State v. Valentine

• Decision Date: 11 February 1974
• Docket Number: No. 57613,No. 2,57613,2
• Citation: 506 S.W.2d 406
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Walter VALENTINE, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 406

506 S.W.2d 406

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Walter VALENTINE, Appellant.

No. 57613.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

Feb. 11, 1974.

Motion for Rehearing or for Transfer to Court en Banc Denied

March 11, 1974.

John C. Danforth, Atty. Gen., Richard S. Paden, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.

James E. Hullverson, St. Louis, for appellant.

HENLEY, Presiding Judge.

Walter Valentine, defendant, has appealed ¹ from a judgment sentencing him to imprisonment for life on his conviction of first degree murder on November 4, 1971. We affirm.

Defendant was charged by indictment with intentionally and deliberately killing Floyd Jordan by shooting him with a pistol on January 19, 1971, in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. His pleas were not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect excluding responsibility. A jury found him guilty and assessed his punishment at life imprisonment.

The questions raised on this appeal involve (1) the sufficiency of the evidence to show that the person killed was in fact Floyd Jordan; (2) the admissibility of evidence of identity of a body as that of Floyd Jordan; (3) the sufficiency of the evidence to prove venue in the city of St. Louis; and (4) the action of the trial court in giving two instructions.

The evidence would warrant the jury in finding the facts to be as follows. In the late afternoon or early evening of January 19, 1971, approximately three months after having been released from the state penitentiary, defendant hailed a Marcella taxicab driven by Floyd Jordan at Union and St. Louis avenue, in the city of St. Louis, got in the front seat with the driver and told him to take him to St. Louis and Marcus. Enroute to that destination, defendant, with a .32 automatic pistol in his hand, ordered the driver to turn north off St. Louis onto Euclid avenue. They drove north on Euclid to Ashland street and then east on Ashland to an alley in the 4700 block of Greer avenue, where defendant directed the driver to stop, turn off the car lights, and hand over his money. The driver did so, giving defendant about $40. Defendant, apprehensive that the driver could recognize him, took him through a gangway into a garage on the alley at the rear of 4725 Greer, told him to lie down, and when he did defendant held the pistol to the driver's head and fired at least twice. Jordan died almost immediately.

Officer Hugh Geiler and his supervisor, Sergeant Edward Jones, both St. Louis city police officers assigned to the Eighth district, were the first officers to arrive at the scene and begin an investigation. Officer Geiler testified that he found a Marcella taxicab belonging to Floyd Jordan abandoned in an alley in the 4700 block of Greer avenue; that he and Sergeant Jones made a search of the area for the driver and found him in a garage adjoining the alley. Sergeant Jones testified that he arrived at the scene at about 6:30 p.m. on January 19, 1971, in response to a report of an abandoned taxicab in that area; that 'some people indicated that a fellow had taken the cab driver down the alley and that they later heard some shots'; that while searching for the taxi driver he looked in a 'garage door * * * in the rear of 4725 Greer * * * and there was a fellow laying there on an old bed spring * * * bleeding about the head and he was unconscious'; that he then called for the homicide squad and a conveyance for the body.

Officer Geiler further testified on direct examination, and defendant made objections, as follows:

'Q. Did you at any time that evening see Floyd Jordan?

A. Yes.

Q. Where did you see him?

A. I saw him on a stretcher.

MR. HULLVERSON: I'll object to that as a conclusion, if the court please.

THE COURT: Overruled.

Q. (By Mr. McDonald) Where did you see him?

A. I saw him on a stretcher.

Q. Where was this stretcher located?

A. He was being taken out of a garage in the rear of 4700 Greer, on a stretcher, put in a cruiser.

MR. HULLVERSON: I'll object to these answers in this line, as a conclusion, based on hearsay, if the Court please, and ask it be stricken and the jury be instructed to disregard it and a mistrial declared.

THE COURT: Overruled. Overruled as to mistrial.'

Defendant did not cross-examine the officer.

Dr. James R. Criscione, a medical doctor engaged in private practice in St. Louis, testified that as a physician for the city coroner he performed an autopsy on January 20, 1971, on the body of Floyd Jordan, whom he described as a colored male, fifty-nine years old, sixty-eight inches tall and weighing 160 pounds; that he found two gunshot wounds in Jordan's neck which had severed his spinal cord and produced death. Defendant made no objection to any of this testimony and did not cross-examine the witness.

