State v. Stendrup
| Decision Date | 22 December 2022 |
| Docket Number | 21-1043 |
| Parties | STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Jeffrey Lee STENDRUP, Appellant. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Gary Dickey (argued) of Dickey, Campbell & Sahag Law Firm, PLC, Des Moines, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Kyle Hanson (argued), Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
During the course of a robbery, Jeffrey Stendrup beat Jeremy McDowell with a bat. McDowell, who was high on methamphetamine at the time, died of a cardiac arrhythmia during or immediately after the beating. Following a bench trial, Stendrup was convicted of robbery in the first degree and felony murder with robbery in the first degree serving as the predicate felony. In this direct appeal, Stendrup challenges the sufficiency and weight of the evidence supporting his convictions and contends he should not be held responsible for McDowell's death because he did not intend to cause McDowell's death.
Stendrup and McDowell were longtime friends and drug-dealing associates. Stendrup sold methamphetamine to McDowell, and McDowell distributed it to others. In June 2018, their relationship deteriorated because Stendrup had an affair with McDowell's girlfriend. Stendrup was in a relationship with a woman named Shelley Christensen, and McDowell was in a relationship with a woman named Jaycie Sheeder. In June 2018, Christensen caught Stendrup in bed with Sheeder.
In retaliation, Christensen allegedly stole drugs, money, keys, and other personal items from Stendrup's apartment. Between June 17 and 19, Stendrup and McDowell exchanged angry text messages. In those messages, Stendrup accused McDowell of helping Christensen steal from Stendrup and of possessing some of the stolen items. McDowell was noncommittal in response to the allegations, sometimes intimating he had the items and other times intimating he did not. In some of the messages, Stendrup threatened to assault McDowell. For example, he threatened, "[W]hen I see you I'ma beat your face to the ground you better give me all that shit back."
On June 20, Stendrup went to the Clive Police Department to report Christensen had stolen property from his apartment, his Honda, and his Cadillac. The report was recorded on an officer's body camera. Stendrup stated, "I'm going to kill that bitch if you don't find her." Apparently dissatisfied with the police's response, Stendrup stated, "I'm gonna take care of this myself." He stated that he and his friends were looking for Christensen and that the police better find her first or she would not "be around."
Stendrup made unsuccessful efforts to retrieve his property. On one occasion, Stendrup found out where his Honda was and went to retrieve it. He asked his friend Andrew Forrest to show up in case things got rough. Stendrup and Christensen exchanged some words, but Stendrup left without the Honda because the police were on the way. On another occasion, McDowell text messaged Stendrup and Sheeder with a tip regarding the location of the Cadillac. Stendrup called McDowell and left a voicemail, stating,
Things came to a head shortly after midnight on the morning of June 22 at the residence of Dave Anderson and Doreen Coleman in Colfax. Anderson was a regular methamphetamine user, and he purchased methamphetamine from McDowell. Anderson's supply of methamphetamine had been disrupted by Stendrup and McDowell's disagreements. Anderson contacted Sheeder about buying methamphetamine directly from Stendrup. Stendrup agreed to deal directly with Anderson, but Stendrup told Anderson he first needed to resolve his situation with McDowell.
The record is unclear on the exact details, but it appears Anderson arranged for McDowell to come to his residence and then told Sheeder about it. At 12:59 a.m. on June 22, Anderson and McDowell spoke on the phone for a few minutes. Not long after the phone call, McDowell arrived at Anderson and Coleman's residence. Around the same time, Stendrup placed several calls to his friend Forrest to come to Anderson's house and assist. Forrest later testified he was supposed to join Stendrup in Colfax but his "old lady" sensed "what's going on" and convinced him not to go.
At approximately 1:34 a.m. McDowell took a phone call from Sheeder. Unbeknownst to McDowell, Sheeder and Stendrup were already at the property. While the call was ongoing, Stendrup entered the residence with a bat and yelled, "Where's my shit?" Stendrup chased McDowell into the kitchen and beat him with the bat. Anderson heard glass breaking, observed some of the blows, and then ran out of the house. He found Sheeder going through his van, which McDowell had been using. The call between Sheeder and McDowell was still connected, so they could hear Stendrup inside the house beating McDowell while yelling, "Where's my shit?"
