State v. Roberts
| Decision Date | 06 October 2021 |
| Docket Number | 19-0897 |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | State of West Virginia, Plaintiff Below, Respondent v. Jessica N. Roberts, Defendant Below, Petitioner |
Petitioner Jessica N. Roberts, by counsel Donald L. Stennett, appeals her convictions for first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, burglary, grand larceny, and conspiracy to commit murder. Respondent State of West Virginia by counsel Benjamin F. Yancey, III, filed a response in support of petitioner's convictions.
This Court has considered the parties' briefs and the record on appeal. The facts and legal arguments are adequately presented, and the decisional process would not be significantly aided by oral argument. Upon consideration of the standard of review, the briefs, and the record presented the Court finds no substantial question of law and no prejudicial error. For these reasons, a memorandum decision affirming the circuit court's order is appropriate under Rule 21 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.
On December 11, 2017, Penni Jo Curtiss ("the victim") was murdered in her home in Parkersburg, West Virginia, her home was ransacked, and many of her belongings (including her vehicle) were stolen.[1] The victim's body was discovered, on December 12, 2017, by her parents, who subsequently called 9-1-1. Sergeant James Stalnaker of the Parkersburg Police Department ("PPD") responded to the crime scene with a team of investigators.
As the PPD searched the victim's home, the officers found blood covering the walls, door, furniture, and carpet. Swabs of the blood were collected, the home was "dusted" for latent prints, and the victim's remains were sent to the medical examiner's office for autopsy. Ultimately, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Piotr Kubiczek determined that cause of the victim's death was "multiple blunt force injuries of significant conditions" and "multiple sharp force injuries." Dr. Kubiczek further determined the manner of the victim's death to be homicide.
During their investigation, the PPD canvassed the victim's neighborhood and discovered that the victim's neighbor had a video surveillance system with a camera on each corner of his home. On December 11, 2017, at approximately 7:24 am one of the neighbor's cameras "captured a male walking toward the back of [the victim's] porch dislodging [the] air conditioner, and crawling through the window." The neighbor identified Kenneth McCoy, Jr., (petitioner's then boyfriend) as the man in the video. Further, the neighbor noted that Mr. McCoy returned to the victim's home later that morning with a backpack and had a conversation with petitioner at the end of the driveway of the victim's home. The neighbor then observed petitioner and Mr. McCoy walk toward the basement door of the victim's home, but the neighbor did not think anything of the mid-day visit as people, including petitioner and Mr. McCoy, often visited the victim's daughter while the victim was at work.
PPD Detectives then interviewed the victim's daughter who advised that she had lived with the victim until December 1, 2017. The daughter advised that petitioner also lived with her and the victim during the fall of 2017 and that Mr. McCoy would sometimes visit petitioner at the victim's home. Petitioner moved out of the victim's home a few weeks prior to the time the victim's daughter moved out. Based upon the surveillance video and interviews of the victim's neighbor and the victim's daughter, detectives determined that petitioner and Mr. McCoy were suspects in the victim's murder.
On December 14, 2017, in Illinois, Officer Mark Weber and Assistant Chief Drury of the Flora Police Department responded to a complaint about a man in a silver minivan requesting gas money from patrons at a nearby convenience store. By the time that Officer Weber arrived at the convenience store, the vehicle and the man were gone, but were reported to be seen headed in the direction of the local Walmart. Officer Weber then traveled to the parking lot of the Walmart and observed a vehicle matching the description of the vehicle from the convenience store. The vehicle was unoccupied. Upon locating the vehicle, Officer Weber "ran the [license] plate" through dispatch and the "plate came back as being stolen." Officer Weber then exited his vehicle and looked through the windshield of the minivan at the VIN[2] plate and "called in the number to dispatch." The VIN "came back as being involved in a homicide in West Virginia." Hoping that someone would return to the vehicle, Officer Weber parked his squad car a few rows away and waited. Ultimately, petitioner and Mr. McCoy returned to the vehicle and were arrested.
