State v. Teel

• Decision Date: 29 May 1990
• Parties: STATE of Tennessee, Appellee, v. Homer B. TEEL, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 236

793 S.W.2d 236

STATE of Tennessee, Appellee, v. Homer B. TEEL, Defendant-Appellant.

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Nashville.

May 29, 1990.

Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen. and Reporter, John Knox Walkup, Sol. Gen., C. Anthony Daughtrey, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, and J. William Pope, Jr., Dist. Atty. Gen., Pikeville, for appellee.

Edwin Z. Kelly, Jr., Jasper and L. Thomas Austin, Dunlap, for defendant-appellant.

OPINION

DROWOTA, Chief Justice.

The Defendant, Homer "Butch" Teel, appeals directly to this Court his conviction of first degree murder and the sentence of death imposed by the jury. He raises numerous issues in this appeal, including: the trial court's failure to suppress statements made by the Defendant to detectives and to various jailhouse inmates while in custody, the court's failure to exclude testimony of the State serologist, the court's failure to exclude evidence relative to the condition of the decedent's body as found, errors alleging prosecutorial misconduct, errors relating to the denial of continuances and change of venue and the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction and the sentence. After a careful review of the entire record and the law, we find these issues to be without merit. We, therefore, affirm the conviction and the sentence.

The events leading up to the murder and disappearance of 14-year-old Tara Stowe and the subsequent arrest of the Defendant Teel will be described in detail in order to give meaning to the sixteen issues which we will consider on appeal. The Defendant was convicted of the murder of Tara Stowe in Marion County on the night of November 29, 1986. Tara lived with her grandmother in Tiftonia, Tennessee. Her grandmother had gone to Dallas, Texas, for several days and Tara was staying with her aunt, Betty Davis. On Saturday evening, November 29, at approximately 8:00 p.m., Betty Davis left her mobile home in Tiftonia to pick up her mother, Tara's grandmother, in Chattanooga. Tara and Betty's daughter, Kerry, were left at the mobile home with some of their friends, John Dagnun, David Dagnun and Tony Dagnun. Tara spoke on the telephone with the Defendant who was an acquaintance of hers. Later that evening Tara rode with her friends, John, David and Tony, in the back of a pickup truck driven by John's father to the Egypt Hollow community of Marion County, where the Dagnuns lived. She was let out about 10:00 p.m. near the trailer where "Butch" Teel lived with his grandmother.

The Defendant, "Butch" Teel, who was raised by his grandmother, was 20-years-old. He did not know his father, and his mother had died six years before the events in this case occurred. He had spent his entire life in the Egypt Hollow area and attended school up to the ninth grade. About the time that Tara arrived in Egypt Hollow on November 29, Tim Sexton and the Defendant were driving to Betty Davis's mobile home. On the way there, Sexton was told by the Defendant that their friend, James Dagnun, was living in the woods in a tent in Egypt Hollow, because John Dagnun, Sr. had taken out a warrant charging James with whipping little David Dagnun. James Dagnun, cousin of John Dagnun, Jr., and David Dagnun, was Tara Stowe's boyfriend. Upon arriving at Betty Davis's, the Defendant asked for Tara and was told that she had gone with the Dagnuns to Egypt Hollow. The two then drove back to Egypt Hollow, where they found Tara sitting on the steps of a church. When Tara advised them that she was waiting for her boyfriend, James Dagnun, the Defendant said that he would take her to the place where James was hiding to avoid arrest. Sexton drove up Murphy Hollow Road and left the Defendant and Tara at a large rock beside the road around 10:35--10:40 p.m. Central Standard Time. When the Defendant said that he and Tara were going up on the mountainside to find James Dagnun, Sexton asked if he could go with them. The Defendant refused and told him that James wanted him to bring only Tara. Sexton then left.

On the evening of November 29, both Betty Davis and Tim Sexton saw James Dagnun's high school class ring on Tara's hand. On the days immediately after Tara's disappearance, "Butch" Teel was seen wearing the ring Dagnun had given to Tara. On Sunday, November 30, the Defendant told John Dagnun he had not seen Tara; and on the following Wednesday, he threatened John because he had seen John searching for Tara. The Defendant also asked John if he thought he had "hurt" Tara. On Thursday, Teel told Sexton he had gotten the ring from Tara the night of November 29 and, the last time he saw Tara, she was leaving Egypt Hollow walking toward the interstate. Ronnie Nunley testified that he was 23-years-old and acquainted with the Defendant and that, sometime after Tara was reported missing, the Defendant had told him who she was and had asked him if he wanted a "bone from Tara."

