State v. Matney, 22089

• Decision Date: 16 November 1998
• Docket Number: No. 22089,22089
• Citation: 979 S.W.2d 225
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Ivle Ray MATNEY, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 225

979 S.W.2d 225

STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Ivle Ray MATNEY, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 22089.

Missouri Court of Appeals,

Southern District,

Division One.

Nov. 16, 1998.

Gary E. Brotherton, Asst. Public Defender, Columbia, for appellant.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Atty. Gen., Shaun J. Mackelprang, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.

PARRISH, Judge.

Ivle Ray Matney, Jr., (defendant) appeals two convictions for murder in the first degree (Counts I and II), § 565.020, ¹ two convictions for armed criminal action, § 571.015.1, and a conviction for robbery in the first degree, § 569.020.1(1). He contends the evidence at trial was not sufficient to prove he committed those offenses. This court affirms.

Defendant waived trial by jury. He was tried by the court.

On review of criminal matters tried by the court without a jury, the standard of review is the same as in cases tried by a jury. State v. Pollard, 941 S.W.2d 831, 833 (Mo.App.1997). We accept as true all evidence tending to prove guilt together with all reasonable inferences that support the finding, and all contrary evidence and inferences are ignored. Id. We determine whether there was sufficient evidence from which a trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Phillips, 940 S.W.2d 512, 520 (Mo. banc 1997). Moreover, this Court does not weigh the evidence or determine the reliability or credibility of witnesses. State v. Frappier, 941 S.W.2d 859, 861 (Mo.App.1997).

State v. McCarty, 956 S.W.2d 365, 367-68 (Mo.App.1997). See State v. Grim, 854 S.W.2d 403, 405-07 (Mo. banc), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 997, 114 S.Ct. 562, 126 L.Ed.2d 462 (1993).

The bodies of Cecil Phillips and Ethel Phillips were discovered inside their house at Malden, Missouri, late in the afternoon of December 18, 1996. Mrs. Phillips' had multiple stab and slash wounds to the head, neck and upper part of her body. Mr. Phillips' had multiple skull fractures and incisions to the neck.

Ethel Phillips had telephoned her granddaughter, Vickie Landers, between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. December 17; Vickie was watching the news when her grandmother called. They spoke for about 15 minutes. Neighbors saw the Phillips' front porch and yard security lights on until about 11:30 p.m. that night. No one saw them the next day, although one person, Regina Beck, had gone to their house twice that morning, the first time about 9:45 a.m., and knocked on the door but got no response. Ms. Beck heard a television playing inside the house and observed that the front yard gate was partially open both times she was there. She did not close it.

About 6:00 p.m. December 18, Vickie Landers went to her grandparents' house. She noticed that the front gate was partially open. She knocked on the front door but got no response. Vickie heard a television playing inside. She looked under a curtain on a front window and saw her grandmother's body on the floor beneath a recliner. She went next door to get help. The house next door was the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Terry Gromer. The police were called and Terry Gromer accompanied Vickie back to her grandparents' house where they attempted, unsuccessfully, to force the front door open. Mr. Gromer then broke a window in the front door. He reached inside and unlocked the door. The door was also secured by a wooden board that Mr. Gromer was able to unlatch.

Mr. Gromer stepped into the house, then turned to Vickie to prevent her from seeing what was inside. About that time, Officer Scott Wilson of the Malden Police Department arrived. Officer Wilson entered the house.

Mrs. Phillips' body was in the front room of the house. A recliner-type chair was lying on the top part of her body. A television set in the room was on. It was playing at a loud volume. Officer Wilson drew his weapon and proceeded to search the house. He found Mr. Phillips' body in a hallway and saw bloody footprints on the carpeting near the body. He entered a bedroom that was in disarray--items were on the floor. He then heard a noise from the other bedroom in the house. He entered the second bedroom where he saw the bottom of the bedspread move. There was a small dog under the bed. Officer Wilson proceeded to the back door of the house where he observed what "appeared to be bloody fingerprints on the back door latch."

Officer Wilson called his supervisor, Officer Robert House, when he arrived at the Phillips' residence. Officer House was the second officer to arrive at the scene. He went through the house. He observed that the back door was closed. It had an unlatched hatch or clasp on the inside and a "system" for putting a board across the inside of the door but the board was not in place. Officer House was asked if he observed anything unusual at the back door. He answered, "Only that it didn't have the two-by-four across it that the front door had."

