Favors v. State, 7 Div. 932

• Decision Date: 01 March 1983
• Docket Number: 7 Div. 932
• Parties: Edward Jett FAVORS v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 1358

437 So.2d 1358

Edward Jett FAVORS v. STATE.

7 Div. 932.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

March 1, 1983.

Rehearing Denied March 29, 1983.

Ralph L. Brooks of Brooks & Brooks, Anniston, for appellant.

Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and J. Thomas Leverette, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

HARRIS, Judge.

Appellant was convicted in Calhoun County of the murder of Mary Louise Williams. Notice was given by the District Attorney that the Habitual Offender Act would be invoked, and, after a pre-sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced appellant to life imprisonment without parole.

At the close of the state's evidence, appellant moved for the exclusion of the state's evidence for lack of prima facie proof of murder. Appellant also argues the insufficiency of the evidence on appeal. Thus, a detailed recital of the facts is necessary.

The state's first witness was Mary Ann Farrell, the victim's sister. Ms. Farrell last saw the victim around noon on Wednesday, September 30, 1981, at their mother's house in Hobson City. According to Ms. Farrell, appellant was living with another of the victim's sisters, Betty Joyce Wright.

After sitting on the porch for a while, the victim, appellant, and a Carl Cooley got into appellant's car and headed towards West Anniston. The victim had expressed a desire to rent a motel room for a while, because she had fought with the man she was living with and had decided to move. They left around 12:30.

Carl Wesley Cooley was called to the stand. Mr. Cooley testified that he asked appellant to give him a ride to his girl friend's house on the way to the motel. The three of them left the victim's mother's house around noon. The witness rode in front with the appellant while the victim rode in back. Before reaching the witness's girl friend's house, the three of them stopped very briefly at a gas station where the witness bought himself a grape cola and the appellant a Miller beer. The witness was let off at his girl friend's house around 12:45 p.m. He stated that in his opinion the trip took about 45 minutes.

According to Mr. Cooley, appellant and the victim discussed the victim's relationship with the man she was living with, Willie Towns, while they were in the car. Appellant told the victim that Towns would kill her before the weekend.

Diane Houston, the Hobson City Clerk, testified that she received a phone call while at work around 2:30 or 3:00 the afternoon of October 2, 1981, two days after the victim had disappeared. The caller, a male who identified himself as "Robert Miller," told her that he was hunting in the woods near a local rock quarry and had run across a black female's body. The caller gave directions to the location of the body and agreed to meet the police there.

After the call, the witness contacted the Calhoun Sheriff's Department and the Hobson City Police Department. The officials subsequently found the body where "Robert Miller" had told the witness he had found it.

On October 8, while monitoring outgoing calls on the City phone, the witness recognized the voice over the phone as that of the man calling himself "Robert Miller." When Mrs. Houston looked up to see who was using that line, she saw the appellant using the phone. According to the witness, appellant was the man who called on October 2 giving directions to the body. She immediately informed the Hobson City Police Department.

The witness had used two different phones on the two occasions that she heard appellant's voice. On cross-examination, the witness testified that she had listened to the second conversation about thirty seconds.

Ed Traylor, an investigator for the ABI, was one of the first officials who arrived at the scene of the body. He helped photograph the area, make measurements, and collect evidence. He also obtained a statement from appellant that night. Appellant was not then a suspect.

In this first statement, appellant told Officer Traylor that, on the morning of September 30, he had driven the victim's mother, Mrs. Ruby Fluker, to the welfare office. While there, the victim called from the food stamp office and asked appellant to pick her up there because she had argued with Willie Towns, her boyfriend, and he had beaten her. Appellant drove to the food stamp office and picked up the victim. According to appellant, the victim's eye was swollen. He took her to the Anniston City Police Department, where she was told to get the key to Towns' residence and the police would then escort her.

Appellant drove the victim to Towns' residence where they met Towns as he walked up from the street. Towns allegedly told the victim that, if she returned, he would kill her. The victim got her clothes, including a leather coat.

