State v. Sokolowski

• Decision Date: 03 December 1999
• Docket Number: No. 468A98.,468A98.
• Citation: State v. Sokolowski, 522 S.E.2d 65, 351 N.C. 137 (N.C. 1999)
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. David Allen SOKOLOWSKI.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

522 S.E.2d 65

351 N.C. 137

STATE of North Carolina v. David Allen SOKOLOWSKI.

No. 468A98.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

December 3, 1999.

Michael F. Easley, Attorney General, by Thomas F. Moffitt, Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State.

Ann B. Petersen, Chapel Hill, for defendant-appellant.

FREEMAN, Justice.

On 16 March 1992, defendant David Allen Sokolowski was indicted for the first-degree murder of Pamela Owens Ellwood. Pamela Ellwood's body was never recovered. Defendant was tried noncapitally before a jury, and on 26 October 1994, the jury found him guilty. Thereafter, the trial court sentenced defendant to a term of life imprisonment to be served consecutively with a life sentence imposed in March 1994 for the first-degree murder of Rubel Hill.

The State claimed defendant killed Ellwood, dismembered her body, and burned her body parts in their backyard. The State's evidence tended to show that in early 1992, defendant and Ellwood lived in a farmhouse in a rural part of Orange County near Hillsborough. The couple had lived together under the name of Pamela and David Ellwood for a number of years prior to 1992. Sometime in mid-February 1992, Pamela Ellwood (Ellwood) mysteriously disappeared.

The State presented evidence from several witnesses indicating that the last time anyone ever saw Ellwood alive was 9 February 1992, and is summarized as follows: On 7 February 1992, Stanley Hutchins saw Ellwood for the last time when he met defendant and Ellwood at a grocery store to pay them for some construction work they had done. Ellwood was also seen by Robert Rice (Rice) when she bought a Citation car from him on 7 February 1992. On 9 February 1992, Ellwood telephoned Rice to tell him the car would not start. Rice went to defendant and Ellwood's house. This was the last time Rice ever saw or heard from Ellwood again. Defendant and Ellwood also went to Winston-Salem to visit her parents on 9 February, which was the last time Ellwood's parents ever saw or heard from her. On 10 February 1992, Rice took a starter to defendant and Ellwood's home to fix Ellwood's car, and defendant helped Rice install the starter. Rice did not see Ellwood that day. When he asked defendant about Ellwood, defendant said she was at work. Rice testified the Citation remained in the front yard for the next two weeks. Thereafter, Rice noticed the front tires of the automobile had been removed.

Ellwood and defendant's landlord, Robert Strayhorn (Strayhorn), initially testified that the last time he saw Ellwood was 1 March 1992, when she paid the monthly rent. However, Strayhorn corrected his testimony when he remembered the last time he saw Ellwood was when she got out of her Citation automobile sometime in February 1992. As previously mentioned, Ellwood bought this car from Rice on 7 February 1992. Two days later on 9 February, the Citation was not running.

Further testimony by Strayhorn showed that in mid-February 1992, he saw defendant unloading from a delivery truck a large number of wooden pallets and stacking them in piles in his yard. Sometime later in February, after the last time Strayhorn had seen Ellwood, Strayhorn was tending to his farm animals and saw defendant in the backyard using some of the pallets to fuel a large bonfire. Upset about the bonfire because the yard had been in such good shape, Strayhorn drove from the pasture to the yard to ask defendant about it. When Strayhorn got out of his truck, defendant left the fire and met Strayhorn at the truck. Strayhorn asked defendant why he got the pallets if he was just going to burn them. Defendant replied that some boys wanted to repair and sell them, but defendant got tired of looking at them. However, defendant was not burning all of the pallets at that time.

The State's evidence revealed that for the remainder of February 1992 and the early part of March 1992, defendant gave contradictory stories to various people concerning Ellwood's whereabouts. On 15 February 1992, Keith Wilkerson visited defendant's home and asked where Ellwood was. Defendant responded that she was in Winston-Salem. However, Wilkerson noticed the pickup truck and Ellwood's car were both still in the front yard. On 21 February 1992, Charlene Thornton (Thornton) visited defendant's house and asked if Ellwood was home. Defendant told Thornton that Ellwood was in Winston-Salem and that she would be returning in a week.

