Ingleton v. State, 96-187

• Decision Date: 26 September 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-187,96-187
• Citation: 700 So.2d 735
• Parties: 22 Fla. L. Weekly D2260 Edward INGLETON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 735

700 So.2d 735

22 Fla. L. Weekly D2260

Edward INGLETON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 96-187.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Fifth District.

Sept. 26, 1997.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 29, 1997.

Daniel S. Ciener, Andy M. Fouche', Curtis N. Flajole, David J. Romett of Law Firm of Daniel S. Ciener, Merritt Island, for Appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Ann M. Childs, Assistant

Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.

GRIFFIN, Chief Judge.

Edward Ingleton appeals his convictions for first-degree felony murder, attempted sexual battery and grand theft of a motor vehicle. We affirm.

Wendy Prior, the victim, was a waitress at a restaurant named Wacky Wings. On Friday, September 10, 1993, sometime between 8 and 9 p.m., her friends Kim and Terry Marcum arrived at Wacky Wings. Ingleton, who had been friends with Terry for years, was also there, and the two of them left briefly for a trip to an apartment where Ingleton said he would purchase some marijuana. Terry never saw what Ingleton bought, but while they were at the apartment, Ingleton offered Terry what Terry thought was cocaine. Terry watched Ingleton ingest two lines of the powder-like substance. They then returned to Wacky Wings.

Wendy Prior finished her shift at Wacky Wings around 9:30 that evening. Still wearing the Wacky Wings tee shirt and the pair of shorts she wore to work, Prior met Kim and Terry and was introduced to Ingleton. While at the restaurant, Ingleton requested Terry to ask Prior if she would like to go with them back to Ingleton's motor home. Some drinking occurred, and the group temporarily split up around midnight. Prior and Kim stopped by a bar, saw a friend, had a beer, and then met up with Terry and Ingleton at the home of another Wacky Wings employee. Around 1 a.m., Kim invited Prior to go with her and Terry to Ingleton's motor home. They took two cars. Kim rode with Prior while Ingleton rode with Terry. Along the way, Ingleton remarked to Terry, "I sure would like to do her." When Terry responded, "Good luck," Ingleton replied, "Luck has nothing to do with it."

Once at the motor home, Terry left briefly to pick up some beer. When he returned, the other three were sitting around a table inside the motor home. They shared the beer and all four partook in smoking some marijuana. At approximately 3 a.m., Prior desired some cigarettes and all four rode in Terry's car to a nearby convenience store. Prior and Ingleton shared the back seat and together went in to buy the cigarettes. When they emerged, Terry and Kim offered to drive them back to the motor home, which was only a couple of blocks away, but they refused, with Prior saying she wanted to walk. Terry and Kim then left for the evening. The time was roughly between 3 and 4 a.m.

At 6:20 a.m., on September 11, 1993, Michael Joseph pulled up to the motor home to give Ingleton a ride to work. Ingleton's truck had been broken and Joseph, Ingleton's supervisor at the stucco company where they worked and a recent source of transportation, was expected. He spied a strange car (later identified as Prior's) parked near the motor home. As Joseph got out of the truck, Ingleton emerged from the motor home obviously not ready for work. He told Joseph that he had a girl inside who would give him a ride and that he would be at work by 8 a.m. Joseph then went to work without Ingleton.

At approximately 10 or 11 a.m. that day, Leonard Taylor, Ingleton's step-father, received a collect call from Ingleton. Ingleton asked for the phone number of his aunt in Michigan. Later that day, Ingleton's cousin in Michigan received a collect call from Ingleton. Ingleton told her that he was in Jacksonville and that he had killed two people--that he had stabbed Terry Marcum in the throat and that he killed Terry's girlfriend. He also told her that he had Terry and his girlfriend's car, that he wanted to get as far as Michigan to try to make it to "Canada or something," and that he would not go back alive.

Thereafter, Leonard Taylor received a second call, this time from his wife, Ingleton's mother. After speaking with her, Taylor contacted the Brevard County Sheriff's Department. At approximately 2:10 p.m., a deputy sheriff received a radio call concerning Ingleton's motor home. He located the motor home in a trailer park and knocked on its door. Receiving no answer, the deputy called the telephone number found on a sign in front of the motor home and reached Karen Seniura. Seniura's business was the former owner of the motor home and, just a few days earlier, had sold it to Ingleton. Seniura still retained a key because of pending repair work. Using her key, Seniura entered the motor home and reported to the deputy that a person was lying in the bed at the rear of the vehicle, covered with a blanket. The deputy then entered the motor home, lifted the blanket and found Wendy Prior's body. She was naked from the waist down. On the bed were a sheet, a pair of shorts, an address book, two compacts, a pen, a tube of Blistex, a towel, a used tampon, a bottle of Vasoline Intensive Care and a second bottle which contained an oily substance.