After failing to convince Sheeder to go into the home and intervene, Anderson went back into the home. He saw Stendrup and asked him to stop beating McDowell, but Stendrup refused. When Stendrup finally stopped, he went outside. Stendrup warned Anderson to not tell anyone what happened otherwise he would "come back and burn [Anderson's] house down with [Anderson] and [his] girlfriend in it." Stendrup and Sheeder then left without taking anything with them.
Anderson reentered the house and found McDowell face-down on the floor. Anderson shook McDowell and called out his name, but McDowell was not responsive. Anderson told investigators McDowell never moved after the assault. Anderson did not call 911 at this time because he was concerned about the drugs in his home.
Coleman was not present at the house during the assault; she was at work. At 1:47 a.m. Anderson called Coleman at work, and he told her Stendrup had just killed McDowell. Video from Coleman's work shows she received the call, and audio shows Coleman shrieked and became distraught when she heard the news. After Anderson called Coleman, he gathered all of the drugs in his house and took them to his neighbor Tom Wearmouth's home for safekeeping.
Within minutes of receiving Anderson's call, Coleman called Sheeder. Phone records show Coleman and Sheeder spoke three times, at 1:56, 2:04, and 2:20 a.m. After this last call, Sheeder returned to Colfax to meet Anderson at his residence. Sheeder thought McDowell was still alive. They agreed Sheeder would take McDowell to a hospital. They tried to put McDowell in a van, but he was too heavy. They enlisted the help of Wearmouth. They eventually loaded McDowell into Anderson's van.
At around 3:00 a.m. Sheeder called the hospital requesting directions. She stated her friend had gotten beaten up and needed urgent care. The hospital employee advised Sheeder to call 911, which she did. Sheeder told the 911 dispatcher she was transporting an unconscious person who might not be breathing. The dispatcher directed Sheeder to meet law enforcement and emergency personnel at a local restaurant. When law enforcement and emergency personnel arrived at the restaurant, Sheeder was already there. A responding paramedic, Ryan Volk, testified McDowell had no pulse, was stiff, cyanotic, and cool. According to Volk, the cyanotic condition—meaning McDowell was blue in color from lack of blood flow—indicated McDowell "had not just died." Paramedics nonetheless took emergency life-saving measures, which were unsuccessful. McDowell was declared dead at 3:39 a.m.
At 5:16 a.m., Stendrup sent a Facebook message to his friend Julie Landry stating he "might be in trouble baby for real" and he needed her help. They met in person later that morning. Stendrup told Landry that Christensen and McDowell stole things from him, that he told the police about it, and that the police did not help him so he helped himself. He explained that he went to Colfax to get drugs and money from McDowell. He told Landry he hit McDowell with a bat and left him face-down on the floor. He told Landry he "wasn't sure if [McDowell] was still alive."
Local law enforcement became suspicious because of the inconsistencies in Sheeder's story. They tracked Anderson's van back to his residence and went to investigate. Anderson and Coleman were not at the residence when police arrived. At the residence, law enforcement found signs of an altercation, including blood in the kitchen and on the living room sofa, a shattered oven door, and a displaced microwave. They found a bat in Sheeder's vehicle. The bat had McDowell's blood and Stendrup's fingerprints on it. At trial, Anderson identified the bat as the one Stendrup used to beat McDowell.
Law enforcement arrested Stendrup and Sheeder and charged both with, among other things, first-degree murder and first-degree robbery. On the defendants’ motion, Stendrup and Sheeder's trials were severed. Sheeder's case was tried to a jury, and she was found guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, and being an accessory after the fact. Her convictions were affirmed on direct appeal. State v. Sheeder , No. 19-1716, 2021 WL 4891014, at *1, *6 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 20, 2021). Stendrup elected to proceed with a bench trial.
Prior to his trial, Stendrup pleaded guilty to additional charges of suborning perjury and tampering with a witness. Those charges arose when Stendrup caused a letter to be sent to Anderson asking him to change his story about hearing Stendrup yell "where's my shit" while beating McDowell with the bat. The letter requested Anderson call Stendrup's lawyer and "say you were high that night and felt pressure by the cops to say something else and you didn't want to get in trouble but you didn't hear Jeff say (where's my shit)." The letter stated Anderson would not "get in trouble by the cops they can't do anything to you." The letter said if Anderson did this, he would "be well compensated."
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