Highway Patrol Sgt. Dennis Wayne Rainey was called to assist in the investigation as a member of the Dunklin County Major Case Squad. He arrived at the Phillips' residence about 7:00 p.m. He waited outside until other members of the squad arrived. After the other members arrived, they entered the residence and were briefed by Officer Wilson on what he had found. They were shown the location of the victims, bloodstains on the carpet, and "the bedroom area where there was some type of disturbance in the closet area of the bedroom."

Other members of the major case squad who were at the scene were Deputy Sheriff Randy Stone and Missouri Highway Patrol officers Sgt. Gary DeArman, Sgt. A.V. Riehl and Sgt. Gene Cox. After the members of the major case squad were briefed, Officer Wilson left.

Sgt. Rainey and Deputy Stone were evidence officers for the major case squad. Deputy Stone videotaped the scene. Sgt. Rainey conducted a further examination of the premises. There was a cabinet in the hallway above the body of Cecil Phillips. One of its doors was slightly opened. There was a pistol in the cabinet. There were blood smears and spatter on the wall. There were impressions of footwear in bloodstains on the carpet near the feet of the victim. The footprints in the carpeting were photographed and sections of the carpeting with the bloodstained footprints removed. There was a bloodstained vacuum cleaner in the hallway.

Sgt. Rainey proceeded to the southeast bedroom of the residence. There were two beds in the room, one on its east side, the other on the west side. A small safe that officers referred to as a "fire safe" was on the bed on the east side of the room. It was unopened.

There was a closet on the room's north side. Its doors were open. An area of the carpeting inside the closet had been disturbed. There were papers on the floor. Sgt. Rainey pulled the carpet in that area away from the floor. There was a metal lid in the floor with a hasp on it. The lid was the top of a manufactured safe. It was a round tube set in the floor in concrete. Sgt. Rainey estimated that the safe was "two and a half to three foot deep." It was "[s]ix to eight inches [in] diameter."

Sgt. Rainey testified:

Q. Was there anything in it?

A. Down at the bottom of the safe was a portion of a padlock, a hasp of a padlock, a piece of metal from the top of a padlock.

Q. Did you see anywhere around in that closet a padlock or the remainder of a padlock?

A. Yes, I did. Near the metal lid, there was a padlock that appeared to have been cut.

Q. Okay. Was the portion that was missing from the padlock you found in the closet similar to the portion that you found in the bottom--

A. Yes.

Q. --of the safe?

A. Yes.

Sgt. Rainey observed what appeared to be bloodstain on a handle to an aluminum screen door on the back of the house. There were bolt cutters and a broom by the door. The door led to a small porch. There were tracks in a small amount of snow or ice at the base of the porch.

The keys to the fire safe that had been found on a bed in the master bedroom of the Phillips' residence were in Cecil Phillips' pocket. They were given to Deputy Stone at the autopsy. The safe was opened. There were a number of envelopes in the safe. The envelopes contained $57,442 cash.

Pamela Dawn Slusher was employed at Consolidated Plastics in Bloomfield, Missouri. On December 17, 1996, she worked the second shift. It started at 4:00 p.m. Normally her shift ended at 1:00 a.m. Because it was snowing and the roads were getting bad, she left work that evening around 11:20 to go to her home near Dexter. She was traveling Highway 25. When she was near the intersection of Highway 25 and Route H, she saw a man crawling out of the ditch on the east side of Highway 25. He began flagging her down. She stopped along the east side of Highway 25 and asked if he needed somebody to pick him up. She told him she would "run home and call."

Ms. Slusher told the trial court, "He just kept asking me to take him home, that he didn't live very far and if I would just please take him home." The man gave Ms. Slusher his wallet and told her to take all the money and that she could study his license. Ms. Slusher identified the man as defendant. His license indicated he was 55 years old.

After defendant repeatedly asked her to take him home and told her he did not live far away, Ms. Slusher agreed. She asked to see what was in his pockets. He turned out some of his pockets. He also had a blue duffle bag sitting on the ground. He placed it behind the passenger's seat. He had unzipped it while it was sitting outside. Ms. Slusher could see clothes inside the bag.

Defendant got into Ms. Slusher's car. He told her he had come from his son's house in Clarkton. Ms. Slusher took defendant to his home. The residence was a white trailer with brown trim and a carport. When they arrived defendant produced a roll of money about the size of a soda can. He peeled off two $100 bills and threw them down. Ms. Slusher told defendant she could not accept the...