Ransom v. State

• Citation: 789 S.W.2d 572
• Decision Date: 14 June 1989
• Docket Number: No. 69339,69339
• Parties: Kenneth Ray RANSOM, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 572

789 S.W.2d 572

Kenneth Ray RANSOM, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 69339.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas,

En Banc.

June 14, 1989.

Rehearing Overruled Sept. 20, 1989.

Certiorari Denied June 25, 1990. See 110 S. Ct. 3255.

Janet Morrow, Catherine Burnett, of counsel on appeal, and Wesley H. Hocker, court appointed on appeal, Houston, for appellant.

John B. Holmes, Jr., Dist. Atty., Kathlyn Giannaula, Brian Rains, Asst. Dist. Attys., Houston, and Robert Huttash, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

OPINION

McCORMICK, Presiding Judge.

Appellant, Kenneth Ray Ransom, appeals from his conviction for capital murder where the death penalty was assessed as punishment. On appeal to this Court, appellant raises fourteen points of error. Finding all points of error to be without merit, we accordingly affirm the conviction.

The Sufficiency of Evidence

Appellant claims that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the jury's determination of guilt. Reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, the record reflects the following:

Appellant was with his girl friend, Wanda Phillips, at her home for most of the day on June 30, 1983. After seven o'clock p.m., James Randle, a friend of appellant, came to Phillip's home to talk with him. Appellant and Randle went outside--away from Wanda and her small daughter. The two talked for about fifteen minutes. Randle left and appellant came back into the home. Later, Randle returned to the home for a second time. The two went outside again to talk for about fifteen minutes. Randle left, but between nine thirty and nine forty-five p.m., he returned to the home and for a third time he and appellant went outside to talk. Both men went into the kitchen after this third discussion. While there, they removed a butcher knife from the dish drainer. Randle told appellant, "Oh man, here's one that we can use." As they started to leave with the knife, Phillips asked appellant where he was going and said that she needed her knife. Appellant responded that they were going to pick up Randle's cousin's paycheck. Randle told her, "Hold on you're going to get your knife back. We'll bring that knife back."

Between nine thirty and ten o'clock p.m. that night, Randle's mother saw Randle with Richard James Wilkerson, Randle's cousin, and "another boy" at her home. Randle's younger brother, Jessie, saw appellant leave with Randle and Wilkerson at some time before midnight. Earlier that day, Randle's mother had borrowed a butcher knife from one of her neighbors but was later unable to find it.

At approximately ten o'clock that night, Wilkerson's sister saw appellant standing outside her home when she unlocked the screendoor to let her brother inside. Wilkerson went into the kitchen and rummaged through the drawer where the family kept the butcher knives. Randle waited in the kitchen doorway. After going through the drawer, Wilkerson went into the bedroom with Randle. The two went outside five or ten minutes after they had arrived at the home. When Wilkerson's sister locked the door behind them she saw appellant speaking with Wilkerson and Randle. The three left together.

Anil Varughese, Rod Harris, Arnold Pequeno and his younger brother, Joerene Pequeno, were employees of the Malibu Grand Prix Race Center in Houston. The race center, which contained numerous video games inside the center and had a racetrack for gocarts outside, was open for business from ten o'clock a.m. until midnight. Richard James Wilkerson had also been employed by the race center but his employment was terminated on June 20, 1983. Wilkerson could not pick up his last paycheck until June 30, 1983--the day that appellant told Phillips that he was going to pick up Randle's cousin's paycheck. Before Wilkerson could get the check he had to appear in person at the race center and sign his time card indicating that he had received it. As of two-thirty p.m., on June 30, 1983, Wilkerson had not picked up his check.

Late that night, at three o'clock a.m. on July 1, 1983, appellant with Randle and Wilkerson returned to Phillips' home. Wilkerson was carrying a black satchel. Appellant went into the bathroom and the other two men went into the bedroom. All three men had blood on their clothing. Appellant, while in the bathroom, tended to a severe cut on the inside of his right hand.

