Rhodes v. State

• Decision Date: 20 June 1996
• Docket Number: No. 92-KA-00003-SCT,92-KA-00003-SCT
• Citation: 676 So.2d 275
• Parties: Lois W. RHODES v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 275

676 So.2d 275

Lois W. RHODES v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 92-KA-00003-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

June 20, 1996.

Samuel H. Wilkins, Jackson, for Appellant.

Michael C. Moore, Attorney General, DeWitt T. Allred, III, Special Assistant Attorney General, Jackson, for Appellee.

En Banc.

BANKS, Justice, for the Court.

This murder case presents the always perplexing circumstance that the victim and the accused were the only persons present when the wrongful act is alleged to have occurred. Further complicating this case is that the prosecution did not ensue until many years after the event. In the end, the question is whether there was sufficient evidence upon which a reasonable rational fact-finder could conclude that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We conclude that there was and find no other error requiring reversal. Accordingly, we affirm.

I.

Wirt Henry Rhodes (a/k/a "Bud") died of multiple gunshot wounds on June 29, 1982. Without the benefit of an autopsy, his death was determined at the scene to be death by suicide. Rumors concerning the cause of Mr. Rhodes' death began to surface approximately nine years later to the effect that James Winstead (Lois Rhodes' brother) had been called by Lois Rhodes late in the night of the death of Bud Rhodes; that James Winstead had gotten up, left home, gone to Winstead Construction and picked up new carpet, gone out to the Rhodes house, replaced the carpet, wiped the blood off of the wall, rolled Bud Rhodes in the carpet, taken him outside, and then brought him back in with the new carpet.

An investigation into the death of Mr. Rhodes was later conducted and on June 29 Dr. Lloyd White, a state medical examiner, testified at trial. The following is a summary of his testimony. In March or April of 1991, Mr. Rhodes' body was exhumed. White did an autopsy on the body to resolve questions pertaining to the alleged suicide. He examined the coffin and found a bullet at the bottom which he described as a large gray metallic (lead) unjacketed bullet. The corpse was totally skeletonized and decomposed. While examining the body, he found a bullet embedded below and behind the mastoid process on the left side of the skull (mastoid bullet). He described the bullet as probably a .38 unjacketed bullet. The wound created by this bullet was immediately incapacitating and quite probably fatal. He described the mastoid as a large projection of bone behind the ear called the temporal bone. The bullet was embedded in the outer layers of the skull and had not entered into the cranial cavity. The bullet could not have entered from the neck and ended up in the skull as the defense asserts because all of the bony structures under the surface of the skull were completely intact. In addition, there was no damage or defect to the front of the temporal bone. A bullet does not pass through a solid object without leaving some evidence that it has passed through. In addition, the cervical vertebra, defined by Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, 24th ed. (1965), as the upper vertebra constituting the skeleton of the neck, were undamaged other than normal postmortem changes. He could not imagine any way for the bullet to have gotten embedded in the mastoid, except by coming from directly below and behind the mastoid. He also observed the right temple wound. This wound was also immediately incapacitating and fatal. Since the neck tissue was decomposed and the wound tissue was no longer present and available for viewing, he could not testify to the existence of a neck wound. He testified that although people do shoot themselves multiple times, he did not believe that either the mastoid wound or the temple wound were self-inflicted because people do not inflict one incapacitating or fatal wound and then inflict another. Although Mr. Rhodes could have survived the neck wound and could have thereafter inflicted one of the incapacitating wounds, he could not have inflicted a third incapacitating wound because to do so would have required a "resurrection."

1982, Lois Rhodes, Mr. Rhodes' wife, was indicted by the Grand Jury of Winston County for Mr. Rhodes' murder.

Dr. Edward Waldrip, an anthropologist with a specialty in skeletal anatomy and skeletal identification, also testified at trial on behalf of the State and supported Dr. White's testimony.

