Darling v. State
| Decision Date | 13 November 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 38029,38029 |
| Citation | 284 S.E.2d 260,248 Ga. 485 |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
| Parties | DARLING v. The STATE. |
Dwight H. May, Moultrie, for Woodrow Darling.
H. Lamar Cole, Dist. Atty., James Thagard, Asst. Dist. Atty., Valdosta, Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., Virginia H. Jeffries, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Woodrow Darling was convicted in Colquitt County for the murder of his first cousin, Bernice Weatherspoon, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He appeals. We affirm.
1. He first raises the general grounds. The jury heard evidence from which any rational trier of facts could have found the following beyond a reasonable doubt.
Although appellant and the victim were first cousins, they dated, lived together, and had a sexual relationship or an affair while they previously lived in Jesup, Georgia.
After the victim moved to Norman Park, Georgia, to live with her brother, Thomas Darling, appellant visited her three times.
During appellant's last visit in the Darling residence, he knocked on the victim's door at night, ostensibly for the purpose of getting a pillow. The victim told him to get one from her aunt. Appellant got a pillow, then went outside and started his automobile. He returned to the house about five minutes later. He then knocked on the victim's door once more, ostensibly to tell her she had a flat tire on her automobile. The victim told him to leave her alone.
Appellant and the victim were heard arguing on the same evening. He and the victim had driven to Moultrie, Georgia, earlier that afternoon, together with the victim's daughter, to do some visiting with a friend. The victim's boyfriend had driven up during the visiting and had kissed the victim, at which time appellant became visibly angry.
Appellant and the victim were seen leaving the victim's brother's home the next morning. Since the victim's tire was flat, appellant asked her if she wanted to use his automobile. She replied in the negative, and walked down the road toward Morning Grove Church. About five minutes later, appellant was seen driving in the same direction.
Shortly after appellant drove away, a gunshot was heard coming from the church area. Appellant's automobile, which had a loud and distinctive sound, was heard driving away following the gunshot.
Soon thereafter, the victim was found by passersby lying by the side of the road. Other passersby had seen appellant drive slowly by the victim prior to the gunshot, and had seen the victim wave her arms at the appellant, indicating that he should drive on.
The road where the victim was killed is an isolated rural road and is the only road between Norman Park and the main highway. All other roads in the area are deadends.
Appellant admitted having gone to Moultrie with the victim during the afternoon of the previous day, but denied that he had become angry with her, or that they had an argument, or that he had tried to sleep with her the previous night. He said he drove down the road, crossing Little River Bridge, but did not see the victim along the road, and that he drove on to Florida, where he first learned of the shooting when he called his mother in Jesup, Georgia. He denied having an affair with the victim or shooting her.
The .38 caliber pistol identified by the state's ballistics witness as the murder weapon was recovered by fishermen under the Little River Bridge, and was turned in by them to the sheriff when they learned of the shooting. The gun contained one empty cartridge and five live rounds of ammunition. Tests confirmed that the fatal bullet was fired from this pistol. The pistol was identified by a local merchant as having been sold to appellant's mother back in 1969. The serial number on his records matched the serial number on the pistol.
The victim died of a single gunshot wound to the side of her head. The shot entered through the ear, and was fired at a distance greater than three feet because there was no powder residue in the wound.
The foregoing evidence is sufficient to sustain the verdict under the current legal standard. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
2. Appellant next contends that the trial court erred by allowing the merchant who sold the murder weapon to appellant's mother to testify that the purchaser of the weapon, Gertrude Darling, is appellant's mother. The objection was interposed under Code Ann. § 38-303, as it pertains to proof of pedigree "by general repute in the family," because the merchant testified under cross-examination that he is not related to appellant's family.
The merchant identified the purchaser as Gertrude Darling. He testified that he had known Gertrude Darling and appellant for many years and that Gertrude Darling is appellant's mother. We do not reach the question of whether the admission in evidence of the merchant's testimony regarding the family relationship between appellant and the purchaser of the pistol was error because under cross-examination appellant identified Gertrude Darling as his mother. The...
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...motive is not an essential element of the crime. See Thompson v. State, 286 Ga. 891, 892, 692 S.E.2d 384 (2010); Darling v. State, 248 Ga. 485, 487, 284 S.E.2d 260 (1981). When viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence presented at trial and summarized above was suffic......
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