State v. Cory
| Decision Date | 25 November 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 14-1436,14-1436 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JEREMY MICHAEL CORY, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Iowa Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Story County, James A. McGlynn, Judge.
A defendant appeals from his conviction for murder in the first degree. AFFIRMED.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Martha J. Lucey, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Kevin Cmelik and Kyle Hanson, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellee.
Heard by Potterfield, P.J., and Doyle and Tabor, JJ.
A jury found Jeremy Cory guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife, Vallerie. The evidence showed Cory remained at home with his wife's decomposing body for at least four days and lied about her whereabouts when a friend and then a police officer checked on her welfare. Although Cory had a history of alcohol abuse and had been drinking heavily up until the time of his arrest, he did not raise an intoxication defense. Cory told investigators he did not kill his wife but rather found her dead.
On appeal, Cory challenges the jury's verdict, claiming the State presented insufficient proof he committed the murder. He also argues the district court violated his right to present a defense by excluding evidence of his alcoholism. In a related issue, Cory contends the court erred in limiting his opportunity to question potential jurors concerning alcohol abuse. Cory further claims the court erred in excluding evidence of a burglary that occurred at his house two weeks after his arrest. Finally, Cory alleges his trial counsel was ineffective for not raising an argument under article I, section 10 of the Iowa Constitution in seeking to suppress statements Cory made during a law enforcement interview.
Given the overwhelming evidence of Cory's guilt, we find he was not prejudiced by the rulings challenged on appeal. Because further development of the record is necessary to assess his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, we preserve it for possible postconviction-relief proceedings.
Jeremy and Vallerie Cory1 met while working the same shift at the Des Moines Bridgestone Tire plant, where they were both long-time employees. They married in 2006; it was a second marriage for both of them. They started out living in Huxley but then moved to a house on a small acreage in Cambridge. Vallerie "loved that house," but her friend and coworker, Renate Varvel, sensed Vallerie was increasingly unhappy in her marriage. Varvel saw Cory's "explosive" temper first-hand during a visit to the Cambridge residence, when Cory was "two inches from [Vallerie's] face screaming" repeatedly "move your fuckin' car." Varvel also noticed fist-sized holes in the dining room walls that had not been there when the couple moved into the Cambridge house. Vallerie even considered Varvel's offer of another place to stay. Vallerie's niece was also concerned after witnessing tense interactions between Cory and her aunt.
Local law enforcement likewise knew the Corys had a "very rocky relationship." The Huxley police, who also patrolled Cambridge, responded to three domestic abuse calls at the Cory residence during the summer and fall of 2013. Vallerie's adult son, Troy Roberts, who had a history of illicit drug use and unemployment, stayed in the basement of the Cambridge house in early 2014. His mother asked him to leave the residence in February 2014; Roberts recalled about that same time she moved from the bedroom she shared with Cory on the main floor of the house to an upstairs bedroom of her own.
The record does not reveal with precision when Vallerie was killed. Vallerie last clocked out of work at 5:38 p.m. on Tuesday, April 8, 2014. The company keeps records of when its employees are on the property. If the employees are not able to work as scheduled, they must "call off." Vallerie did not "call off" after April 8. Varvel became concerned when Vallerie missed a union meeting on April 9, failed to show up for work the following weekend, and did not responded to her emails or text messages. Roberts also was texting his mother during this time and wondered why she did not follow her practice of promptly replying to his messages.2
Meanwhile, Cory "called off" from work on April 7 and 8. On the evening of Thursday, April 10, Cory unexpectedly showed up at his mother's house in Elkhart, asking her to prepare his favorite Norwegian dish for him. He arrived in Vallerie's Chevy Impala, rather than the pickup truck he usually drove.3 His mother described the visit as "normal." Cory was scheduled to work again on April 11, 12, and 13 but neither showed up nor "called off" for those shifts.
On Monday, April 14, Varvel sent her boyfriend Anthony Reitano to Cory's home to look for Vallerie. Reitano talked to Cory, who "looked a mess." Cory said Vallerie was staying with her mother, and when Reitano looked doubtful, Cory said: "That's my story."
