alone the next morning, she discovered that Amanda was missing. Hartman testified her alarm clock read 6:12 a.m. when she awoke. Hartman immediately called Crain on his cell phone. At that time, he was at the Courtney Campbell boat ramp in Hillsborough County loading his boat. He told Hartman that he did not know where Amanda was. Hartman then called the police and reported Amanda's disappearance.
At trial, the State presented the testimony of fisherman Albert Darlington, who witnessed Crain towing his boat into the Courtney Campbell loading area at approximately 6:15 a.m. on September 11, 1998. Darlington testified that Crain pulled up to the boat ramp and backed his boat trailer and truck into the water until the truck's front tires were halfway submerged. Crain then got out of his truck and boarded his boat wearing what appeared to be a two-tone maroon shirt and dark slacks, and carrying what appeared to be a rolled-up item of clothing. Crain unhooked his boat and launched it in an overall "odd" manner. Darlington further testified that in the eighteen months prior to Amanda's disappearance, on two occasions Crain told Darlington that Crain had the ability to get rid of a body where no one could find it.4
At around 8:30 a.m. on September 11, Detective Mike Hurley located Crain in his boat in Upper Tampa Bay. Crain was dressed in "slickers" (rubber pants fisherman wear over their clothes), a blue t-shirt, and loafers. Crain and Hurley returned to the boat ramp in Crain's boat. On the ride back, Hurley noticed a small scratch on Crain's upper arm. At the boat ramp, Crain removed his slickers, revealing jeans with the zipper down. Hurley took Crain to the police station for questioning. Crain was cooperative but denied having anything to do with Amanda's disappearance.
At the police station, Detective Al Bracket interviewed Crain. Crain told Bracket that he left Hartman's house alone at about 1:30 in the morning,5 went home and accidentally spilled bleach in his own bathroom. Crain claimed that he did not like the smell of bleach, so he spent four hours cleaning his bathroom from about 1:30 to 5:30 in the morning. Later in the same interview, Crain said he cleaned his bathroom with bleach, as was his custom, then cleaned the rest of the house until 5:30 a.m., at which time he left to go crabbing.6
During the questioning, Bracket noticed multiple scratches on Crain's arms and asked Crain how he got them. Crain claimed that he received the scratches while crabbing, but became defensive when Bracket asked him to demonstrate how the scratches were inflicted. Photographs of Crain's body were taken on the morning of September 11, 1998. A forensic pathologist testified at trial that the scratches on Crain's arms probably occurred within a few hours to a day before the photos were taken. Although the pathologist could not identify the source of the scratches with certainty, he testified that all but two of the scratches were more likely to be caused by the fingernails of a seven-year-old child than by another cause. The pathologist also testified that there was one cluster of small gouges on Crain's arm, and it was more likely...
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