State v. Bradley
| Decision Date | 21 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. COA20-566,COA20-566 |
| Citation | 864 S.E.2d 850 |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. James Opleton BRADLEY, Defendant. |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Joseph L. Hyde, for the State.
Appellate Defender Glenn Gerding, by Assistant Appellate Defender Heidi Reiner, for Defendant-Appellant.
¶ 1 Elisha Tucker ("Ms. Tucker"), a resident of New Hanover County and girlfriend of Defendant James Opleton Bradley ("Defendant"), was reported missing by her mother in October 2013. Six months later, after law enforcement investigation of Ms. Tucker's case had gone cold, Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk ("Ms. Rippy"), Defendant's co-worker and another of his romantic interests, disappeared from her home in Wilmington. Defendant made numerous false statements about his possible involvement in Ms. Rippy's disappearance, leading police to search Defendant's jobsite for her body. There, police found a woman's nude corpse, bound in the fetal position by duct tape and wrapped in three trash bags, in a shallow grave beneath a tree stump. An autopsy later revealed the body belonged to Ms. Tucker. Ms. Rippy has never been found.1
¶ 2 Defendant appeals from a judgment entered following a jury verdict finding him guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Ms. Tucker. Defendant asserts prejudicial error in: (1) the admission of evidence concerning Ms. Rippy's disappearance; (2) allegedly improper closing arguments by the State; and (3) the denial of his motion to dismiss the first-degree murder charge for insufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation. After careful review, we hold Defendant has failed to demonstrate prejudicial error.
¶ 3 The record below tends to show the following:
1. Ms. Tucker's Disappearance
¶ 4 On 21 October 2013, Rose Waldron ("Ms. Waldron") reported her 34-year-old daughter, Ms. Tucker, missing. Ms. Waldron had filed several missing persons reports previously, as her daughter lived a troubled life that included a heroin addiction
, prostitution, homelessness, and a series of abusive relationships.
¶ 5 Wilmington Police Detective Carlos Lamberty ("Det. Lamberty") was named the lead investigator on Ms. Tucker's missing person case. Det. Lamberty patrolled several areas in Wilmington where Ms. Tucker was known to frequent, checked hotels and motels where she had previously stayed, released a department-wide call for information, and solicited tips through local media. All of these efforts failed to lead to the discovery of Ms. Tucker's whereabouts.
2. The Rippy Disappearance and Investigation
¶ 6 On 6 April 2014, Roberta Lewis ("Ms. Lewis") went to visit her daughter, Ms. Rippy, for her 54th birthday at her apartment in Wilmington. When Ms. Rippy did not come to the door, Ms. Lewis left and attempted to contact her daughter by phone over the next several hours. Ms. Lewis still had not heard from her daughter by the following morning, leading her to contact the Wilmington Police Department.
¶ 7 An officer forcibly entered the apartment in an effort to locate Ms. Rippy, but she was not inside. Nothing was missing from the apartment other than Ms. Rippy's purse. Her moped—her only source of transportation due to a revoked driver's license following several DWIs—was still parked outside. A written missing person report was filed shortly thereafter, and the matter was assigned to Det. Lamberty.
¶ 8 Wilmington police began their investigation into Ms. Rippy's disappearance by obtaining her cellular phone records, which revealed several calls to Defendant on the night before her disappearance. Given these call records, and in light of the fact that Defendant and Ms. Rippy were co-workers at a company called Mott Landscaping, police decided to try and locate Defendant at his home for an interview. Officers conducted their first interview with Defendant on 9 April 2014. He expressed surprise at her disappearance but told police she was severely depressed and had recently expressed suicidal ideations to him. He also told police at a follow-up interview two days later that he had last seen Ms. Rippy on 3 April 2014.
¶ 9 Det. Lamberty, along with fellow Detective Kevin Tully ("Det. Tully"), were able to discern from Ms. Rippy's cellular location data that she had travelled south from a bar in downtown Wilmington on 5 April 2014, the night before her disappearance. Dets. Lamberty and Tully reviewed traffic camera images from that evening and found footage of a truck matching the description of Defendant's vehicle travelling southbound consistent with the cellular location data from Ms. Rippy's phone. Dets. Lamberty and Tully also located surveillance footage from a gas station for the night in question, which showed Defendant buying items inside the station while Ms. Rippy was seated inside his truck.
