Creel v. State

• Citation: 710 S.W.2d 120
• Decision Date: 30 April 1986
• Docket Number: No. 04-84-00054-CR,04-84-00054-CR
• Parties: Lynn Murphy CREEL, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas

Page 120

710 S.W.2d 120

Lynn Murphy CREEL, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 04-84-00054-CR.

Court of Appeals of Texas,

San Antonio.

April 30, 1986.

David R. Weiner, David M. Garcia, San Antonio, for appellant.

Sam Millsap, Jr., Raymond E. Fuchs, Bruce Baxter, Sam Ponder, Edward Shaughnessy, III, Crim. Dist. Attys., San Antonio, for appellee.

Before BUTTS, CANTU and REEVES, JJ.

OPINION

CANTU, Justice.

The conviction is for capital murder. Punishment was assessed at imprisonment for life.

The evidence developed at trial ¹ reflects that Irene Plangman, a recent divorcee, met the appellant, a married man, sometime in July or August of 1980. Within a few weeks of their introduction Plangman bought some pearls from appellant. Shortly thereafter, following appellant's separation from his wife, he and Plangman had become sexually intimate.

This relationship, described as stormy by Plangman, continued off and on into 1981.

Early in 1980 Plangman had become acquainted with Joan Smith, the wife of the deceased, through some business dealings. As a result of this meeting Plangman befriended Joan Smith, and lived with the Smiths for a short time.

Sometime in 1981 a jewelry transaction took place between Plangman, Joan Smith and appellant. Appellant owned three pieces of gold jewelry which Plangman agreed to sell for appellant. Plangman showed the jewelry to Joan Smith who immediately expressed an interest in purchasing the items. Mrs. Smith was able to only raise $500.00 of the $1,400.00 purchase price.

Plangman gave this money to appellant who became immediately disenchanted by the failure of the Smiths to pay the balance. Appellant then wrote Plangman a check for the $500.00 to be returned to Mrs. Smith in exchange for his jewelry. According to Mrs. Smith the balance was to be worked out with Plangman through a mutual sale of antique items.

Appellant became angry and resentful over the matter of the jewelry sale and over Plangman's friendship with Mrs. Smith in general.

For about a month prior to the date of the alleged offense, the Smiths had been offering for sale their lake front property located in Mico in Medina County. Sometime in October of 1981 Mrs. Smith informed Plangman about the proposed sale of their Mico property and requested that Plangman remove her antique furniture from the storage unit located on the property. As a result of the conversation Plangman took appellant to the Smith house at Medina Lake during the week of October 21 and removed her belongings from the storage unit. Appellant assisted her with his van.

A week or two before Wilson Smith's disappearance and while Plangman was staying with the Smiths, Plangman became furious when Mrs. Smith asked her whether she could account for some missing jewelry belonging to her. Plangman was contacted later by a detective and asked if she would be willing to take a polygraph test. Plangman agreed to do so but insisted that Mrs. Smith also be polygraphed. The relationship became strained.

Joan Smith testified that on the evening of October 20, 1981, she received a telephone call from an unidentified female person inquiring about the lake front property which was for sale. Mrs. Smith had her husband handle the call.

Julie Woodley testified that she was contacted by appellant on October 20, 1981 about making a phone call as a potential buyer for some land. Appellant requested her to set up a meeting with the owners of the property. According to Woodley, appellant wanted to talk to the people who owned the property about some money they owed him.

After making the call to the Smith residence, Woodley, following appellant's instructions, arranged to meet Mr. Smith at a cafe in the Medina Lake area at 10:00 a.m. the next day. Later that evening, according to Woodley, appellant contacted her to ascertain that the meeting had been arranged.

Mrs. Smith testified that her husband left their home in his brown Oldsmobile station wagon on the morning of October 21, 1981 at 9:26 a.m. to meet the party who had called the previous evening. Mr. Smith had in his possession at the time he left, a diamond ring with the initials "WJS," a diamond cluster ring with a stone encircled by six other diamonds, a gold Seiko watch and a solid gold pen and pencil set.

Plangman testified that appellant called her early on the afternoon of October 21, 1981, wanting to come by and talk to her. When appellant arrived, appellant told her that he had Wilson Smith in his van and that he wanted her assistance and advice in deciding what to do with Smith. Plangman claimed disbelief in appellant because of prior boasts of a similar nature. Nevertheless, she refused to help appellant and appellant declared "he would handle things himself."

