State v. Lassen, 12978

• Decision Date: 31 August 1984
• Docket Number: No. 12978,12978
• Citation: 679 S.W.2d 363
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Raymond Karl LASSEN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 363

679 S.W.2d 363

STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Raymond Karl LASSEN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 12978.

Missouri Court of Appeals,

Southern District,

Division Two.

Aug. 31, 1984.

Motion for Rehearing or Transfer

Denied Sept. 17, 1984.

Application to Transfer Denied

Nov. 20, 1984.

Louis J. Nolan, Tyrone Gaither, Gaither & Nolan, Springfield, for defendant-appellant.

John Ashcroft, Atty. Gen., Bruce Farmer, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for plaintiff-respondent.

HOGAN, Judge.

Raymond Karl Lassen, 17 years of age, stands convicted of the murder of William R. Melvin, Jr., in the commission of a robbery. Such criminal action constitutes first-degree murder, § 565.003, RSMo 1978, and defendant's punishment has been assessed at imprisonment for life. Defendant appeals, contending 1) that the jury was improperly selected; 2) the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict of the jury; 3) the trial court erred in failing to suppress certain items of personal property because the evidence was the product of an unlawful arrest, and 4) the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on the defense of duress.

We consider first the argument that the evidence is not sufficient to support the verdict. In determining the sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding of guilt, we do not weigh the evidence; rather, we accept as true all evidence and inferences which tend to support the verdict and disregard all evidence and inferences to the contrary. The question is whether the evidence, viewed in a light most favorable to the State, is sufficient to support the verdict. State v. Brown, 660 S.W.2d 694, 698-99[9, 10] (Mo. banc 1983); State v. Story, 646 S.W.2d 68, 72 (Mo. banc 1983).

William R. Melvin, Jr., (Melvin or the victim), was about 40 years old at the time of his death. He was a resident of Indianapolis. He was employed to "transport" (drive) specially adapted vehicles from their place of modification to the place of use. At the time he was killed, the victim was delivering a school bus to Oklahoma. The bus was a 1981 Econoline Ford truck, adapted for use as an eight-passenger school bus. The yellow paint and the black striping and lettering on the bus were characteristic of a middlewestern school bus. The bus was distinctively marked "KIAMICHI VO-TECH."

Melvin left home the morning of January 23, 1982. He was dressed in street clothes, an ordinary government issue fatigue jacket and black combat boots. He also carried a "standard Buck knife" in a "holder" attached to his belt. The blade of the knife had "several little chips on it where [the victim had] cut electrical wire." Melvin often picked up hitchhikers when he was delivering vehicles.

Shortly before noon on January 24, the victim's corpse was discovered lying in a shallow creek underneath a bridge in rural Greene County. The bridge is part of an unpaved road 7 or 8 miles west of Springfield, about 1/2 mile north of the westbound lane of Interstate 44. There was a great deal of blood on and around the bridge. Game cards, bearing the legend "McDonald's" were also found. A sleeping bag, which the victim had when he left home, was in the creek with him. A duffel bag, in which he had packed a change of clothing, was not.

An autopsy was performed on the victim's body about 4 p.m. on January 24. The pathologist who performed the autopsy had the opinion the victim had been dead 12 to 16 hours. The principal external injuries were several lacerations about the head. The main "laceration or lacerations" was a cut 6 inches in circular length; it extended "nearly the entire transverse diameter of the throat and [went] through the upper part of the larynx." The extent and severity of this wound is demonstrated by State's Exhibits 51 and 55. These autopsy photographs permit the inference that an effort was made not only to kill but also to dismember the victim. The victim had also been beaten about the forehead. The blows to the top of the head were severe enough to produce cerebral hemorrhage, but probably were not fatal. One carotid artery and both jugular veins had been cut. The pathologist was of the opinion that Melvin had bled to death within 5 minutes. The cause of the victim's death was thus shown and the time of his death fixed between midnight and 4 a.m. on January 24.

The State, apparently convinced it would be obliged to prove its case circumstantially, traced the movements of the defendant and the victim southwesterly across Missouri and into Oklahoma along Interstate Route 44. About 5 p.m. on January 23, Melvin stopped at a service station near Pacific, in St. Louis County, to have a tire repaired. Both men were at the service station for about an hour. The operator of the service station identified Melvin's picture, and testified the defendant was with him.