¶ 10 Having caught Defendant in a lie about his last contact with Ms. Rippy, police obtained and executed a search warrant on Defendant's home and truck. They also interviewed Defendant again. Defendant acknowledged that he had been lying and explained that he had actually given her a ride to a nearby business on the night before Ms. Rippy's disappearance. This statement, too, proved to be untrue, as neither Defendant, his truck, nor Ms. Rippy appeared on the surveillance footage obtained from the business identified by Defendant. Police continued to press Defendant on these inconsistencies, eventually leading him to say that he had last seen Ms. Rippy on 5 April 2014 when she jumped out of his vehicle near Greenfield Lake while on the phone with Steven Mott ("Mr. Mott"), the owner of Mott Landscaping. In a later statement, Defendant told police that he knew he was under suspicion "because of other reasons in his past[2 ] and that ... he was the last person to see her alive."
¶ 11 Defendant also told detectives that he had taken at least one woman to a vacant lot owned by Mott Landscaping to engage in sexual activity. Police spent several weeks searching properties owned by and associated with Mott Landscaping for Ms. Rippy without success. Searches of the wooded areas around Defendant's home and Greenfield Lake were likewise unsuccessful.
3. The Recovery of Ms. Tucker's Body
¶ 12 Law enforcement continued to comb areas connected to Mott Landscaping and Defendant for Ms. Rippy's body over the ensuing weeks. On 29 April 2014, Wilmington police searched a farm owned by Mr. Mott in Pender County that Defendant was responsible for mowing and clearing. In the course of that search, officers found a naked body inside three black trash bags buried in a shallow grave. The body was found in the fetal position, its legs bound with duct tape. The State Crime Lab's analysis of the duct tape found on the body would later show it to be consistent with duct tape recovered from Defendant's apartment. Bleach and black trash bags were found in a nearby workshop. Though Det. Lamberty originally believed the body to be Ms. Rippy, an autopsy later revealed it to be Ms. Tucker.
4. Investigation Into Ms. Tucker's Murder
¶ 13 Already arrested for Ms. Rippy's disappearance, Defendant became a suspect in the Tucker investigation, resulting in additional searches of his home and effects for evidence pertinent to that case. Det. Lamberty requested a second search warrant for Defendant's truck and removed the driver's side floormat, carpet, and padding for DNA analysis. Several screening tests for blood returned positive results for portions of the floor padding and carpeting, and additional testing conclusively established the presence of human blood on those items. Samples from the padding and carpeting were also subjected to DNA analysis. Although the portions of the padding and floormat which conclusively tested positive for human blood failed to produce usable DNA samples, a section of the padding that tested inconclusively for blood tested uniquely positive for Ms. Tucker's DNA.
¶ 14 Police also discovered that a man named Peter Koke ("Mr. Koke"), who had previous dealings with Mr. Mott, Ms. Rippy, and Defendant, was propositioned by Ms. Tucker in July of 2013. When Mr. Koke declined her services, Ms. Tucker entered into a vehicle with Defendant. Mr. Koke had seen Ms. Tucker and Defendant together at other times and, on one occasion, witnessed a shouting match occur between Defendant and Ms. Rippy.
¶ 15 A detective with the Wilmington Police Department also met with a woman named Crystal Sitosky ("Ms. Sitosky") about Defendant's involvement with Mses. Rippy and Tucker. Ms. Sitosky, who struggled with an opioid addiction, first met Defendant in July of 2012 when he began flirting with her outside her probation office. Ms. Sitosky saw Ms. Tucker in Defendant's car during this conversation, which ended when she and Defendant exchanged numbers. Ms. Sitosky later saw Defendant again when she called him after her car was immobilized with a flat tire. She continued to see Defendant periodically because he provided her with money for drugs. Defendant repeatedly expressed a desire to form a romantic relationship with Ms. Sitosky, but she rebuffed his advances each time. She also met with Defendant at both the Mott Landscaping lot where he had engaged with sexual activity with other women and the tract in Pender County where Ms. Tucker's body was found. Defendant gave Ms. Sitosky a phone at one point, which contained photographs of Ms. Tucker and her children. He also hinted to Ms. Sitosky that he was romantically interested in Ms. Rippy, but that they were not in a relationship.
5. The Trial
¶ 16 Defendant was indicted for the first-degree murder of Ms. Tucker on 5 December 2016 and was tried beginning 22 January 2019. Prior to trial, the State moved to admit 404(b) evidence of the investigation into Ms. Rippy's disappearance, as well as copies of stories Defendant had written about murderers titled "The Beast Within" and "Serial Killer." Following a voir dire hearin...
To continue reading
Request your trial