State v. Stokes
| Decision Date | 31 August 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 61963,61963 |
| Citation | 638 S.W.2d 715 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Winford L. STOKES, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Howard E. McNier, St. Louis, for appellant.
John Ashcroft, Atty. Gen., Nancy Kelley Baker, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.
The appellant, Winford L. Stokes, was tried to a jury which found him guilty of capital murder and assessed his punishment at death. Secs. 565.001, 565.008 and 565.012, RSMo 1978. Judgment was entered accordingly and he has appealed to this Court which has exclusive appellate jurisdiction by reason of Section 3 of Article V of the Constitution of Missouri. Having reviewed and considered all errors enumerated by way of appeal and the sentence as mandated by § 565.014, RSMo 1978, the same is affirmed.
The record reflects that the victim, Pamela R. Benda, was thirty-three years of age, divorced and the mother of three children--then in the custody of their father; that she was employed at the Washington University Faculty Conference Center and recently had moved to an apartment at 6600 Washington in University City, Missouri; and, that during the evening of Saturday, February 18, 1978, she arrived at a lounge called "Some Place Else" on Lindbergh Boulevard in St. Louis County.
On that date, appellant was staying with a woman named Darlene at the Northwestern Hotel in the city of St. Louis. That evening she had a date with a friend named Wilbert, and appellant joined the two for dinner at the Heritage House and later arrived at the named lounge between 8:30 and 9:00 p. m. They secured a table close to the dance floor, ordered drinks and Wilbert danced with Darlene. When later orders were delayed, appellant went to find a waitress. Soon thereafter, appellant was seen dancing with the victim and she returned to the table with him and introduced herself. She joined the group which imbibed several rounds of drinks but it seems agreed that no one was intoxicated. At approximately 11:30 p. m., Darlene and Wilbert announced they were ready to leave. Appellant asked Wilbert to go to the restroom with him where he said that he "would catch a ride home" as the victim had promised to take him. She later confirmed the arrangement with Wilbert and the two were left at the lounge.
On Tuesday, February 21, 1978, the manager of the apartment building used his pass-key to allow a serviceman to enter the victim's apartment. When they entered a back bedroom, they discovered her nude body sprawled on the floor with a pillow or pillow case over her head and an apron wrapped around her neck. The police were called and her employer arrived later to identify the body. The apartment was in disarray with the bedroom ransacked, and the police remained nearly eight hours collecting evidence. Among other things, the toilet bowl contained a butcher knife and the victim's clutch purse with the contents therefrom. Several latent fingerprints were lifted from different objects in the room and four prints were determined later to be those of appellant. Although the record does not divulge how it was determined, the police later learned that the victim's pendant watch and her automobile were missing. After the discovery of this evidence, a "pickup" order was issued for appellant.
On the next day, February 22, an autopsy was performed by Dr. Eugene Tucker, a pathologist in the office of the Medical Examiner of St. Louis County. It was found that the body had passed through rigor mortis and had suffered the following wounds: a shallow incision, over the left upper chest just beneath the clavical, that was two inches in length, one and one-half inches in width and just beneath the skin; a cut on the back of the right hand; a cut on the surface of the hand; a deep cut over the back; a large cut in the posterior aspect of the lower third of the right arm which measured three inches in length, one-half inch wide and two inches deep, extending to the bone; a large area of bruising that was slightly raised and purple over the left side of the chest; a large bruise internally over the left side of the chest; numerous bruises and abrasions on both sides of the neck, some irregular, and others in a straight line running around to the posterior aspect of the neck; the right side of the lips were swollen and dark purple; dried blood was present in and outside the nose; several scrapes or abrasions were present on the face, one on the right side of the nose and another on the right temple; multiple areas of hemorrhage within the neck muscles; areas of fresh hemorrhaging in the thyroid gland and in the larnyx; one of the angles of the hyoid bone had been broken recently; a rather large abrasion over the back and sacrum; a superficial, one-fourth inch deep cut into the subcutaneous fat on the right chest in the shape of a round puncture; and, a slight abrasion to the right knee; liver mortis was evident; examination of the vagina revealed spermatozoa and it was thought that the victim had sexual intercourse within six hours of death; that the cause of death was manual strangulation although some linear abrasions apparently had been caused by the apron; that the victim was alive at the time of injury to the chest area as reflected by the condition of the resultant bruises; and, that death had occurred more than one day prior to the autopsy.
