State v. Van Landingham

• Decision Date: 12 July 1973
• Docket Number: No. 55,55
• Citation: 197 S.E.2d 539,283 N.C. 589
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Celeste H. VAN LANDINGHAM.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Page 539

197 S.E.2d 539

283 N.C. 589

STATE of North Carolina v. Celeste H. VAN LANDINGHAM.

No. 55.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

July 12, 1973.

Atty. Gen. Robert Morgan and Asst. Atty. Gen. Richard B. Conely, Raleigh, for the State.

Tharrington, Smith & Hargrove, Raleigh, for defendant appellant.

SHARP, Justice:

Defendant's first two assignments of error are that the court erred in denying her motion for nonsuit as to the charge of first degree murder and each of the lesser degrees of homicide included in that charge. Defendant offered no evidence. The State's evidence tended to show:

Dr. McInnis, a Raleigh pediatrician who raised horses, lived on her farm a short distance north of Raleigh. Her residence, directly across Six Forks Road from the Bayleaf Baptist Church, was in a grove about 100 feet from the west side of the road. Since 1965 defendant, Mrs. Van Landingham, had lived on this farm in a house just back of Dr. McInnis'. A driveway from Six Forks Road served both residences and continued past defendant's house for 420 feet to a horse barn and tool shed. After passing between these two buildings the drive became a bridle path leading to and across the dam of a pond southwest of the barn. Beyond the dam it was one of a number of horse trails around the lake and in the wooded area adjacent to it.

During the summer of 1972 Dr. McInnis employed John Simpson (John) a 17-year-old high school boy, to work on the farm. On 10 August 1972 John observed defendant leaving the premises as he came to work at 8:30 a.m. He saw her again about noon as she walked from her house toward the carport. About 10:30 a.m. Dr. McInnis came home, changed into her working clothes, and helped John in the yard until about 12:45 p.m. when she drove to a nearby store to get food for lunch. She returned about 1:00, delivered her purchases to the maid, and walked toward the horse barn.

While waiting for lunch to be prepared John went to the tool shed, procured hand tools, and repaired a broken chain on a trailer. During the performance of this task, which took about five minutes, he observed the Bolda children, Sue, aged 17; Cheryl, aged 11; and Don, aged 15, coming across the dam with a horse. After repairing the chain John returned to the house to wait for Dr. McInnis. She did not return and the maid persuaded him to eat his lunch while it was hot. At two o'clock the maid had gone, Dr. McInnis had still not come for lunch; so John went back to the barn area. He saw the three Bolda children grazing a horse while they ate their lunch on a stump between the barn and the pond. This stump was 87 feet from the barn and 120 feet from the pond. After asking the children where Dr. McInnis was he went into the barn looking for her. The door of the tack room, which is immediately to the left of the barn entrance, was closed. This door opened to the left inside the room.

John 'grabbed hold of the latch,' which slips over a U-shaped ring designed for a padlock, and 'started opening the door.' Before he had moved the door two feet it was stopped from the inside. However, he observed Dr. McInnis sitting on a feed can facing the door. She was wearing sun glasses and had a cigarette in her hand. 'She looked casually.' There were no weapons in sight. He did not see Mrs. Van Landingham, but he heard her voice from behind the door. She told him 'not to come in now, to go back up to the house.' A second time she said, 'Don't come in now John. We will be up in a minute.' The door was then closed. The time was about 2:05 p.m.

The Bolda children had arrived at the McInnis farm about 11:15 a.m. on 10 August 1972 to ride and brush their horse and clean out its stall. They parked their car, which they had to get home by 2:30 p.m., in the church yard across the road and walked down the drive between the two houses to the barn and the lake. About five minutes after John Simpson had left the barn after inquiring of them as to Dr. McInnis' whereabouts, Cheryl went to the tack room for a brush. As she started to pull the latch back it hit the door. Mrs. Van Landingham then opened the door just enough to stick her head out and said she was busy. Cheryl said, 'O.K.' and went back to the stump. Ten or fifteen minutes thereafter, at 2:20 p.m., the children left the barnyard by the same route they had come. During their stay at the farm they had heard no shots fired or any other unusual noise.

After John Simpson's conversation with Mrs. Van Landingham at the tack room door he returned to the house to await Dr. McInnis' return. While waiting he fell asleep in the den. At 3:30 p.m. he was awakened by Carol Caniford (Caniford), a neighbor, and Mrs. V. Watson Pugh, Dr McInnis' sister-in-law. At no time that day had he heard any gun shots fired.

