Middleton v. State
| Decision Date | 25 November 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 31499,31499 |
| Citation | 968 P.2d 296,114 Nev. 1089 |
| Parties | David Stephen MIDDLETON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent. |
| Court | Nevada Supreme Court |
At trial, the state presented evidence that appellant David Stephen Middleton committed murder on two separate occasions, in each case abducting a woman from her home, holding her captive in a leased storage unit, killing her, and then dumping her body. Middleton appeals, contending among other things that there was insufficient evidence to convict him and that trial on the counts relating to each victim should have been severed. We conclude that Middleton's contentions lack merit and therefore affirm.
The discovery of Katherine Powell's body and resulting investigation
At around 9:30 p.m. on the night of February 11, 1995, a woman's body was found in a trash dumpster at a Reno apartment complex. The body was in a sleeping bag and covered by plastic garbage bags. A large yellow plastic bag covered the sleeping bag. The body was taken to the coroner's office. From its fingerprints the body was later identified as that of Katherine Powell.
Dr. Roger Ritzlin performed the autopsy on Powell's body. Her body was loosely bound by rope and, aside from a black tank top and blue socks, was naked. It exhibited bruises, particularly on the elbows and knees; most of the bruises were incurred prior to death. Powell had likely been dead for at least two days. There were blue fibers on her body. A nontoxic amount of lithium was in her blood. (Powell had been prescribed lithium for a bipolar disorder.) Microscopic analysis of sections of the left ventricle of her heart exhibited some fibrosis and acute cell death; the latter occurred a few days before death. Ritzlin found no petechiae (small hemorrhages) or any fecal staining. At trial, he testified that after death by suffocation, petechiae are usually seen and fecal staining is often seen. Ritzlin could not determine the cause of death, but suffocation or cardiac arrhythmia were possible causes. Bite marks were later found on Powell's body, and a semen stain was found on her right thigh.
At the time of her death, Powell was forty-five years old, divorced, and living alone in Reno. She had a Ph.D. in psychology and taught third grade at Sun Valley Elementary School. She was last heard from or seen alive on the evening of Friday, February 3, 1995. Powell had a ski trip with a friend planned for the next morning, but she failed to show. Various friends attempted to contact her over the weekend, and she failed to appear at work on Monday, February 6, although she was known to be extremely reliable. A school custodian went to her home and knocked, but got no response; he noticed an attempted service tag from TCI Cable on the door, dated Saturday, February 4. Later on Monday, two other school employees went to Powell's home, looked through a window and saw what they thought could be a foot on the unmade bed, and called 911. Police arrived and entered the home. The bed was rumpled, but they saw nothing that made them suspicious at that time.
After Powell's body was found on February 11, 1995, police learned the following information. Two of Powell's neighbors, Angela Green and Charles Corning, noticed a pickup truck parked in front of Powell's home early in the morning on Saturday, February 4. Green noticed that the pickup was loaded up with "home items" and had out-of-state plates; when she was later shown a photograph of a pickup owned by Middleton, she said "that could well be the truck." Corning said that the pickup was red, and when shown the photo of Middleton's pickup, he said "that looks like the truck." A third neighbor noticed on Wednesday, February 1, that a TCI Cable truck was parked in front of Powell's home. This neighbor later identified the occupants as Middleton and Evonne Haley. (Haley lived with Middleton.)
Two of Powell's friends, Gerald Brown and Candace Kelly, returned from a trip on Sunday, February 5, and went to pick up Kelly's dog, which Powell had been keeping for them. Powell was not home, but they had a key, entered, and got the dog. The next day, Brown heard that Powell had not gone to work so he went back to her home and noticed various items were missing, including a phone, a camera, a FAX machine, a laptop computer, and a laser printer. In the kitchen he found a couple of condoms and a wad of duct tape.