When Plangman suggested that if appellant was being truthful about Smith, he should release him, appellant became enraged and exclaimed "that he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life in jail for kidnapping someone and then talking about it later." At that point Plangman finding some possible truth in appellant's claims felt that Smith was still alive.

Appellant left but called Plangman later that afternoon to tell her he had placed Smith in a storage unit. According to Plangman, appellant further related that when he checked the storage unit he found that Smith had gotten loose and was beating on the door screaming for help. Appellant also related that Smith had managed to free himself partially while in the back of the van and had tried to climb out.

The next morning appellant called Plangman very early and, referring to Smith, told her "Well it's all over. It's finished" and "Don't feel sorry for him. He was a bastard to the end."

According to Plangman, appellant told her how he had waited for Smith at "the house" and how he had taken a curtain from the wall to put around Smith's shoulders as they left the house. Appellant then put Smith in his own station wagon and drove to a wooded area behind the house where Smith was transferred to appellant's van.

Plangman testified that, while referring to Smith, appellant had remarked, "what happened to a person as they got older, did they just give up a fight to live, or did they just not care, or did they just become hard and--refused to fight for life."

Plangman testified that she had called Joan Smith and had inquired about Mr. Smith. Mrs. Smith, according to Plangman, did not appear to be concerned about Mr. Smith thus causing Plangman to disbelieve what appellant had been telling her about Mr. Smith.

Plangman expressed her disbelief to appellant who then became annoyed.

On the morning of October 23, 1981 appellant called Plangman. During this conversation, appellant told Plangman that she had caused him to be paranoid, and that he had returned to the scene of the crime where he injured his leg while crawling through heavy brush. Appellant told Plangman that "everything was as he had left it."

Appellant was arrested on November 24, 1981 for alleged outstanding traffic violations. Thereafter, he was transferred to Medina County where he was jailed on charges of robbery and kidnapping.

A few days before the arrest, Plangman and her mother had occasion to borrow appellant's van to run an errand to a storage unit which Plangman had leased. In the side pocket on the door of the van Plangman found a white envelope which contained a man's watch, a ring, and a pen and pencil set. She recognized the ring, a man's initial diamond ring, as the same one she had seen many times on the hand of Wilson Smith.

When Plangman showed appellant what she had found, he told her that he had not intended that she find the items and that he had planned to sell them.

Al Cuellar, a Texas Ranger, became involved in the investigation of Smith's disappearance shortly after Mrs. Smith reported the disappearance. It was Mrs. Smith that gave Cuellar the names of Plangman and appellant as possible suspects.

On November 18, 1981, Cuellar interviewed Plangman at the Castle Hills Police department after Plangman was drawn there under a pretext that a case involving one of her children was being investigated. Plangman provided Cuellar with initial information into the disappearance and eventually became Cuellar's chief source of information. Thereafter both maintained continuous contact with each other through January of 1982. As a result of the information supplied by Plangman appellant became a prime suspect in the case. Indeed much, if not most, of the evidence marshalled against appellant was obtained either directly or indirectly from Plangman.

Plangman related to Cuellar, appellant's boast that he had marched Smith out of the lake house with a curtain draped around him. In the course of his investigation, Cuellar had already found a curtain inside of Smith's station wagon. This indicated to Cuellar that only the killer or one to whom the killer had confided the facts of the killing could have known about the curtain.

Charles Goodnough, IV, testified that he was employed by Zale's Jewelry Store at a local mall at the time appellant sold him a ring on or about October 26, 1981. Goodnough described the ring, for which he paid $300.00, as a man's white gold ring with six stones clustered around a single center stone. He identified a ring displayed in a jewelry catalog as being similar to the one he purchased from appellant. Mrs. Smith identified the same ring in the catalog as being like the ring that belonged to her husband and which he was wearing at the time of his disappearance.

Randal Graham, an admitted methamphetamine addict, testified that he visited appellant at his house at 2 o'clock A.M. about one month before appellant's arrest. Graham described appellant as acting schizophrenic and having delusions that the FBI was watching him. Graham claimed that appellant requested his help in disposing of a body. According to Graham appellant stated, "I've killed a man and I've got his...