State v. Hummel

Decision Date17 October 2016
Docket NumberNo. 72068–6–I,72068–6–I
Citation196 Wash.App. 329,383 P.3d 592
CourtWashington Court of Appeals
Parties State of Washington, Respondent, v. Bruce Allen Hummel, Appellant.

Nancy P. Collins, Washington Appellate Project, 1511 3rd Ave., Ste. 701, Seattle, WA, 98101–3647, Bruce Allen Hummel (Appearing Pro Se), DOC # 334240, Monroe Corr. Center, P.O. Box 777, Monroe, WA, 98272, for Appellant.

David Stuart McEachran, Kimberly Anne Thulin, Whatcom County Prosecutor's Office, 311 Grand Avenue, Suite 201, Bellingham, WA, 98225, for Respondent.

Schindler

, J.

Following the second trial in this case, a jury convicted Bruce Allen Hummel of premeditated murder in the first degree of his spouse Alice Kristina Hummel. Even when viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence does not support finding the essential element of premeditation beyond a reasonable doubt.

We reverse and vacate the conviction of premeditated murder in the first degree. Because the prosecutor did not request the court instruct the jury on murder in the second degree, we must remand to dismiss the conviction with prejudice.

FACTS

¶2 Bruce Allen Hummel and Alice Kristina Wehr Hummel married and have three children, S.C., S.H., and S.K. Hummel and Alice taught school in rural Alaska for a number of years.1 Alice suffered from lupus and as a result, in April 1979, she retired from teaching on disability. Alice was entitled to receive disability benefits from the State of Alaska Teachers' Retirement System from April 1979 until she turned 60 and was eligible to receive retirement benefits on February 28, 2004.

¶3 Hummel and Alice purchased a house in Bellingham, Washington. Hummel continued to teach school in Alaska. Alice operated a computer business from home. Hummel would spend summers with Alice and the children in Bellingham.

¶4 In June 1986, Hummel decided to stop teaching in Alaska. Hummel did construction work in Bellingham. He would also frequently go to remote forest areas to collect cedar and pine cones to sell to a company that made potpourri.

Alice Disappears on October 18, 1990

¶5 In 1990, only 17–year–old S.H. and 13–year–old S.K. were living at home. According to S.H., Hummel and Alice “never really got along at that point.” S.H. fought with his father “a bit” and “didn't get along all that well” with his mother. According to S.K., there was “constant arguing in the house, but it ... wasn't always directly between” Hummel and Alice.

¶6 In 1990, S.K. had been taking ballet lessons. In October, Alice made plans to attend a ballet performance with S.K. to celebrate her fourteenth birthday on October 21, 1990. S.K. was looking forward to going to the ballet with Alice. A few days before her birthday, S.K. disclosed to Alice that Hummel sexually abused her. S.K. said Hummel had forced her to help him masturbate for years. Alice told S.K. she would “take care of it.”

¶7 S.K. saw Alice before she left for school on Thursday, October 18. When S.K. returned home from school around 3:30 p.m., Hummel told S.K. that Alice received a telephone call for a job interview in California. When S.H. returned home from school, Hummel told S.H. that Alice “was going off to California for a job interview.” S.H. knew Alice was looking for “a job with computers” and “California was the primary area that she was looking” for a job. Alice did not return to attend the ballet with S.K. on her birthday.

¶8 One or two weeks later, Hummel told S.H. and S.K. that Alice needed some possessions for her job in California. Hummel asked S.K. to help pack medications, jewelry, and clothing for Alice. While packing, S.K. found Alice's “current purse” and wallet but she did not examine the contents of the wallet. S.H. watched Hummel pack a bag with Alice's needlepoint and a box of software to send to California. Hummel later told S.H., S.K., and their older sister S.C. that Alice got a promotion and moved to Texas.

¶9 S.K., S.H., and S.C. never saw or spoke to Alice after October 18, 1990. S.K. received typewritten birthday cards signed by Alice and a letter stating she “met a new guy who didn't like kids.” That winter, S.H. received a Christmas card signed by Alice but Hummel signed the check inside. In March 1991, S.C. received an anniversary card signed by Alice. In August, S.C. received a package from Alice for her birthday with a return address in Fort Worth, Texas but with a postal service stamp of “not a valid address.”

In spring 1991, S.K. saw the possessions she had packed to send to Alice “in a pile” for a garage sale. S.H. later found the bag with the needlepoint and the box of software in the basement.

¶11 Hummel told S.H. that Alice planned to attend his high school graduation in June 1991. But a day or two before the graduation, Hummel said Alice “wasn't going to be able to make it after all.” After S.H. graduated, he moved to Nevada. Hummel listed the Bellingham house for sale. Hummel and S.K. moved to Okanogan. Hummel taught school in Okanogan and then moved to Enumclaw to teach school.