On Sunday, February 5, a person telephoned the Good Guys store in Reno and ordered a $1,900 piece of stereo equipment, using Powell's credit card. Gary Cable, the employee who took the call, said that the caller's voice was husky and he could not tell if the caller was a man or woman. Mark Decker, Cable's manager, approved the transaction. Decker received a telephone call regarding the purchase on Monday morning. He believed the caller was male. The caller said he would send a courier to pick up the equipment. On Monday afternoon, a woman arrived at the store with a red handtruck and picked up the equipment. Store employees later identified the woman as Haley. One employee's description of the truck she drove led police to Middleton's pickup, an early 1970s, red International Harvester with Colorado license plates.
Reno police detective Steven Reed determined that Middleton was the TCI Cable technician who had made a service call at Powell's home on January 28, 1995. The detective took Powell's neighbor, Corning, to Middleton's workplace to view Middleton's pickup. Corning believed that the pickup was likely the same one he had seen at Powell's.
Detective David Jenkins determined that the brand of yellow plastic bag covering the sleeping bag which held Powell's body was sold at only two hardware stores in Reno. Only one store, Commercial Hardware in downtown Reno, had recently sold the yellow bags. They were sold on Wednesday, February 8, along with a box of 33-gallon garbage bags.
On February 23, 1995, Detective Jenkins interviewed Middleton, who was not in custody. Middleton admitted that he had made a service call to Powell's home on January 28, 1995, and that he owned a red, 1972 International Harvester pickup. However, he denied knowing anything about the purchase of stereo equipment at the Good Guys store or about Powell's credit card. When asked about the purchase of plastic bags at Commercial Hardware, Middleton initially said he did not know where the store was, but then said he had shopped there five or six times but not recently. When asked if he had shopped there on February 8, he was equivocal--saying that if he was on video, then he had--and he was unsure whether he had bought any garbage bags. Although Jenkins had said nothing about Powell's death, Middleton said that it seemed like Jenkins was trying to tie Middleton to her murder. Jenkins asked if Middleton had a storage unit, and Middleton said no. The interview ended when Middleton said that he wanted to leave.
On March 4, 1995, an anonymous caller informed police that Middleton and Haley had a storage unit. The next day, police searched the unit pursuant to a warrant. They found the stereo equipment purchased from the Good Guys and a box of yellow plastic bags and a box of garbage bags, both with Commercial Hardware price tags. One of three yellow bags was missing from the first box, as were some garbage bags from the second. Also in the unit were Powell's house and car keys, camera, computer, printer, and other personal property. A refrigerator was lying on its back on the floor of the unit. In it were blue fibers similar to fibers found on Powell's body. The refrigerator was modified: its shelves were removed, the floor of its freezer compartment was cut and folded down to make one space, and two air holes were drilled in it. Police also found a switchblade knife, a stun gun, a foam ball with apparent teeth marks, and rope similar to that used to bind Powell's body. Other evidence collected included: orange-handled tension clamps; hair and fiber from one of the clamps; black canvas belts with velcro; black wire ties; handcuffs; condoms; partial rolls of duct tape; a large speaker box with a space behind the speaker about 14 inches deep, 30 inches wide, and 36 inches high; hairs and fibers from the speaker box; several blankets; and chains. Pursuant to a seizure order, police obtained a mold of Middleton's teeth to compare to the bite marks found on Powell's body. Dr. Raymond Rawson, a professor in dentistry, concluded that the bite mark on Powell's left breast was inflicted while she was still alive, that it was a hard and painful bite causing bleeding below the skin, and that Middleton inflicted it.
The discovery of Thelma Davila's remains and resulting investigation
On April 9, 1995, about two months after the discovery of Powell's body, a man walking with his dog in a secluded area near Verdi found a human skull and other skeletal remains and notified police. From August through October 1994, another Verdi resident had smelled a foul odor in the area where the remains were later found. In late September or early October 1994, he saw remnants of a sleeping bag in that area. Donald Means of the Washoe County Sheriff's Office performed forensic investigation of the remains. He noted "a lot of animal activity" and "trash bags, bones, and bone fragments strewn several hundred yards." A matted hairpiece was found with rope in it; the rope was the same diameter as the rope found with Powell's body. Means had also investigated Powell's death, and finding two "body dumps" "with trash bags and rope" in such a short period of time was unusual in Means's experience.
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