Hand v. Houk, Case No. 2:07-cv-846

• Decision Date: 29 May 2013
• Docket Number: Case No. 2:07-cv-846
• Parties: Gerald Hand, Petitioner, v. Marc Houk, Warden, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio

Gerald Hand, Petitioner,

v.Marc Houk, Warden, Respondent.

Case No. 2:07-cv-846

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO WESTERN DIVISION

DATED: May 29, 2013

ORDER

Petitioner, Gerald Hand, was convicted by an Ohio jury of the aggravated murders of his wife, Jill Hand, and of his friend and former employee, Walter Lonnie Welch. The same jury recommended that Hand be sentenced to death. After unsuccessful attempts to challenge his conviction and his sentence in state courts, he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in this court. The Magistrate Judge has recommended that his petition be denied, a recommendation to which Hand has objected. For the following reasons, the Court overrules Hand's objections.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The Ohio Supreme Court described at length the particular facts and circumstances that led to Hand's indictment on two counts of aggravated murder (and other charges), as they were presented in his jury trial held in May-June 2003:

State's Case

Murder of Donna Hand. On the evening of March 24, 1976, Hand notified police that his wife had been murdered at their home on South Eureka Avenue in the Hilltop section of Columbus. According to Hand, he returned home after being out with his brother but was unable to open his front door because it was double latched from the inside. Hand enteredthe house through a side door and found Donna's body.

The police found Donna's fully clothed body at the bottom of the basement stairway. She had a bag over her head and it was tied with a spark-plug wire. The police found no sign of forced entry. Drawers in the upstairs bedroom had been removed and turned over, but the room did not appear to have been ransacked. Moreover, no property was missing from the house.

Dr. Robert Zipf, then a Franklin County Deputy Coroner, examined Donna's body at the scene and found blood around the head where the body was lying. However, no blood spatters or other bloodstains were found on the stairs, which indicated that Donna had not hit her head falling down the steps.

During the autopsy, Dr. Zipf found "three chop wounds to the back of [Donna's] head" that were caused by "some type of blunt object, maybe a very thin pipe or a dull hatchet." However, Dr. Zipf determined that Donna had died from strangulation caused by the spark-plug wire around her neck.

During the fall of 1975, Donna told Connie Debord, her sister, that she planned to divorce Hand and move back to their parents' home. Donna felt that "everything was over" and "feared for her life." About two weeks before she was killed, Donna told Evelyn Latimer, another sister, that she was going to file for divorce.

Hand received $ 67,386 in life insurance following Donna's death. Hand also filed a claim for reparations after Donna's death and received $50,000 from the Ohio Victims of Crime Compensation Division of the Court of Claims.

During 1975 or 1976, Teresa Fountain overheard [Lonnie] Welch talking to Isaac Bell, Fountain's boyfriend, about "knocking his boss's wife off to get some insurance money." Sometime after Donna's murder, Welch told Fountain, "I hope you didn't hear anything and * * * you keep your mouth shut, * * * you didn't hear anything."

Murder of Lori Hand. Hand married Lori Willis on June 18, 1977, and Welch was the best man at the wedding. Hand and Lori lived in the home on South Eureka Avenue in which Donna had been murdered.

By June 1979, Hand's marriage to Lori was falling apart. Lori told her friend, Teresa Sizemore, that she was unhappy with her marriage and was making plans to file for a divorce. Sizemore also saw Lori and Handinteract, but she "didn't see any warmth there because [Lori] wasn't happy."

Around 8:30 a.m. on September 9, 1979, Hand and his baby, Robby, left home so that Lori could clean the house for a bridal shower planned for that afternoon. Steven Willis, Lori's brother, picked up Hand at his house. The three of them then spent the next few hours visiting a flea market, a car show, and Old Man's Cave in Hocking Hills. They also went go-cart racing.

Around 9:30 a.m., Lois Willis, Lori's mother, arrived at Hand's home to help Lori prepare for the bridal shower. After Lois knocked and did not get an answer, she left and returned about an hour and half later. Upon returning, Lois noticed that the front door was ajar and entered the house. Alarmed, she called Hand's family, who found Lori's body in the basement.

Police discovered Lori's body on the basement floor with a plastic sheet wrapped around her head. Lori's pants were unfastened with the zipper down, and her blouse was pulled up against her breast line. Bloodstains and blood spatters were found on the wall near Lori's body, and a spent lead projectile was found near her body. Lori had been shot twice in the head, but neither gunshot killed her. Dr. Patrick Fardal, a Franklin County Deputy Coroner, determined that strangulation was the cause of death.

