State v. Bunley

• Decision Date: 12 December 2001
• Docket Number: No. 2000-KA-0405.,2000-KA-0405.
• Citation: 805 So.2d 292
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Robin B. BUNLEY.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

805 So.2d 292

STATE of Louisiana v. Robin B. BUNLEY.

No. 2000-KA-0405.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.

December 12, 2001.

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Harry F. Connick, District Attorney, Anne M. Dickerson, Assistant District Attorney New Orleans, LA, Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellee.

Pamela S. Moran, Louisiana Appellate Project, LA, Counsel for Defendant/Appellant.

Court composed of Judge CHARLES R. JONES, Judge TERRI F. LOVE and Judge MAX N. TOBIAS, Jr.

TOBIAS, Judge.

On 27 March 1997, the State indicted Robin B. Bunley ("Bunley" or "the defendant") and Ricky Coston ("Coston")¹ for the first-degree murder of Lillian G. Thomas ("Thomas"). Bunley pled not guilty at her arraignment on 1 April 1997. Jury selection commenced 13 July 1998, but a mistrial was ordered on 23 June 1998.² A second trial commenced 14 July 1998, and on 18 July 1998, the jury found the defendant guilty of second-degree murder. On 21 August 1998, the defense filed motions for post verdict judgment of acquittal and new trial, which were denied. On that same day, the court sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence. A timely motion for appeal followed.

STATEMENT OF FACT

On 22 January 1997, Simuel Miller, III ("Miller") filed a missing persons report on the victim, Thomas, his godmother. Officer John Dobard responded to the report and met with Miller at Thomas' residence. Miller explained to Officer Dobard that the last contact he had with Thomas was on 5 January 1997. He gave officer Dobard three cancelled checks drawn on Thomas' Hibernia National Bank checking account. One of the checks, dated 29 December 1996, was made payable to Schwegmann's Supermarket. The other two checks, made out to "cash" in amounts totaling $925.00, were written and cashed after 5 January 1997, the last date Miller had contact with Thomas. Miller told Officer Dobard that the signatures on the three checks did not belong to Thomas.

When the missing person report crossed Detective Ronald Brink's desk the following day, he began investigating the matter, and contacted some of the victim's family members. Detective Brink also contacted Hibernia National Bank's fraud investigator, Ado Ball, and learned that on 30 December 1996, the victim executed an affidavit attesting that her purse had been stolen, and that checks were subsequently improperly cashed against her account. Bank records indicated a rapid depletion of funds from the victim's checking and savings accounts during the time she had been reported missing.

On 25 January 1997, Detective Brink and Miller sorted through Thomas' mail at her residence, and discovered an envelope addressed to the victim, which contained a contract of lease for a house at 4737 Loyola Avenue. The contract named Thomas as lessor of the property and Bunley as tenant. Detectives Joseph Waguespack and Brink went to Bunley's house at approximately 10:00 p.m. that night to speak with her. Bunley stated that she and her three children had lived at the address since November 1996. She said the last time she saw Thomas was 6 January 1997 at around 2:00 p.m., when Thomas came to pick up the balance of the defendant's security deposit on the house. The defendant-stated that she received a $76.00 monthly subsidy from the Housing Authority and that her only source of income came from doing "hair plaits." She added that her friend, NOPD Officer Wheeler Sullivan ("Sullivan"), helped her out from time to time and that in fact the $225.00 she paid the victim on 6 January 1997 had come from Sullivan.

Detective Brink continued to interview the victim's family and neighbors and on 27 January 1997, issued a public appeal via local television stations for help in locating the victim. That same day, Officer Ralph Caesar responded to a complaint of an abandoned car in the 4400 block of Dryades Street. Officer Caesar ran the car's license plate and learned that the vehicle had been reported missing by Detective Brink in his missing person's investigation. Ellis Joubert, whose business office was located in the 4400 block of Dryades Street, told Detective John Ronquillo that the victim's vehicle had been parked there since shortly after the first of the year, vandalized, and collecting dust and debris. Later that same evening, Sullivan called the Sixth District police station to report that he had information on the victim. Officer James Daughtry met with Sullivan, who confided that he had just seen the news broadcast about Thomas and feared he might be implicated in her disappearance.

