State v. Blair

• Citation: 298 S.W.3d 38
• Decision Date: 18 August 2009
• Docket Number: No. WD 69602.,WD 69602.
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Terry A. BLAIR, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

298 S.W.3d 38

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Terry A. BLAIR, Appellant.

No. WD 69602.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

August 18, 2009.

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied October 27, 2009.

Application for Transfer Denied December 22, 2009.

Frederick Joseph Ernst, Assistant State Public Defender, Kansas City, MO, for Appellant.

Shaun J. Mackelprang, Evan J. Buchheim, Assistant Attorneys General, Jefferson City, MO, for Respondent.

Before JOSEPH M. ELLIS, P.J., JAMES E. WELSH, J., and ZEL M. FISCHER, SP.J.

ZEL M. FISCHER, Special Judge.

This case involves the appeal of six separate murder convictions and six consecutive sentences of life without parole that resulted from a single bench trial. The issues raised on appeal are: (1) sufficiency of the evidence to support the convictions; (2) whether the trial court made inappropriate findings not supported by the record; and (3) whether the trial court erred in not suppressing the statements of the defendant based on the failure of the police to preserve the audio-visual recording of the interrogation. The judgment is affirmed.

General Facts

In December 2004, Terry A. Blair was charged in Jackson County circuit court with eight charges of first-degree murder, § 565.020, RSMo 2000, for the 2004 murders of eight women in Kansas City, Missouri. Blair was also charged with first-degree assault, § 565.050, RSMo 2000, and three charges of forcible rape, § 566.030, RSMo 2000.

Prior to trial, the State and Blair reached an agreement in which the State would dismiss two of the murder charges, dismiss the assault and forcible rape charges, and not seek the death penalty. In exchange, Blair agreed to permit admission of a witness' statement if she could not be located to testify at trial.

Blair waived his right to a jury trial, and on March 27, 2008, after a bench trial, the trial court found Blair guilty of the murders of Sheliah McKenzie, Patricia Wilson, Carmen Hunt, Anna Ewing, Darci Williams, and Claudette Juniel. On April 24, 2008, the trial court entered judgment and sentenced Blair to six consecutive sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Blair contests the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions. To avoid repetition, the general evidence, in a light most favorable to the verdict, is presented here. Specific evidence relating to each murder is included with the corresponding analysis.

a. Summer 2004

Throughout the summer of 2004, Blair stayed with his mother, who lived at 2449 Prospect, and with his sister, who lived at 1340 West Bluff. The man living above Blair's mother often let prostitutes eat, sleep, and shower at his apartment. Blair's grandmother lived nearby at 2454 Olive.

b. Anonymous 911 Calls

On September 3, 2004, at approximately 10:39 p.m., an unidentified male made a 911 call from a deactivated cell telephone without a SIM card (meaning no number was attached to identify the telephone making the call) to report a dead body at 29th and Park. (This body would later be identified as Carmen Hunt). At trial, a linguistics professor identified the 911 caller as an urban, native-English-speaking, African-American male in the lower-middle to upper working class.

The caller told the 911 dispatcher that the body was in the back yard at the northeast house on the corner. When asked how he knew there was a dead body there, he said, "I put it there." The caller refused to identify himself. When he was asked a second time how he knew the body was there, the man stated, "Because I put the two on 25th and Montgall, and I put that there." (In context, the caller is referring to the bodies of Sheliah McKenzie and Patricia Wilson).

The caller told the dispatcher the body at 29th and Park was in the back yard of an abandoned house on the corner and that it was "all the way to the fence by the alley, buried up under tree branches. It's been there for about two months." The caller said he did not know the victim's name, but knew she was a prostitute.

The caller again confirmed that he killed the other two prostitutes whose bodies were found at 25th and Montgall and then hung up.

On September 4, 2004, at 6:51 p.m., the same unidentified man, using the same cell telephone, called 911. The caller told the 911 dispatcher that he had called the day before to "report bodies" and that he was calling again to report "two more bodies."