On 8 March 1992, Ellwood's parents came to check on their daughter because they had not heard from her since they saw her on 9 February 1992. Ellwood's mother testified that Ellwood usually spoke to them about twice a month by telephone. When Ellwood's parents arrived at their daughter's house, Ellwood's father blew on the car horn to announce their arrival. Ellwood's parents walked to the front door and started to go inside, but Ellwood's father felt resistance on the door causing them to stop. Thereafter, Ellwood's mother walked to the right side of the house while Ellwood's father walked to the left side of the house. Ellwood's father heard his wife talking to someone at the back of the house. On joining his wife, he found her talking to defendant, who had a pistol and shotgun with him. Defendant told them Ellwood had gone shopping in Durham with a friend named Leann Hill, and they would not be home until after dark. Ellwood's parents returned to their own home in Winston-Salem without seeing their daughter. Later that same day, Curtis Bauer (Bauer) saw defendant pour gasoline onto a pile of wooden pallets, igniting a large bonfire.

The State presented evidence contradicting defendant's 8 March assertions to Ellwood's parents that Virginia "Leann" Hill (Leann) had gone shopping with Ellwood. Leann testified the last time she saw Ellwood was at the beginning of February 1992 when Ellwood gave Leann a haircut. Leann stated she usually came to Ellwood and defendant's house twice a month to get her hair cut. When Leann returned to their house sometime in late February or early March to get a haircut, defendant told her that Ellwood had left him and had gone to her parents' house in Winston-Salem. Leann testified that she saw boxes of Ellwood's items in the living room.

The State also provided evidence that defendant made incriminating statements to different people indicating he killed Ellwood. On 5 March 1992, defendant's friend Kevin Folmar (Folmar) was at defendant's house, along with Bauer, watching television. While Bauer was asleep in a chair, defendant looked at Folmar and said, "[Ellwood's] out there and [Hill's] in yonder. Or vice versa." Folmar testified that defendant motioned with his finger outside the house, and then he pointed towards the bedroom area with his other hand. When Darryl Underwood (Underwood) was questioned by the police on 11 March 1992, he testified that he had been at defendant's house and had asked about Ellwood. Defendant responded that he "had [Ellwood] tooken [sic] care of."

On 9 March 1992, police officers went to Ellwood and defendant's home, and saw a large bonfire. In addition, officers noticed an area under the left side of the house that had been dug out as if construction work was in progress. When officers looked into the fire, they saw a badly burned human head, a separate portion of the torso of a human body, and some bone fragments. Defendant told officers the remains in the fire were his neighbor Rubel Hill (Hill). A later forensics examination of the remains in the fire confirmed it was Hill.

Officers continued to search the backyard. They sifted through the contents of a hole near the shed in the backyard, approximately three hundred feet from the residence, and found charred bone and skull fragments. When officers searched around the house, they found two human ears on the deck behind the house under some rugs. These ears were later identified as Hill's. A medical examiner concluded the ears had been severed from Hill's head with a sharp object.

Inside defendant's house, officers found a plastic bag that contained female clothing, including a blood-soaked bra, a blood-soaked sweatshirt, and socks. Defendant told officers the clothing in the plastic bag belonged to "his old lady," meaning Ellwood. When questioned about the clothing, defendant claimed he had been in a fight with Ellwood several weeks before and she had left him. The clothing found in the plastic bag was determined to be covered in human blood. However, the clothing was too putrid to test for blood type. A subsequent review of the contents of the plastic bag revealed the shirt had been cut from the hem in the back straight up to the neck, the bra straps had been cut from the back, and the shirt contained a hole in the back that was "consistent with an injury resulting from a gunshot wound."

On 11 March 1992, officers returned to defendant's house for a further search. Officers found a third ear in an ice tray in the freezer, testicles in the refrigerator, and a fourth ear inside a hollowed-out gourd on the kitchen table. An examination of these two ears revealed they had also been severed with a sharp object. The left ear had a pierced lobe, and the right ear had a gold pierced earring with a green stone in place. Ellwood's mother testified the earring belonged to her daughter. Subsequent forensic tests showed both ears were Ellwood's.

Defendant's first issue on appeal is whether the trial court erred when it denied defendant's motion to dismiss the charge of first-degree murder. Defendant contends the evidence was insufficient to permit a reasonable juror to find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was guilty of the premeditated and deliberate murder of Ellwood.

When the trial court considers a motion to dismiss, it is "concerned only with the legal sufficiency of the evidence to support a verdict, not its weight, which is a matter for the jury." State v. Blake, 319 N.C. 599, 604, 356 S.E.2d 352, 355 (1987). The State gets the benefit...