Detective Bill Schroeder of the Marion County Sheriff's Department began investigating the disappearance of Tara Stowe on December 4, 1986. He went to the Teel residence and while talking with Teel, noticed a class ring on his hand. The detective asked Teel to go with him to the Sheriff's office and the Defendant agreed. The Defendant told Schroeder that Tim Sexton had left him and Tara in the hollow and he last saw Tara walking towards the interstate. The Defendant claimed that Tara had given him the class ring. When Detective Schroeder arrested the Defendant, he became irate and said that Schroeder "would never find anything or prove anything on him." The Defendant made several statements about how to get rid of a human body and suggested several locations where authorities might search. These sites were several miles from where Tara's body was eventually found. On December 6, the Defendant told Detective Schroeder that on the night she disappeared Tara had left the hollow with James Dagnun to get beer and that James had given him the ring.

On December 27, 1986, after an exhaustive search, the badly decomposed body of Tara Stowe was found lying in a ravine alongside a creek approximately 65 feet from the guard rail on Murphy Hollow Road. The body was located 248 feet from Egypt Hollow Road and approximately 3500 feet from the point where Sexton last saw Tara alive. Expert testimony indicated the body had probably been dragged into the ravine by animals. Some 36 feet away, investigators found a dark, wet, stained depression where, in the opinion of forensic anthropologist Dr. William M. Bass, the body had originally lain. Tree limbs over the depression indicated an attempt had been made to cover the body. Six to eight feet away, authorities found Tara's slacks and underpants. Certain items of her jewelry were lying in the depression.

The body was face down with the jacket, bra and blouse pulled over her head in a manner inconsistent with animal activity. Hair was stuck to the fingers of her left hand. An autopsy by Dr. Frank King, the Marion County Medical Examiner, and an examination of the bones of the throat, particularly the hyoid bone, by Dr. Bass indicated that the victim suffered trauma to her neck at the time of death. Dr. King testified that the cause of death had been "neck trauma," consistent with one of the following: manual strangulation, ligature strangulation, a blow to the neck, or a cut to the neck that was not deep enough to reach the underlying bones. From the condition of the body, Dr. King could make no conclusion whether the victim had engaged in sexual intercourse near the time of her death. A forensic serologist, however, found spermatozoa consistent with human spermatozoa on a sample taken from the crotch of the victim's underpants.

When Detective Schroeder informed Teel that the body had been discovered and photographed, the Defendant responded, "Good, give me some for my scrapbook." When the Defendant was being booked upon the murder charge, he asked Schroeder about the strength of the case. The Defendant said that he had an "ace in the hole" and "no one else was in it with me." Later, Teel called Schroeder to his cell and asked him about the elements of the degrees of murder and whether it was first degree murder if you killed a person by accident.

The State introduced several inmates from the Marion County and Franklin County Jails who testified that the Defendant had either admitted the killing or made incriminating statements to them. The first, Pandora Edwards, testified that, while she was in a cell next to Defendant's in the Franklin County Jail, the Defendant told her about "some fourteen [year-old] that he had raped, beat up, and cut and buried." Defendant said this had occurred at night and he was unable to sleep because he kept seeing the victim. Edwards' cellmate, Eddie Mae Tate Wilkerson, testified the Defendant said he had killed and buried the girl because she was his girlfriend and she was seeing another man. Inmate Charlie Algood testified that he overheard Defendant tell another inmate that he committed the crime but that they didn't have any witnesses. James Graham testified that Defendant told him that a girl was missing and that he would be charged with murder if she had been killed. Defendant said that the authorities had not found anything yet and that they probably would not. Defendant also admitted the killing to Stephen Morgan. While watching televised news reports of the search for Tara with the Defendant, Morgan and another inmate, George Caldwell, heard the Defendant say, "You're a long ways away from finding the body," and make other similar remarks. The Defendant also told Caldwell that the body was 300 feet from the road. As stated earlier, when found, the body was 248 feet from Egypt Hollow Road.

The most damaging testimony was that of Ernest Morrison, himself a capital defendant from Georgia who had temporarily shared a cell with Defendant and Earl David Crawford at the Marion County jail. Morrison testified that he and the Defendant talked...