State v. Sapp

• Decision Date: 29 December 2004
• Docket Number: No. 2003-0135.,2003-0135.
• Citation: 822 NE 2d 1239,105 Ohio St.3d 104
• Parties: THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, v. SAPP, APPELLANT.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

105 Ohio St.3d 104

2004-Ohio-7008

822 NE 2d 1239

2004-Ohio-7008

THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, v. SAPP, APPELLANT.

No. 2003-0135.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted September 28, 2004.

Decided December 29, 2004.

Stephen Schumaker, Clark County Prosecuting Attorney, and Andrew P. Pickering, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Spiros P. Cocoves; Gamso, Helmick & Hoolahan and Jeffrey M. Gamso, for appellant.

FRANCIS E. SWEENEY, SR., J.

{¶ 1} On August 22, 1992, appellant, William K. Sapp, raped and murdered Phree Morrow, age 12, and Martha Leach, age 11. A year and 17 days later, Sapp raped and murdered Belinda Anderson, an adult woman. About three months after he murdered Anderson, Sapp raped and attempted to murder another adult woman, Hazel Pearson. Sapp was sentenced to death for the murders of Phree, Martha, and Anderson.

The Murders of Phree Morrow and Martha Leach

{¶ 2} Phree Morrow and Martha Leach lived around the corner from each other in Springfield and became friends in the summer of 1992. On the afternoon of August 22, 1992, the girls went to Schuler's Bakery together. At about the same time, two friends of Sapp's, David Marciszewski and David's stepson, John Balser, were seen near the bakery. Martha entered the bakery with an unidentified male. She purchased some cookies and doughnuts. The unidentified man paid for her order, and the two of them left the bakery.

{¶ 3} Ralph DePriest, David Marciszewski's nephew, witnessed the murders of Phree and Martha when he was 14. On August 22, 1992, DePriest was at the Marciszewski residence with Wanda Marciszewski, who was David Marciszewski's wife and Balser's mother. Balser entered the house and said, "Mom, I'm in some trouble." DePriest and Wanda went outside and got into a van with David Marciszewski and Christopher Bibbs. They drove to an area near a pond, which lay behind the bakery.

{¶ 4} When they arrived, DePriest saw Sapp kneeling beside two girls who were lying unconscious on the ground. DePriest described the girls as being "all messed up." DePriest watched as Sapp, David Marciszewski, Jamie Turner, and Balser rubbed the girls' genitals. Sapp made DePriest participate. After they had done this "for a while," Wanda told them to kill the girls.

{¶ 5} Balser and David hit the girls with rocks. DePriest saw Sapp pick up a rock and lift it over his head. DePriest turned away before Sapp brought the rock down.

{¶ 6} Sapp threatened to kill DePriest if he ever told anyone what he had seen. Sapp, Balser, David Marciszewski, and Turner then moved the bodies a short distance from the pond to a nearby hill. DePriest helped them cover the bodies with skids.

{¶ 7} The next day, the bodies of Phree and Martha were found in the vicinity of a pond behind Penn Street in Springfield, near Schuler's Bakery. Wooden pallets, branches, and leaves covered the bodies. Phree had a rock on her head.

{¶ 8} In the part of a large storm sewer known locally as the "Lion's Cage," police found a bicycle, a brick, and two pairs of shorts. Phree Morrow's mother identified one pair of shorts as the pair Phree had been wearing when last seen. Another witness identified the bicycle as the one she had seen in the possession of two girls outside Schuler's Bakery on August 22, 1992.

{¶ 9} The shorts were examined by Timothy Shepherd, a police forensic criminalist. According to Shepherd, the shorts had not been torn from Phree's body; rather, someone had "disassembled" them by cutting the seams with a sharp instrument.

{¶ 10} Autopsies revealed that both Phree and Martha had died of blunt head trauma. Phree had been struck in the head at least six times, Martha three. The skulls of both girls had been fractured by blows having an impact equivalent to that of a free fall from a second-story window onto a concrete surface. Both girls also had bruises on their legs and torsos. Sperm was found on swabs taken from each girl's vagina.

{¶ 11} David and Wanda Marciszewski, John Balser, Jamie Turner, and Christopher Bibbs were all convicted of crimes arising from the murders of Phree and Martha. However, Sapp's involvement did not come to light until 1996. In September of that year, sheriff's detectives from Jacksonville, Florida came to Springfield to question Sapp about an unrelated matter. Sapp made incriminating admissions about an assault on Hazel Pearson, whose pants had been cut off in the same distinctive manner as Phree's shorts.