Melvin and the defendant were next seen at a McDonald's restaurant in Pacific. Christine Molitor, a waitress, remembered seeing the defendant and Melvin at the "drive-through window" about 6 p.m. on January 23. Although she did not look in the bus, this witness saw only the victim and the defendant. The two men were given "game cards." This evidence placed the defendant and the victim on Interstate Route 44, about 170-180 miles northeast of Springfield shortly after 6 p.m.

The bus was next seen in Greene County. Jimmy Adams worked at a gas station located at the "intersection of I-44, PP and K Highways." That intersection is about 5 1/2 miles west of the bridge where the body of the victim was found. Adams identified a picture of the bus Melvin was driving. Melvin bought about $20 worth of gas. Adams saw no one else on the bus at that time, about 2 a.m. on January 24. However, two hours later, "[a] younger guy, probably eighteen to twenty" with a gold earring in his left ear, drove the same bus back in the station and bought $3 worth of gas. This man, whose description matches that of the defendant, was alone.

The defendant was next seen at the Midway Restaurant near Vinita, Oklahoma, about 6:15 a.m. on January 24. An employee of a service station on the premises recalled and testified that he saw the defendant there, and upon trial identified the defendant as the man he saw. A man resembling the defendant was seen at a service station at Adrian, Texas, about 50 miles west of Amarillo between noon and 3 p.m. on January 24. The defendant was finally apprehended near the Texas-New Mexico border after he had abandoned the bus and had started hitchhiking west. When he was arrested, the defendant had Melvin's duffel bag and Buck knife case in his possession. The knife itself was never found.

The defendant testified in his own behalf at the trial. As material here, defendant's testimony was that there was a second hitchhiker on the bus as he and the victim approached Springfield. Melvin got tired and pulled the bus off the road at a "large, very large" truck stop "somewhere about fifty miles from Springfield." Melvin parked the bus; having brought a sleeping bag, he was going to get some sleep. The other hitchhiker, John, said he was also going to sleep.

The defendant went inside the truck stop about midnight, ate a sandwich and drank several cups of coffee and returned to the bus. When he stepped into the bus, John was standing at the front of the bus and Melvin was lying behind John "gagging and like bleeding out of his throat."

John had a nickel-plated pistol. John told the defendant to sit down in the front seat and shut up or he, John, would blow the defendant's head off. At gunpoint, the defendant drove the bus past Springfield, and at John's order turned off onto an unpaved road. Defendant drove to a point where there was a bridge. John opened the emergency door at the back of the bus, and defendant could tell Melvin's throat had been cut and that he had been struck on his head. John forced the defendant to drag Melvin's body out of the bus and drop it into the water. John thereafter remained on the bus until the two reached Amarillo, where he got off.

In this court, the defendant argues that the evidence of his guilt is wholly circumstantial, that part of the State's case is "weak" and that the evidence at most establishes defendant's presence at the scene and an opportunity to commit the crime. The cases cited are inapposite and need not be discussed nor differentiated. Perhaps, the State's proof, taken alone, is insufficient to establish the defendant's guilt, but in determining the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, we consider any evidence offered by the defendant which tends to support a finding of guilt because the defendant, by putting on evidence, takes the chance of aiding the State's case. State v. Johnson, 447 S.W.2d 285, 287 (Mo.1969); State v. Truster, 334 S.W.2d 104, 107[2, 3] (Mo.1960); State v. McRae, 533 S.W.2d 663, 666 (Mo.App.1976).

The State's evidence was that the defendant and the victim were together on the bus at Pacific, Missouri, about 6 p.m. That evidence also readily permits the inference that no other person was on the bus at the time. The proof also permits the inference that the two men were in the vicinity of a service station 12 or 13 miles west of Springfield about 2 a.m. on January 24. There was direct evidence that the victim's death occurred about that time. Thereafter, the defendant was seen, alone, near Vinita about 6:15 a.m. by a service station attendant.

The defendant himself gave direct testimony concerning the manner in which the victim was slain, and described the place where his body was found with remarkable accuracy. When he was finally apprehended, defendant was in possession of a Buck knife case which was positively identified as having belonged to the victim. We do not expect a jury to know that the term "buck knife" is a proprietary name given utility knives because they are manufactured by Buck Knives, Inc., of El Cajon, California. It is, however, common knowledge that...