¶12 Alice often left notes for S.H. in the basement ceiling of the house in Bellingham. While the house was listed for sale, S.H. returned to the house and found a “suicide letter” from Alice in the basement ceiling. S.H. said he was “pretty distraught” when he read the letter “for a number of reasons, but the main one is it was definitely written in my father's handwriting.” S.H. did not keep the letter.

¶13 S.H. and S.K. tried to locate Alice using “online search databases” and a search service called “1–800 U.S. Search” without success. After Alice's father died in January 1993, S.C. made a “concerted” effort to locate Alice. “I felt that it was important that she know that he had passed away, and there was also an inheritance for her involved.” S.C. could not locate Alice.

August 2001 Missing Person Report

¶14 S.K. moved to Seattle when she was 17. Sometime around 2000, S.C. and S.K. spent time together. S.K. told S.C. for the first time “about the abuse” and the “anomalies that she noticed at the time of [Alice]'s disappearance.” S.C. then talked to S.H. about Alice's disappearance. On August 21, 2001, S.C. filed a missing person report with the Bellingham Police Department.

¶15 Bellingham Police Detective Les Gitts and Detective Michael Mozelewski interviewed S.C., S.H., and S.K. and investigated the disappearance. The “only trace” of Alice that Detective Mozelewski found was a current driver's license from the state of Alaska, deposits of the monthly disability payments from the Alaska Teachers' Retirement System, and withdrawals from a bank account in Alaska. Detective Mozelewski contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about the deposits and withdrawals from the bank account in Alaska.

¶16 Detective Mozelewski obtained a copy of the petition for dissolution that Hummel filed in March 1995 in King County Superior Court but was later dismissed. In the petition, Hummel lists a Dallas, Texas address for Alice. Detective Gitts confirmed the address listed for Alice was “not a valid address.”

¶17 After Alice disappeared, Hummel did some remodeling at the Bellingham house. On August 18, 2003, the detectives used a ground-penetrating radar instrument to search the Bellingham house and the yard for a body. The search did not reveal any trace of a body. Nor did a later search with cadaver dogs reveal any trace of a body.

April 2004 Interview

¶18 The FBI scheduled an interview with Hummel for April 27, 2004 about deposits of the disability checks for Alice and withdrawals of funds from their joint bank account in Alaska. Detective Mozelewski and Detective Gitts went to Billings, Montana to attend the interview. The FBI agent and the detectives met with Hummel at his house in Billings. Hummel admitted the Alaska retirement system continued to deposit disability payments after Alice disappeared in October 1990, and for a period of time, he withdrew money from the account.

¶19 Detective Mozelewski and Detective Gitts asked Hummel about Alice's disappearance. Hummel told the detectives that “right around [S.K.]'s birthday” in 1990, Alice “received a job offer in California. Somebody had sent her up a plane ticket, and she went to California.” Hummel said the last time he saw Alice was when he “put her on an airplane in Seattle.” Hummel told the detectives Alice moved from California to Dallas and “met another man and wasn't coming back.”

¶20 Hummel said he met his current spouse while he was teaching in Enumclaw. After they went to Alaska to teach school, Hummel obtained a decree of dissolution from Alice in Alaska. Hummel then married his current spouse and they moved to Billings. Hummel admitted he had “inappropriate contact” with S.K. but said he “rectified that with [her] in a letter,” and “his current wife ... knew what had happened, too.”

¶21 On May 5, 2004, an FBI agent in Billings contacted Detective Mozelewski about a letter that he obtained that was from Hummel to Detective Gitts. In the 11–page letter, Hummel states Alice committed suicide on October 18, 1990 and he took steps to ‘cover[ ] up her suicide.’

May 2007 Federal Indictment

¶22 In May 2007, a federal grand jury in Alaska indicted Hummel on 12 counts of wire fraud. Hummel pleaded guilty.

¶23 In the plea agreement, Hummel states Alice “disappeared” on October 18, 1990 and in May 2004, he “represented that Alice Hummel was deceased, and had been deceased since October 18, 1990.” Hummel admits between November 1990 and February 2004, the state of Alaska “deposited approximately $340,032.96 into the Credit Union 1 joint account in the name of, and for the benefit of, Alice K. Hummel;” and he “falsely represented himself to be his deceased wife” so he could continue to collect her disability retirement benefits.

¶24 The plea agreement states, in pertinent part:

Hummel, during the above-mentioned time period, in communications with the State of Alaska Division of Retirement and Benefits, falsely represented himself to
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