Crowder v. State

• Decision Date: 29 June 1976
• Docket Number: No. 30858,30858
• Citation: 237 Ga. 141,227 S.E.2d 230
• Parties: Claude Thomas CROWDER v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 230

227 S.E.2d 230

237 Ga. 141

Claude Thomas CROWDER v. The STATE.

No. 30858.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

June 29, 1976.

Joseph M. Salome, Robert S. Windholz, Atlanta, for appellant.

Richard Bell, Dist. Atty., Leonard W. Rhodes, Asst. Dist. Atty., Decatur, Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., James L. Mackay, Atlanta, for appellee.

HILL, Justice.

Defendant Claude Thomas Crowder, Claude Berry, and Ava Johnson were indicted on November 12, 1974, for the murder of Ruth Park Crowder, the defendant's wife. Mrs. Crowder was found on May 28, 1974, in bed, murdered with an ax. At the trial coindictee Ava Johnson testified as a witness for the State. Shortly after being indicted and prior to defendant's trial, coindictee Berry died as a result of an apparently self-inflicted gunshop wound. Statements made by the deceased Berry and his confession taped by police at Grady Hospital 9 days prior to Berry's death were admitted into evidence against the defendant, who was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

On Tuesday, May 28, 1974, at about 5:30 p.m. police officers received a call from defendant Crowder, stating that he thought his wife had been killed. Police on patrol were informed by radio and proceeded to the defendant's residence. In an upstairs bedroom police found the deceased wife of the defendant lying in bed covered by sheets with a pillow over her head. A bloody hatchet was lying on the bed, along with a white pair of women's gloves. On the wall was written 'death to the rich bitch.' Several drawers were partially pulled from the dresser next to the bed, although there was on the dresser a jewelry cabinet containing money which was undisturbed.

The victim was clothed in a blood soaked nightgown. She was found to have been killed by a chop-type laceration to the left upper neck. There were two similar chop-type lacerations in the left upper back. There were also small wounds above and behind the left ear which possibly were produced with the blunt end of the hatchet. A finding was made by the chief forensic pathologist for Atlanta that the victim was killed between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. the morning of May 28th.

The downstairs door in the back of the house leading into the workshop and basement had been found standing ajar by the defendant's son and a friend upon returning from school that afternoon. The boys shut and locked the door, but did not discover the body then. The friend testified that the door did not look like it had been forced open.

A police officer testified that he investigated the scene of the murder shortly after the defendant's phone call and that there were no signs of forced entry anywhere in the house. He testified that the bed clothes of the victim did not appear to be disturbed, but were in the position they would be in if she had been asleep when killed. He stated that the circumstances at the scene of the murder did not indicate theft as a motive, because there were no blood stains underneath the bloody hatchet found on the bed sheets (indicating that it was placed on the bed some time after the murder, after the blood had dried), yet only one dresser drawer was actually ransacked, money and coins were found in several drawers, the jewelry cabinet was undisturbed, other valuables were within plain view in the room, and the rest of the house was not ransacked.

The officer testified that during the course of his investigation the defendant asked the police to see if the church money was in its place in a cabinet in the den and indicated to them a spot at the back of a shelf where this money should be. The money was gone, although nothing else in the cabinet was disturbed. (Mrs. Crowder had been in charge of taking the weekly church offerings to the bank to deposit.) The officer testified that the defendant gave a specific account of his activities during that day.

Ava Johnson, a prostitute jointly indicted with the defendant and Berry, testified for the State as follows: On May 21, 1974, she met the defendant in front of a gas station in Columbus, Georgia. He winked at her and asked her to have some coffee with him. During the conversation over coffee, the defendant asked her if she knew anyone who would kill his wife for him. The coffee shop was next door to the motel where the defendant was staying. The defendant invited her to his room, which she thought was number 21, for a drink. In the room he again asked her if she knew someone who would kill his wife. She told him she did not. The defendant then gave her a ride to meet her friend, Berry. When Ms. Johnson told Berry of the defendant's proposition, Berry stated that if the man was paying, Berry would do the job. Ms. Johnson testified further that she returned to the defendant's room, where the defendant and Berry discussed the killing in her presence. The defendant told Berry that he wanted his wife killed and offered to pay from five to ten thousand dollars. The defendant drew a blueprint of his house on a piece of cardboard on the back of a tablet and gave it to Berry, indicating how to get in and out of the house. Ms. Johnson identified the defendant in court as the man she saw in Columbus. She also identified a photo of the defendant's truck as the truck of the man she saw. On cross examination, Ms. Johnson denied that she and Berry had framed the defendant. She testified that she never saw the defendant again after that meeting.