{¶ 12} Sapp then became a suspect in the Morrow-Leach murders. A blood sample obtained from Sapp was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for DNA comparison with the vaginal swabs taken from Phree and Martha. The FBI laboratory determined that the DNA loci obtained from the semen on both swabs matched the DNA loci obtained from a sample of Sapp's blood. An FBI expert concluded that, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, Sapp was the source of the semen found in both Phree and Martha.

{¶ 13} On April 2, 1997, Sapp was brought to Springfield police headquarters for questioning. Over the course of two days, Sapp confessed at length to the crimes charged in this case. He gave the following account of the Morrow-Leach murders:

{¶ 14} On August 22, 1992, Sapp was with David Marciszewski, Balser, Turner, and Bibbs. The five of them ended up at a pond located behind a business on Penn Street, not far from Schuler's Bakery. Sapp claimed that the girls were already at the pond when he and his friends arrived. According to Sapp, Phree called Turner "ugly" and Balser a "retard." Then Sapp punched Phree in the head.

{¶ 15} Sapp cut Phree's shorts off her body with a buck knife, an act he later referred to as "leaving his name." He next made Phree roll over onto her stomach and forced Martha to lie on top of her. Then Sapp raped Martha.

{¶ 16} After the rape, Sapp and the others took turns hitting Phree in the head with rocks. After each perpetrator had taken a turn, Sapp heard Phree gurgle. Sapp lifted a large rock over his head and—as Sapp described it—"threw it down, trying to send it on the other side of the world." He later explained to police that he struck the second blow specifically "because she wasn't dead yet." Sapp told police he used a "boulder" to strike the second blow because "if it's gonna be done, it's gonna be done right."

{¶ 17} Next, Sapp hit Martha in the head with a rock. After that, he raped Phree. Sapp and the others then moved the girls and covered them with leaves, branches, and discarded pallets. They took the clothing and bicycles belonging to Phree and Martha and placed them in the storm sewer.

{¶ 18} After the interrogation, Sapp was held in the Clark County Jail. On April 17, 1997, a deputy sheriff overheard Sapp tell another inmate: "I'm gonna make national news. * * * I've killed several people, but mostly it's about two little girls. * * * But God forgives me for it now because I've been saved."

{¶ 19} On June 29, 1998, Sapp stated in the presence of two deputy sheriffs that he had "killed a couple of people" or that he had "killed people before."

{¶ 20} During June and July 1998, Sapp had several conversations with another Clark County Jail inmate, Johnny Saxour. According to Saxour, Sapp said that "whenever he got for sic the taste of blood, * * * he always went out, took care of his problems."

{¶ 21} Sapp told Saxour different versions of the Morrow-Leach murders. In one version, Sapp claimed that he "went with" the mother of one of the girls but became angry because the mother started seeing another man. Sapp told Saxour that "he tried to mess around with the other little girl and she didn't want him messing around, so * * * she smacked him and then this other little girl jumped on his back and then * * * Turner * * * pulled her off of his back and throwed her down on the ground and took his foot and stuck it on the side of her head."

{¶ 22} In another conversation, Sapp told Saxour that he had tried to have sex with one of the girls. When he was rebuffed, "he took and started beating this girl * * * and that's when they * * * started taking bricks and things and * * * caving their heads and stuff in * * *."

The Murder of Belinda Anderson

{¶ 23} On September 8, 1993, Belinda Anderson of Bellefontaine was staying with her sister Debra in Springfield. At 5:20 p.m. on September 8, Debra left the house to visit her parents. When she returned at 6:00 p.m., she found that Belinda had gone out, leaving a note. Debra never saw her sister again.

{¶ 24} Nearly two years later, on July 8, 1995, Belinda Anderson's body was found buried under the dirt floor of a garage in Springfield. At the time of Anderson's disappearance in 1993, the house and garage had been vacant for several years. Anderson's body had been placed in a plastic bag and buried in a shallow grave with the feet sticking out. She was wearing a shirt, shoes, and socks, but no pants.

{¶ 25} An autopsy showed that Anderson had died of multiple trauma to her head and neck. She had three chop wounds and a bruise on her face, and some of her facial bones were fractured. A blow to the back of Anderson's head had lacerated her scalp and abraded the outer layer of the skull underneath. Her larynx was broken. Each of these injuries had been inflicted before death. Because of the body's decomposition, it was not possible to test for the presence of sperm or semen.

{¶ 26} In his confession to the Springfield police, Sapp said that he had met Belinda Anderson for the first time on the day he killed her. According to Sapp, Anderson agreed to have sex with him for $40 and led him to a garage, which they entered through a hole in the back. Sapp claimed that he had paid Anderson in advance and that she began to perform fellatio on him. But then she stopped, saying that she had changed her mind and "wasn't doing the rest." When Sapp demanded a refund, Anderson started to leave. He reached down to grab her, and she hit him.

{¶ 27} Sapp...