Ingleton's mother also called Cliff Brown, a minister in Jonesboro, Georgia, who had known Ingleton since 1983 or 1984. Brown was given the phone number to a pay phone. When he called it, Ingleton answered. The time was approximately 4:30 p.m. Ingleton told Brown that he was going to see him and that he would be shocked by what Ingleton had to tell him. When Ingleton arrived, he told Brown that the night before he had broken the neck of a girl named Wendy and stabbed a guy named Terry. Ingleton and Brown discussed Ingleton's desire to commit suicide as well as Brown's desire that Ingleton turn himself in to the authorities. When Ingleton fell asleep in one of Brown's bedrooms, Brown made several phone calls to confirm whether such events had happened and to seek advice about what to do. Eventually he spoke with authorities in both Brevard County and Clayton County, Georgia. At approximately 10 p.m., Clayton County authorities entered Brown's home, woke Ingleton, and arrested him.

When arrested, Ingleton was observed to have cuts on both his hands. In response to an officer's comment that Ingleton might do something stupid on his way back to Florida, Ingleton stated, "Well, I think I've already done something stupid. You've been in the trailer, haven't you?"

Unquestionably, the primary feature of the trial concerned the cause of Wendy Prior's death. The state's first-degree premeditated murder charge was predicated on alternative theories of murder. One proposed that Prior had been asphyxiated, while the other held that Ingleton provided Prior with drugs which caused her death. The state presented witnesses who favored each theory.

A small but significant feature of the trial was the testimony of Jay Staggs. Staggs was an inmate at a federal prison camp in Georgia who had previously served time at the Brevard County jail. Staggs claimed to have met Ingleton while the two were incarcerated in Brevard County. Staggs testified that Ingleton told Staggs he attempted to overdose Prior on cocaine and "that didn't work." He also told Staggs he was angry with her because "she wouldn't give him a blow job" and that he had been choking her and thought he broke her neck.

Ingleton has raised multiple issues on appeal, only three of which merit discussion. Ingleton's core contention on appeal is that he was tried on a void indictment--a claim which requires some review of the prior history of the case.

A Brevard County grand jury returned an indictment against Ingleton on September 29, 1993, two and one-half weeks after Prior's body was discovered. The indictment contained three counts: first-degree premeditated murder, sexual battery and grand theft of an automobile. The first of those counts read in pertinent part as follows:

EDWARD ROBERT INGLETON on the 11th day of September, 1993, in the County of Brevard, and State of Florida, did then and there unlawfully kill a human being, WENDY PRIOR, by STRANGLING WENDY PRIOR, and said killing was perpetrated by said EDWARD ROBERT INGLETON from a premeditated design or intent to effect the death of said WENDY PRIOR, contrary to Section 782.04(1)(a)1, Florida Statutes.

(Emphasis added). The state later nolle prossed the sexual battery count and filed an information charging Ingleton with attempted sexual battery. The state also subsequently determined to go forward on the alternative theory that Ingleton caused Prior's death by distributing to her a lethal dose of cocaine and thereby committed first-degree premeditated murder under section 782.04, Florida Statutes (1993). ¹

Ingleton filed a motion to prevent the state from proceeding on the drug overdose theory. He argued that the grand jury indicted him under subsection 782.04(1)(a)1, not (1)(a)3, and that because the latter offense required proof of unalleged elements such as the facts of distribution and proximate causation, the state could not go forward with its theory. The trial judge agreed, and the motion was granted.

Also heard at the same hearing was a motion filed by the state to strike the language "by STRANGLING WENDY PRIOR" from the indictment. The state argued that the indicated language was superfluous, relying on Huene v. State, 570 So.2d 1031 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990), review denied, 581 So.2d 1308 (Fla.1991). The state argued that there would be no prejudice to the defense, since Ingleton was well aware the state's other theories about how Ingleton had effected Prior's death. The trial court granted the state's motion, but announced that such did not change the court's earlier ruling that the state could not proceed with the drug overdose theory.

The state immediately sought certiorari from this court requesting that the state be allowed to proceed with its drug overdose theory. This court granted the...