Carol Caniford, an operating room nurse who taught riding at her residence, lived in a house which she rented from defendant. This house, located on the west side of Six Forks Road, is two-tenths of a mile south of the drive leading into the McInnis farm. The distance from the Caniford house to the McInnis barn is about four tenths of a mile by way of Six Forks Road and the McInnis drive. It is 679 steps from the McInnis barn to the Caniford house by way of the path across the pond dam and through the woods and pasture--a fast six minutes' walk. The McInnis barn is located straight across the field and woods to the north of the Caniford barn, which is 50--100 feet behind the Caniford house.

The land and barns which Caniford used for her horses were rented from both Dr. McInnis and defendant. Caniford paid low rent because she did a lot of work on the McInnis farm. She had keys to the gates and buildings.

On the morning of 10 August 1972 Caniford, who had been on duty all night at the hospital, got home at 7:30. During the morning she gave riding lessons until noon. Sometime thereafter defendant came to her house to deliver feed which she had purchased that morning at Caniford's request. After the two women unloaded the feed at her barn Caniford returned to the house and went to bed between 1:30 and 2:00 p.m. A pounding on the door awakened her about 2:30 p.m. She went to the door to find defendant standing there, 'terribly upset.' Defendant said a lot of things 'awfully fast'; some were 'sort of incoherent' and 'a lot of it didn't make any sense.' Caniford testified, 'A few of the things I know, a few of the things I am not sure about.'

Defendant told Caniford that 'Alice had been hurt, or Alice had been shot.' In answer to Caniford's question whether 'she was sure of how badly (Dr. McInnis) was hurt or if she was dead' defendant said she was not sure and that Caniford 'must go down there . . . and hurry and just go right now, go.' Defendant said either, 'I wanted to kill myself,' or 'I want to kill myself.'

Caniford dressed and told defendant she thought she should stay at her (Caniford's) house or go next door and remain with Mrs. John Willardson. As Caniford backed her car out of the driveway defendant was headed across the yard toward the Willardson house.

The Willardsons, who had lived next door to Caniford for two or three weeks, were also defendant's tenants. Mr. Willardson had passed the North Carolina State Bar examination. However, his license had not been issued to him and he had not taken his oath as an attorney. On 10 August 1972 he was employed as a law clerk by one of the judges of the North Carolina Court of Appeals. On that day, between 2:45 and 3:00 p.m., defendant walked into the Willardson residence without knocking and told Mrs. Willardson that 'something is very wrong . . . Dr. McInnis is dead.' Mrs. Willardson, who was 'really stunned,' asked whether she should call the police or an ambulance. Defendant said that Caniford was taking care of that and suggested that she call defendant's attorney, Mr. Al Lloyd. She gave Mrs. Willardson his telephone number from memory. The Willardsons' telephone not having been installed, they went to Caniford's house to make the call.

After trying unsuccessfully to reach Mr. Lloyd, Mrs. Willardson telephoned her husband and said to him, 'John, will you please come home and will you please talk to Mrs. Van Landingham, and he did (talk to her over the telephone).' Over defendant's objection Mrs. Willardson testified that she heard defendant's conversation with her husband but she 'didn't remember this as clearly because (she) was really nervous.' However, she did remember defendant asking her husband 'if he could come home because of his job situation' and saying to him, 'They are coming to arrest me.' John Willardson testified, also over objection, that defendant said to him over the telephone, 'John, is there any way you can come home . . . something terrible has happened. Dr. McInnis is dead and the police are coming to arrest me.'

Willardson was at home in about 35 minutes after his conversation with defendant. He walked in and told her immediately that he was not in any position to give her legal advice because he was not yet an attorney; that the only thing he could say to her was not to say anything to him or to any other person until she had spoken to an attorney; that since she could not reach Mr. Lloyd he suggested that she call Attorney E. E. Hollowell. Defendant called Hollowell and he came.

When defendant came into the Willardsons' house Mrs. Willardson saw no blood and no signs of injury on her. Deputy Sheriff Covert likewise observed no physical injury to defendant when he saw her at 7:00 p.m. on 10 August 1972.

When Caniford arrived at the McInnis place after having left defendant en route to the Willardson house, she unlocked the front gate, left her car there, and went to the barn. Defendant had not driven her car to Caniford's home and she observed it in the carport at Dr. McInnis' house. At the barn Caniford found the tack room door padlocked, and unlocked the door with her key. Inside, the dead body of Dr. McInnis was...