Murry v. State

• Decision Date: 21 June 1982
• Docket Number: No. CR,CR
• Parties: Herschel Glen MURRY, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. 81-117.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 237

635 S.W.2d 237

276 Ark. 372

Herschel Glen MURRY, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR 81-117.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

June 21, 1982.

Damon Young and James E. Davis, Texarkana, for appellant.

Steve Clark, Atty. Gen., Little Rock, by William C. Mann, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

HICKMAN, Justice.

Herschel Glen Murry was convicted of killing his mother and sentenced to life imprisonment. He denied the act and the case against Murry was circumstantial. On appeal it is argued the conviction should be reversed because there was no substantial evidence to support the verdict and because the trial court erred in permitting law enforcement officers to testify regarding statements Murry made to them at the initial stage of the investigation.

Actually, Murry convicted himself when he admitted writing a letter that was mailed to the Chief of Police of Ashdown, Arkansas, two weeks after the murder, and when it became obvious that Murry's first statements to the law enforcement officers could not be reconciled with an autopsy report. Those statements placed him at home with his mother at the time of the murder-not elsewhere as he testified at his trial.

Murry, seventeen, and his mother lived alone in a house trailer in Little River County near the Oklahoma state line. His mother, Nedra Sharp, who had been married twice before and was single at the time, worked as a licensed practical nurse in a nursing home in Ashdown, Arkansas. Murry had finished the eleventh grade in high school, had dropped out of school, and was working as a welder for a local man. He said he got off work about 3:00 or 3:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon, January 11, 1980, and went home. Shortly thereafter his mother arrived home. He left to check on some animal traps he had set nearby, went on into Foreman, washed his pickup truck and returned home. He told two officers his mother was eating supper when he left and he specifically recalled she was eating fish sticks. He said he did not eat. He said his mother mentioned that she was going to meet an old friend that evening from Shreveport and he did not recall the man's full name but thought he was called Lane. He said after he returned from washing his truck, he took a shower, changed his clothes, and left in his mother's Pontiac Trans Am for Betty's Place which is located in nearby Oklahoma; Betty's is a local establishment that sold beer and is frequented by young people. He and a friend played pool, later went to his friend's home and in the early morning hours of the next day he returned to the trailer. He said the lights were on, the television was on, there was blood all over the trailer, and his mother was missing. He awakened a relative of his who lived about a mile away and brought him to the trailer. The relative called the local deputy sheriff. The deputy got to the trailer at 4:09 a. m. He made a preliminary investigation. He left and then returned with several other officers about 8:00 a. m. The officers questioned Murry about his whereabouts that night, his mother's activities and friends and what he knew about the possibility of her death. A crime scene investigation was made of the trailer and as one officer testified, it was obvious there had been a fierce struggle. Blood was on the carpet, walls, and door steps; large chunks of hair were found in the trailer and two small pieces of what appeared to be a human skull. The officers were told about the man named Lane and found that name in Mrs. Sharp's telephone book. Indeed such a man lived in Shreveport who had dated Mrs. Sharp. He was Lane Barmore. He was not her regular boyfriend; he was married, but had dated Mrs. Sharp. Several Arkansas officers went to Shreveport and with Louisiana authorities conducted an investigation. The officers were satisfied that Mr. Barmore had an honest alibi. His vehicle had been searched and inspected. Evidence of blood was found in the trunk and examined but it proved to be animal blood. He was no longer a suspect. It was not until January

24th, two weeks after the incident, that the officers said they suspected Herschel Glen Murry. That day a letter was received at the police department in Ashdown which was printed in large letters. It read:

NEDRA WAS A GOOD PIRSON BUT SHE HAD TO DIE FOR SHE DID NOT WONT TO MARY ME. I LOVED HER BUT I HAD TO DO IT I HAIF TO KILL THE BOY TO HE WILL DIE TO I NO WHERE HE IS

I PUT NEDRA UNDER SOME TREE TOPS ABOUT 1000 YARDS EAST OF THE OLD HOUSE PLACE AT PINNEY

THE BOY IS DID TO

The sheriff's office called Murry to the office. He was warned of his rights and asked to give them ten samples of his handwriting. The officers directed that he write out the contents of the letter they had received. Murry was not shown the letter; an officer read it to him. Shortly thereafter an expert concluded that Murry had written the letter. Murry was asked about the letter, and after about two hours he admitted he had written it. He said when he was in Louisiana with relatives during the past week, a man stopped him on the road, got in his pickup truck, held a pistol on him and threatened to shoot Murry if he did not do exactly as the man said. He said the man told him he had his mother and unless he did what he was told he would kill her. He could only give a general description of the man but he said the man was very upset and crying. He said he wrote down exactly what he was told and later mailed the letter. He did not tell anyone of this incident. He still denied killing his mother or knowing anything about her disappearance. On the basis of the letter, a search was conducted in the area and eventually the body of Nedra Sharp was found on the 31st of January in a shallow grave near the old Piney Cemetery. It was near an old home place approximately one-half mile from the home of Murry and his mother. The grave was covered with dead pine tree tops and located at the edge of a sage grass field.

Other critical circumstantial evidence in this case was that Murry in conversations with at least two of the officers told them that he left the trailer at 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. to wash the truck and his mother had prepared some fish sticks before he left. He said that his mother ate her supper but that he did not. The medical examiner conducting the autopsy said that because of the weather conditions in January, the body of the deceased was well preserved and he was able to determine that Mrs. Sharp died within thirty minutes or an hour after she ate supper. He said he was able to determine this because he found undigested fish in her stomach and therefore he could estimate accurately her time of death. If Murry's first version given to the police was true, he was at the trailer when she was killed which would have been well before 8:00 p. m., which was about the time that he left the trailer that evening. He was seen in town washing his truck by his friend, Don Cleghorn. His friend testified that he saw Murry at the car wash between 6:30 and 7:30 p. m., January 11th. He said he saw what appeared to be some tufts of hair that looked like animal hair in the back of the pickup truck which Murry was washing. Murry told him he had killed a deer. Murry testified that he did tell this acquaintance that he had killed a deer, and that he was washing out his pickup truck because he did not want to get caught by the Game and Fish people. Actually, at the trial he said he had not killed a deer that day but had killed one several days before. Murry testified that he was at the car wash between 5:30 and 6:00 p. m.

A distant relative of Murry's who lived in the vicinity said that he saw Murry as he drove by the trailer that evening shortly between 6:00 and 6:20 p. m.; it was dark. He saw Murry pull out from the trailer in his pickup truck. He said that Murry was going very slowly behind him 75 to 100 yards, and this aroused his attention because Murry usually drove...