Because Reitano felt something was not right, he and Varvel asked the Huxley police to perform a welfare check on Vallerie. Officer Joseph Marchesano stopped by the Cory house around 5:30 p.m. on April 14. A drunken Cory answered the door and let Marchesano in. When the officer asked about Vallerie's whereabouts, Cory said she was not home. By Marchesano's estimate, Cory gave four different locations for Vallerie during their eighteen-minute conversation. Cory first said Vallerie was with her mother and then said she was with her sister, though Cory could not recall the name of his mother-in-law or sister-in-law. Then Cory suggested Vallerie was at work. Finally, Cory told the officer he did not know where she was.
The officer asked for Vallerie's cell phone number. The first number Cory provided turned out to be the number for Cory's own cell phone, which rang when the officer called it. When Cory gave the officer Vallerie's number, calls went straight to voicemail. Cory then told Marchesano Vallerie had moved out on Friday. But Marchesano had seen women's clothes folded in the laundry room when he entered the home, and he noticed Vallerie's car in the driveway. Cory allowed Marchesano to look around the first floor and the basement. Cory's bedroom was on the first floor. Cory denied Marchesano permission to go to the second floor; when pressed for a reason, Cory told the officer he had a marijuana growing operation there.
Officer Marchesano left the home and obtained a search warrant while another officer stayed with Cory. Marchesano returned around 10 p.m. with officers from the drug task force to execute the warrant. Marchesano, who stood with Cory as the officers started to search, noticed Cory's demeanor changed; he became "real nervous, fidgety" and said, "Oh shit; I'm fucked." When asked why, Cory responded, "You're about to find out."
The officers executing the warrant noticed the second floor was much cooler than the first floor—as if someone had left a window open. The first upstairs bedroom door was open; the second bedroom door was closed. Officers entered the room with the closed door and found the floor littered with shell casings and a bullet hole in the mirror. They also noticed a strong odor of decomposition. When the officers discovered the body, they cleared the room.
Upon the discovery, Marchesano handcuffed Cory and read him his Miranda rights. When asked if that was Vallerie's body upstairs, Cory responded "he hoped it was," but he was not sure. Cory then gave yet another version of events, saying he went to get beer and when he came back, Vallerie was gone. When asked again if that was Vallerie's body upstairs, Cory replied: "Yep."
In a fleeting moment of candor, Cory then said: "It just didn't work out" with Vallerie. Cory next told Officer Marchesano and Huxley Police Chief Mark Pote that he found her body on Friday, that she looked as if she had been shot, but "he had been pounding beers ever since." Cory denied shooting Vallerie.
Officers transported Cory to the Huxley police department where he was interviewed by Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Agent Don Schnitker for more than two hours. During the tape-recorded interview, Cory never admitted shooting Vallerie. He provided differing answers as to when he last saw Vallerie alive. At one point, Cory told Agent Schnitker when he arrived home on Friday he called out for Vallerie but heard no response. He went upstairs and found Vallerie lying on the floor. Cory said he knew she was dead: "you could just smell it." Cory said his response was to go get "a case of beer." Cory denied having an argument with Vallerie that day, saying: Cory said he would never call the police for any reason and stayed in the house despite the body being upstairs. The agent questioned Cory about the timing of events but initially received indefinite responses. Toward the end of the interview, Cory told the agent that early Friday morning he heard "some pounding" from Vallerie's room—"almost like a thunderstorm"—and that's when he went upstairs to check on her. Cory said he did not see anyone leaving the house.
While Agent Schnitker interviewed Cory, investigators combed through the crime scene. They found no sign of forced entry to the house, though the evidence showed the Corys did not commonly lock their door. Investigators collected twenty .223 caliber shell casings from the floor of Vallerie's bedroom. An autopsy later confirmed Vallerie had been shot eighteen times with a .223 caliber Ruger mini-14 rifle.
Investigators found the murder weapon, which belonged to Cory, muzzle down leaning against the wall in his bedroom closet on the first floor; beside it was a twenty-round magazine. DCI analysists later identified a latent fingerprint on the stock of the murder weapon as being made by Cory's right...
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