Dr. Page Hudson and Dr. John Smialek, both specialists in forensic pathology, testified on behalf of the defense. In their opinion, a review of witness' statements who were at the scene of the death, the autopsy report, Dr. Waldrip's report, toxicology tests, preliminary hearing testimony, x-rays, bony remains of the body, and a diagram of Mr. Rhodes' house revealed that only two shots were fired to the right side of Mr. Rhodes' head and both were self-inflicted. They theorized that a bullet to the neck traveled in an upward direction. It struck the transverse process of the cervical vertebra, broke it off, and became embedded in the left mastoid area. Thus, the mastoid bullet was, in fact, the bullet which had inflicted the wound to the neck. Hudson testified that the bullet left a trail of small lead particles as it traveled in the upward direction. He further stated that the cap of the mastoid bone had been knocked off in several pieces and glued back together in a manner which concealed the bullet's track. In addition to the neck wound, both doctors testified that Mr. Rhodes suffered a temple wound.

Dr. James Giffin, a medical doctor practicing in Louisville and employer of Rhodes, also testified at trial. Rhodes had worked for him for over thirty years as a bookkeeper, secretary, and receptionist. After the shooting, Rhodes called him at the hospital and informed him that she thought Mr. Rhodes shot himself. She informed him that she went to her barn to feed horses during which time she heard two shots. She went back to the house and saw Mr. Rhodes lying on the bedroom floor.

Rhodes' rendition of the event was similarly testified to by Toby Wilson, an emergency Upon viewing the body at the house, Giffin saw the right temple wound and the neck wound. He noticed that the neck wound began on the right of the centerline of the neck and created a crease or furrow going in an upward direction in an angle toward the left ear. He did not observe anything from a medical standpoint that would indicate that the wounds were in any way caused by a third party. Giffin's testimony was supported by Toby Wilson, the emergency technician, George Westbrook, Winston County Coroner, Phillip Gillis, Westbrook's assistant, and Roy Ryals, insurance agent for Equitable Life Assurance Society, all of whom testified to observing Mr. Rhodes' body soon after the shooting.

                medical technician employed at the Winston County Community Hospital, and Sheriff Cecil Jennings.   A somewhat different version of the event was testified to by Rhonda Haggard, a close friend of the Rhodes family, who stated that Rhodes informed her that she heard a shot after she fed the horses and was headed toward the house.   She started running down the hall and saw that Mr. Rhodes had a gun to his head.   She yelled "Bud, don't" and Mr. Rhodes pulled the trigger.   June Eskridge, Mr. Rhodes' sister, testified to being told this same version of the events
                

Sheriff Cecil Jennings, Sheriff of Winston County at the time of the shooting, also testified at trial. He recalled that when he arrived at Rhodes' house, he observed the body lying face down. He turned Mr. Rhodes over, examined him with his hands and observed the neck wound, the temple wound and, when Mr. Rhodes was cleaned up, he observed a small "bursted out place" to the left of the center of his head where it appeared that something had come out.

Jennings' testimony that he examined the body was contradicted by Wilson, who testified that he was in the room the entire time Jennings was in the room while the body was present, and Jennings never examined the body.

Sheriff Jennings concluded that the death was caused by self-inflicted gunshot wounds, and there was nothing at the scene that suggested that the shots were fired by someone else. An autopsy was not done on the body because after examining it in the presence of the coroner, the coroner's jury, and Dr. Giffin, he asked whether anyone thought an autopsy was necessary, and Dr. Giffin said no because it was a suicide. No one objected.

Sheriff Jennings found a .38 Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistol lying three or four inches from Mr. Rhodes' right hand. He found two fired bullets and four unfired hollow-point bullets when he opened up the cylinder. The trial court admitted a gun into evidence, and Jennings testified that it was not the gun he found next to the body. The gun at the scene had a four inch barrel, the gun introduced by the State was a snub-nosed gun with a very short barrel. William Metts, Rhodes' son-in-law, was also present at the house after the shooting and testified that the gun introduced by the State was not the gun that Jennings had at the scene. He stated that the gun at the scene was a blue steel gun with a wood handle; the gun introduced by the State had a lighter handle on it.

The gun admitted into evidence was the subject of a pre-trial motion in limine by the defense, who argued that the gun was found over nine years after Mr. Rhodes' death, had no connection with the death and, thus, was irrelevant. The motion was denied on the basis that the court had no way of knowing whether the gun had any connection to the death. It was also the subject of a motion in limine at trial. The motion was overruled because the court found that no gun was ever identified as being the gun that actually shot Mr. Rhodes, including the gun found lying next to his body. Furthermore, the court found that there was testimony that the gun admitted into evidence could have caused the wound. Thus, whether the gun admitted into evidence was...