Appellant was seen driving the victim's automobile by his estranged wife, Ramona, and her girl friend. It was seen in front of the Northwestern Hotel where appellant was staying with Darlene. Later he gave Ramona a pendant watch just prior to the two leaving in the victim's automobile for South Bend, Indiana, on March 3, 1978, where they stayed for about two weeks prior to appellant's arrest. While there, Ramona had sold the pendant watch at an antique shop.
Detectives Earl Shelton and Francis Reich, of the police department of University City, arrived in South Bend on March 25, 1978, and at 2:00 p. m. were at the police station. They were greeted by a Lt. Mahank who brought appellant to them. After being identified, they informed appellant of the investigation and gave him a Miranda form. Upon request, appellant read "out loud" and acknowledged each right before filling in the date and time on the form and signing his name. Having agreed to talk to the officers, he was shown two photographs of the victim and asked if he had ever seen her. He stated that he did not know the woman depicted therein and had never seen her; that he had never been to the "Some Place Else" lounge; that he did not dance with any white woman; and that he had never seen the pendant watch. When told that his wife had said he had given it to her, appellant then related how he had purchased it for $20 from a man he did not know but who had been introduced to him by one Harold King. After stating that he had never been to the victim's apartment, appellant was advised that his fingerprints had been found therein. Thereafter, he related that he had been in the apartment with his wife, the victim, two other men and two white women; and that the "group partied until about 5:00 a. m." At that time, his estranged wife had said she was a little sick and he had taken her out to the parking lot. Later the two men came out with the "keys" and he and Ramona were taken to the Northwestern Hotel. One of the two men, several days later, attempted to sell him the automobile.
When the officers told appellant they would check with Harold King, he said that would not be necessary as that was not what happened. The third version of the events of the evening of February 18, 1978, were then related to the officers. Appellant said that Darlene, her boyfriend and he went to the "Some Place Else" lounge and the victim was there; that he danced with her and decided to remain when the two companions left as she promised to take him to his home; that when they left the lounge they drove by to pick up Ramona and the three went to the victim's apartment and began drinking; that he and Ramona were getting high on "reefers" and the victim asked him to go to bed with her; that he turned her down as his wife was in another part of the apartment and the victim began striking him with her open hand. Appellant then stated that he "went off and started striking her and knocked her down." He remembered his wife standing beside him saying, "Let's go." He told the officers that he had wanted to look at the victim and then determined that she was not breathing; that he and his wife searched the apartment; that he took a man's ring, the keys to the victim's auto and the auto itself; that his wife apparently took the pendant watch as she showed it to him the next day, Sunday. When asked if he realized that he was implicating his wife in the murder, he replied, "Yes." He repeated the "factual account" when she was brought into the room, but she emphatically denied the truth thereof when she testified at the trial.
Appellant's fingerprints were taken in South Bend and they were compared with those taken at the crime scene by Officer Donald T. Brian, Supervisor of the Fingerprint Section of the St. Louis County Police Department, and he determined that: a fingerprint lift from a scotch bottle was the left index finger of appellant; the fingerprint lift from the brass bed headboard was the right ringfinger of appellant; a fingerprint lift from the same bottle was the right ringfinger of appellant; and, the fingerprint lift from the cosmetic box on top of the bedroom dresser was the right thumb of appellant.
By an indictment filed on June 12, 1978, appellant was charged with the murder of Pamela R. Benda on or about February 19, 1978. Thereafter, an information having been filed in lieu thereof was withdrawn by the state on September 20, 1979, and the record reflects reinstatement of the original accusatory document. Again, on October 22, 1979, an...
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