At trial Sullivan testified that he and Bunley had been lovers for about ten years, and that he gave her money periodically. When he tried to break off the affair, the defendant threatened him with the exposure of the relationship to his wife, family, and the NOPD. This intimidation kept him under the defendant's control. He told Officer Daughtry that Bunley called him early in January 1997, and told him that Thomas had had a heart attack and died at the defendant's residence, but that he ignored the defendant. Thereafter, in mid-January, Bunley called and asked Sullivan to visit her at the 4737 Loyola Avenue residence, which the did. After the pair engaged in sex, the defendant took Sullivan into the back room where she showed him a blanket-covered object on the floor. Sullivan believed the object was Thomas' body. He refused to discuss what he had seen with the defendant and told her that he did not want to get involved. After divulging this information, Sullivan was arrested and charged as an accessory after the fact of murder for failure to report the crime in a timely manner.³

Acting upon information supplied by Sullivan, Detective Ronquillo obtained and executed a search warrant at Bunley's residence in the early morning hours of 28 January 1997, in the hope of finding the victim's body. The search did not produce the body.⁴ Thereafter, Bunley accompanied the officers to the homicide division, where she was interviewed concerning her knowledge of Thomas' disappearance. At approximately 5:00 a.m. on 28 January 1997, Bunley led officers to the rear of a building in the 4600 block of South Claiborne Avenue, where they found the victim's smoldering remains.

The defendant gave two videotaped statements, which were viewed by the jury.

In her first videotaped statement recorded on 28 January 1997, Bunley said she first met the victim when she rented the Loyola Avenue property from her. Bunley moved into the house in October 1996; about a month later, a friend introduced her to Coston, a drug dealer. The defendant admitted using marijuana and cocaine with Coston in her home and "the spot," the place where Thomas' charred remains were recovered. She said that she last saw the victim on 20 January 1997. She described coming home that day and finding Coston sitting on the steps in the back of her house. He was distraught over having allegedly killed "a lir youngster" in the St. Thomas Housing Development. When she and Coston entered the house, she discovered Thomas dead on the floor between the kitchen and bedroom. She said she assumed the victim died from a heart attack or stroke because there was nothing to suggest foul play. The defendant wanted to notify the authorities; however, Coston would not let her.⁵ Instead, Coston covered the victim's body with a blanket and put it in the trunk of his car,⁶ telling the defendant he would dispose of it. When the defendant spoke to Coston on 27 January 1997, he told her that he would take the body to "the spot" and burn it. Bunley claimed she called Sullivan and told him of the victim's death, giving him the impression the body was still in her house. Sullivan told her to call the police, and then went to the defendant's house, where he allegedly told her he would have helped her move the body earlier; however, moving it now was too risky. The defendant said she called Crimestoppers and the Second District NOPD station, but could not get help from anyone. She said that she heard nothing about the victim from anyone, until the police came to her house one week later. Bunley said that Coston gave her the victim's checkbook and savings withdrawal slips, telling her to forge Thomas' signature. The defendant denied cashing checks or withdrawing funds from Thomas' accounts.

After the police interviewed Coston and Sullivan, they re-interviewed Bunley. She told Detectives Dwight Deal and Kenneth Harris that she had not been completely truthful in her earlier statement, that she lied to protect herself. She recanted her earlier statement that Thomas died of natural causes, and admitted to participating with Coston in the "set-up" which led to the victim's death. Bunley directed and accompanied officers to an alleyway off South Telemachus Street, where she said the victim's body had been dumped before being re-located to "the spot" and burned. The defendant returned to the homicide office and agreed to give Detectives Deal and Harris a second videotaped statement.

The second statement was videotaped on 30 January 1997 by Detectives Deal and Harris. In this statement, Bunley said she told Coston on 4 January 1997 that the victim would be at her rented house on 6 January 1997 to collect the security deposit on the house. Coston told the defendant he was going "to get" the victim and asked if the defendant agreed with that. On 6 January 1997, when the victim arrived to collect the deposit, Coston watched from down the block, seated in his car. Coston had planned to cause a car accident, and then rob the victim. When Coston returned to the defendant's house an hour later and gave her $75.00, she knew where the money had come from. The defendant noticed the victim's car parked on Valence Street two days later, but did nothing. On 9 January 1997, Coston gave Bunley the victim's checkbook, and told her to forge the signature and...