That same day, Sergeant Stalnaker and Detective Hart of the PPD learned of petitioner's and Mr. McCoy's arrests and, the next morning, Stalnaker and Hart traveled to Illinois to "retrieve evidence" gathered as a result of the arrests. On December 15, 2017, while still in Illinois, Sergeant Stalnaker and Detective Hart interviewed Ms. Roberts.[3] Prior to her interview, Ms. Roberts signed a written waiver of her Miranda[4] rights and voluntarily consented to give a statement, which detailed the events surrounding the victim's murder and implicated Ms. Roberts and petitioner. During this time, Ms. Roberts also provided the PPD officers with a DNA swab.
In her initial statement, petitioner disclosed that on December 11, 2017, Mr. McCoy broke into the victim's home and then let petitioner into the home. Petitioner and Mr. McCoy then waited for the victim to return home from work and, when she entered the home, Mr. McCoy "attacked [the victim] with a hammer, striking her forcefully on the head repeatedly, then, covering her head with a pillow, proceeded to cut her throat." Petitioner admitted that she and Mr. McCoy then took various items from the victim's home including credit cards, checks, and the victim's vehicle.
Following the initial interview of petitioner, Detective Hart, with the help of Illinois police, processed the van. The van was found to contain a hammer, a machete, a designer bag with the victim's name on it, a suitcase with petitioner's and the victim's prescriptions in it, the victim's wallet, and cash advance paperwork bearing the victim's name. The following morning, after his execution of a written waiver of his Miranda rights, Sergeant Stalnaker and Detective Hart interviewed Mr. McCoy. Mr. McCoy provided a lengthy statement in which he detailed his role in the victim's murder. Additionally, Mr. McCoy provided a DNA swab for testing.
Information gleaned through Mr. McCoy's interview led to the search of a dumpster at a facility in West Virginia where a backpack belonging to Mr. McCoy and certain items from the murder scene and items belonging to the victim were discovered.[5] Additionally, the facility where the dumpster was located provided surveillance footage which depicted a person exiting the victim's van, matching the description of Mr. McCoy, place items into the dumpster.
Petitioner and Mr. McCoy were arrested on fugitive warrants on December 14, 2017, and, on December 18, 2017, they both waived extradition to West Virginia. On December 27, 2017, petitioner and Mr. McCoy were transported to West Virginia and charged with the murder of the victim. After her return to West Virginia on December 27, 2017, petitioner gave another statement to law enforcement officers related to the victim's murder.
On March 7, 2018, a West Virginia Grand Jury returned an indictment charging petitioner with murder, first-degree robbery, burglary, grand larceny, and conspiracy to commit murder. During pre-trial proceedings, petitioner filed a motion to suppress the two statements she made to law enforcement officers while in custody. A hearing on petitioner's motion to suppress was held on April 5, 2019. Subsequently, at the May 24, 2019, pre-trial conference, petitioner's motion was denied.
Petitioner's trial, and the joint trial of her co-defendant, Mr. McCoy, commenced in May of 2019. Neither petitioner nor Mr. McCoy testified at trial, but recordings of their statements were played during trial. Ultimately, the jury found both petitioner and Mr. McCoy guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, conspiracy to commit a criminal offense, burglary, and grand larceny.
On August 12, 2019, petitioner was sentenced. For her conviction of first-degree murder, petitioner was sentenced to life with mercy. As to her conviction of conspiracy to commit murder, she was sentence to a term of one to five years. For her conviction for first-degree robbery, petitioner was sentenced to a determinate term of twenty years. As to her conviction for burglary, she was sentenced to an indeterminate term of one to ten years. For her conviction of grand larceny, petitioner was sentenced to term of one to ten years. All of petitioner's convictions were ordered to be served consecutively. It is from her convictions that petitioner now appeals.
On appeal, petitioner raises two assignments of error, which we will address in turn. First, petitioner contends that the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress the two statements she provided to law enforcement officers. This Court employs a two-tiered standard of review of a circuit court's ruling on a motion to suppress.
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