The clerk at the motel in Columbus testified that defendant Crowder was registered in room 23 from May 21 to 23 and that he stayed at that motel regularly every 8 weeks. The clerk testified that he works the 3 to 11 p.m. shift and that although someone could possibly have gotten into the defendant's room without the clerk's knowledge, the defendant did not complain to him about someone having been in his room.

Robert Estes, a friend of Berry's in the army at Fort Benning, testified that Berry told Estes that a man had approached him through Ava Johnson to kill his wife in Atlanta and that Berry was going to do it. Berry said that the man wanted his wife killed because she would not give him a divorce, that Berry was to be paid $5,000, and that the back door of the man's house would be left open for him. He described the plan for the killing, including coming out of the woods behind the house, entering through the unlocked rear door, and climbing the stairs to the upper level.

Estes testified further that Berry went AWOL for two or three days shortly after this conversation. Then during the last week in May, Berry returned and told Estes that he had committed the murder. Berry said that he had used an an to chop the woman's head off, that she was in bed, and that he left a 'calling card' so people would know that he had done it. Berry said that he had gotten in through the open back door and that he had tried to make it look like a robbery by stealing some things and taking money that had been left for him to steal. Berry indicated that he was also going to be paid to kill the man's lover's husband. Berry had a large sum of money with him at that time. Estes told police in Columbus what he knew.

James Russ, a soldier, testified that Berry told him that he was going to kill a man's wife for money, and that it would be done in the morning after the man and his son left, but before the wife was awake.

Anthony Thomas, another soldier, testified that Berry went AWOL in May. He talked about killing a man's wife in Atlanta. In July, Thomas said Berry showed him a stack of money which looked like two or three thousand dollars.

A telegraph operator in Charlotte, North Carolina, testified that a man named Ralph Berry sent $200 to Claude Berry from Charlotte to Fresno, California, on August 9, 1974. The victim's sister testified that defendant Crowder was in Charlotte at a funeral on August 9, 1974.

Berry's wife testified that Berry told her he had killed a white man's wife and was to get $5000 from him.

Eric Smith testified that on August 16, 1974, he was arrested in Atlanta with Berry for firing a revolver in the air. Berry needed money for bail and told Smith that a man owed him money for Berry's having acted as a 'hit man.' Berry said he killed a woman. Berry told Smith to meet the man in a described car at a specific location for the money. Berry then made a phone call. Smith met the car, and the driver gave Smith $300. Smith sat in the car opposite the driver. Smith identified the defendant as the man in the car. Smith testified that Berry used the name Berry Allen.

Robinson Wynder testified that he was arrested in Atlanta on August 16 with Eric Smith and a man known as Berry Allen. He identified a photo of Claude Berry as the man he had known as Berry Allen. He testified that he was with Eric Smith when money was picked up from a man and he identified the defendant as that man.

Shirley Walton, a woman whom Berry knew, testified that he asked her to keep a look-out while he killed a woman. She testified that Berry said he was going to kill the woman with an ax. Berry had a drawing of the house layout on a piece of cardboard tablet backing. She said the house belonged to 'some Claude.' She also testified that she went with Berry to the bus station in Atlanta to meet this man in May, but that she only saw the man from the rear as he followed Berry into the bathroom. Berry came out with $200.

Larry Averette, a prison cellmate of the defendant's, testified as follows as to a statement made by the defendant during a card game: '. . . the case was kind of blown out, because the man that he was supposed to have hired got killed, and that the only thing he was really worried about was-the only thing that could hang him would be what the man said in his statement; and he went into about what they could use in the statement, about what the man said.' Averette testified that Crowder had mentioned a woman possibly having seen him pass money to the man, but said it...