The caller stated that one body was at 24th and Prospect "in the alley right next to the gate by the U-Haul place" and was covered by "black vinyl." (This body would later be identified as Darci Williams). The caller stated the other body was at 27th and Olive and covered with brush and pillows. (This body would later be identified as Claudette Juniel). The caller said the victims were prostitutes and that he killed them because they were "scum" and a "disgrace." The caller refused to give his name, but told the dispatcher that the body at 27th and Olive had been there for about six weeks and that the one at 24th and Prospect had been there only a week. The caller told the dispatcher, "you can smell her." The caller told the dispatcher that he did not know the victims' names, but that he was killing these women because they were prostitutes.

The caller went on to tell the dispatcher that he put the two bodies at 26th and Montgall (McKenzie and Wilson), and when asked if there were other victims, the caller mentioned the body found at 23rd and Prospect (Anna Ewing), but said that "they find [sic] her long time ago."

The cell telephone used to make these two calls, as well as a 911 hang-up call on August 30, 2004, was a T-Mobile cell telephone stolen from a maintenance company. Although the telephone did not have an internal SIM card, all phones have an International Mobile Equipment Identifier and a feature that always allows a cell telephone to dial 911. No further calls were attempted from this cell telephone after it was reported that police were attempting to track the location of the caller.

Officers made "test calls" with a T-Mobile cell telephone from Blair's mother's apartment and Blair's sister's duplex in an attempt to determine the location of the 911 caller. The officers' tests showed that the September 3rd call originated from the south of a cell tower at 18th Street and Prospect. Blair's mother's apartment was directly south of this tower. The August 30th hang-up call and the September 4th call both originated from the north of a tower located at 3330 Roanoke. Blair's sister's duplex at 1340 West Bluff is directly north of this cell-phone tower.

During the September 4, 2004, 911 call, the sounds of children playing and a train horn could be heard in the background. There are two playgrounds within a short distance of Blair's sister's housing complex, including one just behind her residence. Blair's sister's duplex is also located near several sets of railroad tracks. Train records and GPS coordinates show that a train blew its horn at 6:53 p.m. on September 4, 2004 (the 911 call that night started at 6:51), in a location near Blair's sister's duplex. At trial, a friend of Blair's testified that it was possible to hear the trains from Blair's sister's duplex.

c. Blair's Arrest

On September 6, 2004, Cherry Chadbourne flagged down police and told them that Blair told her he was going to kill all prostitutes one by one because they were the scum of the earth. Earlier that summer, Blair paid Chadbourne for sex. Chadbourne also told police that Blair had been stalking her and told her what she had been wearing the previous week. Blair also told Chadbourne he killed his first wife because she had become a prostitute.

On September 10, 2004, Blair was at a friend's house when his picture was featured in a newscast as a person of interest in a string of murders committed along the Prospect corridor. Blair's friend pretended she did not recognize him as the person of interest. When Blair left her house, she called the police. Blair later returned to his friend's house and hid in the garage. Police found Blair between the rear of a car and the back of the garage.

After his arrest, Blair received the Miranda warnings and agreed to talk to police. Blair was shown pictures of five of the victims. Blair denied having contact with any of the victims or being at any of the locations where the bodies were found.

Blair would later state that he recognized Darci Williams and that he had seen her ten or eleven days earlier. Blair denied ever having sex with Williams. Blair also denied ever having sex with any of the victims or any prostitute except for a woman named "Peaches" whom he paid for sex in 2002.

Blair also denied that he had made the anonymous 911 calls. Blair told police that on September 3 and 4, 2004, when the calls were made, he helped his mother move out of her apartment and stayed with his sister (thus placing him in the areas from where the 911 calls were made).

I.

Sufficient evidence exists to support all six of Blair's convictions for first-degree murder

Blair alleges insufficient evidence supports all six of his convictions for first-degree murder. Blair alleges that the DNA evidence admitted by the State fails to identify him as McKenzie's killer. Blair further extrapolates that because the State's DNA evidence failed to identify him as McKenzie's killer, that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction for murdering any of the six victims because the DNA evidence was the only direct association between Blair and any of the victims. Blair also argues that the court made impermissible inferences, unsupported by the evidence, to conclude that McKenzie's last conscious act was intercourse with Blair before he killed her.

a. Standard of Review

When considering a claim that alleges insufficient evidence to support a conviction, an appellate court's review is limited to determining whether the evidence is...