Lori's vehicle had been stolen from Hand's garage. Police recovered her vehicle about three blocks from the Hand home.

Police found the first and second floor levels of the house in disarray, with drawers and other items of property dumped on the floor. Nevertheless, the house did not appear to have been burglarized, because there were no signs of forced entry and the rooms were only partially ransacked. Investigators also seized a cash box containing credit card slips, currency, and a .38 caliber handgun from the trunk of Hand's car parked in the garage.

After he learned of Lori's death, Hand returned home. Hand told police that he had been out of the house with Steve and his young son when Lori was murdered. Hand said that "everyone, including * * * his brothers and help at the shop would have known" that he was going to be gone from the house that morning.

Hand told police that he was very possessive of Lori. He admitted having sexual problems with Lori because he "wanted sex at least once a night and she didn't want to do that." When asked about insurance, Hand said that he had in the past year doubled its value and that it should pay offboth of his mortgages. Hand received $126,687.90 from five separate life insurance policies after Lori's death.

On September 10, 1979, the police recovered a pair of gloves near where Lori's vehicle was found. The fingers of the gloves were bloody, and the gloves had been turned inside out. Human bloodstains were found on the gloves, and debris from inside the gloves was preserved.

On October 9, 1979, the police reinterviewed Hand. Hand provided the names of Welch and others who worked for him and said that he did not trust any of them. He told police that everyone, including all of his neighbors, was aware that he had received $ 50,000 after his first wife's murder. Hand also said that his wife was not planning to separate from or divorce him and that they were "extremely in love with each other."

During the fall of 1979, Welch went to the home of Pete Adams, Welch's first cousin, and told Adams that he had "killed Donna and Lori Hand" and had done it for Bob Hand. Adams did not notify police about this conversation until after Welch's death in 2002.

During 1979 and 1980, Betty Evans, Welch's sister, observed that Welch had a "wad of money," cars, and a girlfriend who wore a mink jacket, a diamond necklace, and rings. Around the same time, Welch told Evans that if she "knew anything, not to say anything because him and Bob had a pact and if anything got out, they were going to kill each other's mother."

In the 1980s and 1990s, Welch intermittently worked as a mechanic at Hand's radiator shop in Columbus. Hand also provided Welch with extra money on a frequent basis and gave him cars and a washer and dryer. In the late 1980s, Welch started using crack cocaine and spent a lot of money on it.

Sometime after Lori's death, Hand met and married Glenna Castle. They were married for seven to eight years and then divorced.

Hand's marriage to Jill and his financial problems. In October 1992, Hand married Jill Randolph, a widow, and moved into Jill's home on Walnut Avenue in Galena, Delaware County. Jill was employed at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in Columbus and was financially secure. Hand was the beneficiary of Jill's state retirement and deferred-compensation accounts in the event of her death, and he was the primary beneficiary under her will.

By 2000, Hand's radiator shop had failed, and he was deeply in debt. During the 1990s and early 2000, Hand obtained thousands of dollars bymaking credit card charges payable to Hand's Hilltop Radiator. By January 2002, Hand had amassed more than $ 218,000 in credit card debt.

At some point, Jill found out about the extent of Hand's debt. During 2000, she learned that Hand had charged more than $ 24,000 on a credit card in her name. Jill was upset and told her daughter, Lori Gonzalez, that "[s]he was going to have Bob pay off that amount that he had charged up with the sale from his business."

In October 2000, Hand sold his radiator shop and the adjoining buildings. In May 2001, Hand started working as a security guard in Columbus and earned $ 9.50 an hour. Despite his enormous debt, Hand continued to pay on several credit cards to maintain life insurance coverage on his wife, including payments in December 2001 and January 2002.

Hand and Jill grew increasingly unhappy with one another. During 2001, Hand told William Bowe, a friend of Hand's, that he was "quite tired of her." Abel Gonzalez, Jill's son-in-law, lived at the Hand home from April to June 2001. Abel said that Hand and Jill's marriage was "on the down slope. * * * There was no warmth there. * * * It seemed everything Bob would do would antagonize Jill, and she made it real clear that she was upset."

Plans to murder Jill Hand. In July or August 2001, Welch asked Shannon Welch, his older brother, if he had a pistol or could get one. Welch also asked, "Do you know what I do for extra money?" He continued, "Well, I killed Bob's first wife and * * * I got to kill

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