State v. Nemeth

• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Writing for the Court: Before COTTER; BOGDANSKI
• Citation: 438 A.2d 120,182 Conn. 403
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. William NEMETH.
• Decision Date: 02 December 1980

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438 A.2d 120 182 Conn. 403 STATE of Connecticut
v.
William NEMETH. Supreme Court of Connecticut. Argued Oct. 15, 1980.
Decided Dec. 2, 1980.

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Alphonse DiBenedetto, Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Donald A. Browne, State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, was Domenick J. Galluzzo, Asst. State's Atty., for appellee (state).

Before COTTER, C. J., and BOGDANSKI, PETERS, HEALEY and PARSKEY, JJ.

[182 Conn. 404] BOGDANSKI, Associate Justice.

The defendant was charged with the crime of manslaughter in the first degree in that on or about July 6, 1975, with intent to cause physical injury to one Kathryn Whitright, a/k/a Jody Nemeth, he did cause her death in violation of § 53a-55(a)(1) of the General Statutes. Upon a trial to a jury, the defendant was found guilty. From the judgment rendered upon the verdict, he took this appeal claiming the trial court committed error: (1) in an evidentiary ruling concerning the defendant's disappearance after the crime; (2) in the admission of the testimony of two ballistic experts; (3) in refusing to charge as requested; (4) in the sufficiency of the evidence for conviction-

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; and (5) in the instructions on the issue of intent.

The evidence adduced at the trial included the following: In March of 1975 the defendant and his common-law wife, Kathryn Whitright, a/k/a Jody Nemeth, moved from Florida to Connecticut. Initially, they lived in Fairfield with the defendant's uncle, George Nemeth, until June, 1975, when they moved to an apartment at 1882 North Avenue, Bridgeport. The defendant drank frequently and the uncle noticed that after drinking he became sullen, mean and argumentative. While living with the uncle the defendant had a quantity of firearms including a .30 caliber rifle, two .38 caliber pistols and a .350 caliber magnum pistol, all of which he took with him when he moved to North Avenue. On arriving in the Bridgeport area, the defendant obtained employment as a night cleanup man at a bowling alley known as Bowl-O-Rama. His hours were from midnight until the following morning.

Sunday morning, July 6, 1975, the defendant and Jody Nemeth stopped at the house of the uncle and stayed until 11:30 a. m. On that occasion the defendant[182 Conn. 405] and Jody Nemeth quarreled about the defendant's drinking and Jody Nemeth asked him not to drink so much. The defendant, in effect, told her to shut up.

At 1:30 p. m. two Bridgeport police officers met and spoke with the defendant and Jody Nemeth near his apartment on North Avenue. This was the last time that she was seen alive by anyone other than the defendant. At 5 p. m. the defendant again stopped at his uncle's house and told him he was looking for Jody; that they had quarreled about his drinking and Jody had walked out on him. At 8 p. m. the defendant phoned his uncle and again inquired as to the whereabouts of Jody. The defendant did not report for work that night at the Bowl-O-Rama.

On Monday evening, July 7, the uncle called and spoke with the defendant. At that time the defendant told his uncle that Jody was "all right." That night the defendant reported for work and clocked his time card at 11:59 p. m. At the time the cash register at the Bowl-O-Rama contained employee paychecks, including the defendant's, and $150 in cash. On the following morning, Tuesday, July 8, the defendant was not at the Bowl-O-Rama. The defendant's paycheck, and the $150 in cash, were missing from the cash register. From about midnight on July 8 the defendant's whereabouts were unknown until he was arrested in the state of Texas in February, 1976.

Tuesday morning, July 8, George Nemeth received a phone call from Bowl-O-Rama which prompted him to go to the defendant's apartment. He received no response when he knocked at the door. He then drove to where Jody Nemeth was [182 Conn. 406] employed and learned that she had not been there since the previous Friday. He returned to 1882 North Avenue and suggested to the landlord that they enter the Nemeth apartment. Together with another individual they entered the apartment and found a locked bedroom door. They removed the hinges of the door and gained entrance to the bedroom. Inside, they found a bundle of blankets saturated with blood which appeared to be wrapped around something and immediately called the police. The police opened the wrapped blankets and found a young woman's dead body inside. The body was subsequently identified as that of Jody Nemeth.

An autopsy revealed the presence of a single bullet hole in the victim's left temple and lesser injuries such as bruised lips and two black eyes which had been inflicted prior to death. The bullet was removed and delivered to the police. The pathologist determined the cause of Jody Nemeth's death to be the injury to her brain from the bullet wound. He expressed an opinion that Jody Nemeth was killed more than twenty-four hours before the autopsy. The medical examiner gave an opinion that death had occurred between twelve and forty-eight hours prior to his examination.

Between March and July of 1975 the defendant had visited his sister at her home in Monroe. He brought a pistol with him in

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order to engage in target practice in the area. He borrowed a small baking tin from his sister and went to a nearby abandoned baseball backstop to shoot his pistol. On July 17, 1975, the sister accompanied by the police returned to the abandoned backstop, located the small baking tin and retrieved a bullet from the wooden backstop.

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