Inside the bedroom, Wilkerson poured the contents of the black satchel--currency, a wallet, a calculator and a watch--onto the bed. Some of the money was bloody. The three men counted it together after which Randle gave appellant a share. Phillips estimated appellant's share to be around three hundred and twenty-five dollars. Appellant counted the money, put it into his pocket and began watching television with the two other men. Wilkerson and Randle talked of how they had "slashed" somebody's throat and "put the knife in someone['s] temple." Phillips, while the men watched television, began cleaning her kitchen. She discovered that a billfold, some credit cards and a driver's license had been discarded in the garbage. The driver's license had the name "Roddy Harris" on it. Randle took the billfold, the credit cards and the license away from Phillips and threw them into the dumpster.

When Phillips asked appellant from where the money had come, he replied, "We just went and got some money." Phillips and appellant, that next day, used the money to purchase clothing for themselves.

Early that morning, at around eight o'clock a.m., the bodies of Anil Varughese Rod Harris, Joerene Pequeno and Arnold Pequeno were discovered at the race center by a friend of Varughese. Anil Varughese's body was discovered in the manager's office. He had been stabbed at least eight times--five times in the chest and three times in the abdomen. He was eighteen at the time of his death.

The other three bodies were found in one of the race center's bathrooms. Rod Harris' body was found in one of the stalls. He had been stabbed at least seven times in the chest. Joerene Pequeno's body was found in the other stall. He had been stabbed eleven times--once in the chest, once in the neck, once in the back, and once in the right hand; he had been stabbed seven times in the neck area with one cut severing his jugular vein. Arnold Pequeno's body was in a bathroom corner with his head under one of the urinals. He had been stabbed and cut twenty-two times in the neck, chest, abdomen, back and right hand. One of the cuts to his neck severed his jugular vein. Arnold's watch and class ring were missing along with a black satchel in which he carried his school books. At the time of their deaths, Rod Harris was twenty-two years old, Arnold Pequeno was nineteen and his younger brother, Joerene, was eighteen.

The three victims' blood covered the bathroom floor and was splattered on the walls and ceiling. There was blood not matching that of the victims on the sink's counter, on a paper towel and on the bathroom door. A trail of blood led out of the bathroom, through the race center and into the parking lot area. Analysis revealed that this blood could not have come from any of the victims or from either Randle or Wilkerson. Only appellant's blood was genetically compatible to it.

The fingerprint to appellant's left index finger was lifted from the door to the bathroom stall where Harris' body was found. The print was discovered on the inside of the door at the top. Randle's fingerprint was lifted from the inside of the door to the bathroom stall where Joerene Pequeno's body was found.

Over thirteen hundred dollars was missing from the race center's safe and petty cash drawers. Wilkerson's last paycheck was also missing. His time card had been signed and was found laying on the manager's desk.

The knife that was taken from Phillips' home was discovered in an area near the racetrack. The knife was broken into two pieces.

Late that evening on the day that the bodies were discovered, appellant was with Phillips. The two were watching television. A news story about the murders was broadcast. Upon seeing the story, appellant was visibly upset. At around seven o'clock that evening, appellant told Phillips that he was going to Wharton, Texas. The last time Phillips saw appellant, he was wearing a high school class ring and a watch both of which were identical to the ones that Arnold Pequeno had been wearing before his murder. Phillips had never seen appellant wear the ring or the watch before that day. Also, the calculator that was in the satchel along with the satchel itself were identified at trial as belonging to Arnold Pequeno.

Appellant, before this Court, insists that the above is insufficient to support a jury's determination of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Relying upon Garrett v. State, 682 S.W.2d 301 (Tex.Cr.App.1984) cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1009, 105 S.Ct. 1876, 85 L.Ed.2d 168 (1985), he asserts that the evidence supports a reasonable hypothesis that he did not know in advance that any robbery or killing was contemplated, did not agree to commit the offense and did not participate in it. Appellant directs our attention to that part of the record where he testified that he did not know Randle and Wilkerson went to the race center planning to rob and murder the four young men. He also directs us to that part of the record where Phillips testified that Wilkerson and Randle told her that appellant had no part in the killings and that he merely played video games while they committed all four murders. He insists that these portions support a reasonable hypothesis of his innocence inconsistent with guilt and that therefore his conviction for capital murder can not stand.

The standard of review for sufficiency of the evidence on appeal is the same for direct and circumstantial evidence cases, and that is to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the...