Detective Herbert Riley testified that he was a member of the St. Louis Police Department assigned to its homicide division; that he investigated the shooting and killing of Floyd Jordan; that in the course of his investigation he visited the scene of the shooting in a small vacant building on an alley that ran through the 4700 block of Greer avenue and looked in that area for witnesses to the shooting; that he talked with defendant shortly after his apprehension on February 4, 1971, in the city of St. Louis; that he advised defendant of his rights; that defendant understood his rights and did not want an attorney; that defendant made a statement to him regarding the homicide. This statement, as narrated by the officer, is as follows:

'He then went on and stated that sometime, in the middle of January, he couldn't remember the exact date, it was just about the time that it was getting dark, he said that he was standing on the corner of Union and St. Louis when this taxicab stopped at the red light. While the cab was stopped, Valentine said he got into the front seat with the driver. He said he directed the driver to take him to St. Louis and Marcus. He said enroute to this location, Valentine said he pulled a .32 automatic from his waist band, pointed it at the driver, and told the driver to turn north on Euclid from St. Louis. He says then they drove north on Euclid to Ashland. He said then he directed the driver to drive east on Ashland to an alley. He said he then told the driver to go up the alley. He said when they drove up the alley for some distance, he told the driver to turn off the car, turn out the lights. He said he then told the driver to hand him his money, and not to look at him. He said the driver then gave him about $40, most of which was in change. He says that he then told the driver to slide out of the driver's side, and as the driver was doing this the driver kept trying to look back to see what he looked like. He said he told the driver not to look back. As the driver got outside the door Valentine said he slid out behind the steering wheel the same way the driver went out. He says as they both got out, the driver tried to break away and run. Valentine said he grabbed him by the collar of his shirt or coat. He said he said to the driver, 'Don't do that.' He said he then marched the driver, or walked the driver down to the alley. He said he didn't know what he was going to do with him at that time, whether he should kill him or what. He said he walked down the alley for some distance, until he got to a gangway between a fence and a garage. He said he then led the driver into this gangway, he says as they started into the gangway the driver again tried to run away. Said that he had to grab the driver by the neck. He said he held him by the neck, he forced him into this little pedestrian door on the side of the garage. He said when he got into the garage he told the driver to lay down, and when the driver laid down Valentine says he took this .32 automatic and put it up to the driver's head and fired one shot, he said, but the gun went off three times. Valentine then said he ran back out of the gangway to the alley, then up to the alley and back to the cab. He says when he got to the cab he tried to start the cab, but it wouldn't start, so he removed the keys, got out of the cab, ran through a gangway and while doing this he threw the keys into a trash can. He says he then got onto Greer avenue, and then left the scene.'

Detective Riley also testified that defendant further stated that the weapon he had used in this shooting is one he had taken from the home of his girl friend, Joyce O'Neal, while she was not looking; that after the weapon was recovered through the help of Miss O'Neal, it was shown to defendant and he 'identified it as the same weapon he had used in the shooting.' Miss O'Neal testified that she had resided at 4320 Cintra, in St. Louis nine or ten years; that she knew and had dated defendant for the last seven years; that she was with him at the Carousel Motor Hotel on Kingshighway when he was arrested on February 4, 1971; that defendant called her on the telephone, as a result of which she helped the police find the weapon which had been hidden in some bushes near DeAndreis High School.

There was also evidence from a ballistics expert that a spent bullet and .32 caliber shells found at the scene of the homicide had been fired by the pistol identified by defendant as the one he had used to shoot the cab driver.

In the first point briefed defendant contends that the state did not make a submissible case in that it failed to prove one element of the corpus delicti, i.e., the death of the person alleged to have been murdered. Conceding that he admitted murdering a Floyd Jordan, defendant argues that there is no evidence the Floyd Jordan killed by him is (1) the same person named in the indictment as having been killed by him, or (2) the same person found in the garage building behind 4725 Greer street, suffering from fatal gunshot wounds.

In connection with this point defendant asserts that the closest the state came to making the necessary proof was through the...