After a short visit at Mrs. Fluker's house, the victim asked appellant to take her to the Jackson Motel where she could rent a room. He gave her a ride to the Jackson Motel and let her off at the corner of 12th Street. He gave the victim 60 or 70 cents, and the victim asked him to take her clothes to her mother's house except for her leather coat which he was instructed to give to his girl friend for safekeeping. When he left the victim, she was wearing blue pants, tennis shoes, and a blouse with flowers on it.

Appellant also told Officer Traylor that Towns had a violent temperament towards the victim.

He finished his statement by stating that a few hours after the victim's body was found, he and some of the victim's relatives rode past Towns' residence, where they found a piece of the blood-stained blouse the victim was wearing the day she disappeared hanging on Towns' fence. They turned the blouse over to the Hobson City Police.

Calhoun Deputy Sheriff Bobby Clark was at the scene of the body. He identified a number of photographs of the area. He did not notice any blood on the ground around the body. He did notice bent shrubs and small trees in the general vicinity.

Deputy Sheriff Larry Amerson was also at the scene. He identified a number of photographs of the victim's body and the general area. The body was badly cut. Both wrists were slashed and the victim's abdomen had been cut open. He pointed out small trees and shrubs that had been pushed over near the body.

Deputy Amerson also helped collect physical evidence at the scene, including a red bandana and two pairs of cotton panties found near the victim's head, the remains of the victim's blouse which had been cut, one tennis shoe that the victim was wearing and some buttons. He also collected other evidence near the body: a beer bottle, paper towels, a plastic paper towel wrapper, and a mattress pad. He also collected soil samples from underneath the victim's head and from the dirt roadway. This physical evidence was sent to the Birmingham labs.

According to the witness, it was about three or four miles from the highway to the dirt road leading to the crime site, and it took from three to five minutes to drive on the dirt road to the actual scene.

Deputy Amerson also testified that he collected blood and saliva samples from both appellant and Willie Towns. He found the mate to the victim's tennis shoe at the Towns residence on October 10 and the victim's pants in a storage area in Towns' yard on October 3. He also received a piece of the victim's blouse from Hobson City Policeman Cleotus Jones.

Finally, the witness collected a number of items belonging to appellant including carpet sweepings and samples, rags, a white blanket from appellant's car, a pair of pants, three shirts, the tennis shoes appellant was wearing the day the victim disappeared, appellant's pocket knife, and hair samples.

The witness also cut a section of tile from Towns' kitchen floor which had a bloodstain on it, and received a knife belonging to Towns.

Deputy Amerson did not notice any blood in the soil around the body, and he would expect to if the wounds had been made while the victim was still alive.

According to the witness, the investigation had narrowed the time of death to between 2:30 and 3:30 on the afternoon of September 30.

Dr. Joseph Embry, a forensic pathologist for the State of Alabama, performed the autopsy on the victim. He removed the remains of the victim's clothes which in his opinion had been cut.

According to Dr. Embry, there were three sets of deep knife type wounds in the abdomen. Both of the victim's wrists had been slashed. The wounds went through the tendons to the bone.

Dr. Embry believed that the wrist wounds were made after the victim had died because of the lack of bleeding. Conversely, he believed that the abdomen wounds were made before the victim was dead but while she was dying because of the amount of blood in her abdominal cavity. The victim had a high percentage of alcohol in her blood.

Dr. Embry stated that there was no single specific factor he could positively label as the cause of death. Because of the lack of any definite cause of death, along with the proximity of a mattress cover to the victim's head, he believed that the cause of death was asphyxia due to smothering, in association with sharp force or cuts to the abdomen. In his opinion, the victim did not die from alcohol abuse, but was the victim of a homicide.

Charles Windfrey, an investigator for the District Attorney's Office, took a second statement from appellant at appellant's home in the morning hours of October 3, the day after appellant gave his first statement and the day after the victim's body was found.

The second statement corresponded with the first statement, except appellant added that he, the victim, and the victim's mother briefly stopped by a neighbor's house on September 30, before stopping at the victim's house. He also added that after he left the victim in front of the Jackson Motel on September 30, he saw the victim stop and get into a yellow pickup truck. Two black males were in the truck. This occurred around 2:45 p.m.

After appellant gave the statement, he told Investigator...