State v. Weston, s. 19121

• Decision Date: 06 December 1995
• Docket Number: Nos. 19121,19985,s. 19121
• Citation: 912 S.W.2d 96
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. John WESTON, Defendant-Appellant, and John WESTON, Movant-Appellant, v. STATE of Missouri, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 96

912 S.W.2d 96

STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. John WESTON, Defendant-Appellant, and John WESTON, Movant-Appellant, v. STATE of Missouri, Respondent.

Nos. 19121, 19985.

Missouri Court of Appeals,

Southern District,

Division Two.

Dec. 6, 1995.

Ellen H. Flottman, Office of the State Public Defender, Columbia, for appellant.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Atty. Gen., David G. Brown, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.

PARRISH, Judge.

John R. Weston, Jr., (defendant) was convicted following a jury trial of murder in the second degree. § 565.021.1(1) ¹. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life. § 558.011.1(1). Following his conviction defendant filed a Rule 29.15 motion that was denied after an evidentiary hearing.

Defendant appeals the judgment of conviction in his criminal case (No. 19121) and the order denying his Rule 29.15 motion (No. 19985). The appeals were consolidated. See Rule 29.15(l ). This court affirms both the judgment of conviction and the order denying the Rule 29.15 motion.

No. 19121

Janice Owens Hernandez worked as a waitress at Crossroads Lounge in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Her brother took her to work May 6, 1988. That evening at about 10:00 p.m., Ms. Hernandez locked the door to the lounge. There was only one customer in the lounge, Jerry Moore. After locking the door, Ms. Hernandez and Mr. Moore drank together. Mr. Moore explained:

She had locked the doors because there was no customers and she had mentioned having to hitchhike home to Greenville and I kept hanging around because I felt, well, you know, I didn't want to just leave her with no ride. I thought I would give her a ride. I didn't tell her that I would, I just thought if something happened and she didn't have a ride that I would take her home.

Around midnight or 1:00 a.m. defendant knocked on the door at Crossroads Lounge. Ms. Hernandez let him inside. Mr. Moore, Ms. Hernandez and defendant played pool, listened to music and drank beer until about 2:00 or 2:30 a.m. They left the lounge at the same time, about 2:30 a.m. Ms. Hernandez told Mr. Moore she was going to ride home with defendant. He saw the two of them leave the parking lot together in a car. Defendant was driving. Ms. Hernandez did not come home the morning of May 7. The next day her brother reported her missing.

At 6:45 a.m., May 7, defendant was at the residence of Linda Byrd and her family. The Byrd residence was alongside Highway E in Wayne County in an area known as "pipe line." He knocked at the door. Ms. Byrd answered. Defendant told her he was having car trouble. Ms. Byrd woke up her son, Roger Green, and sent him to help defendant.

Defendant's car was about five miles from the Byrd residence. The car was about two miles off Highway E on an access road leading to a pipe line that runs through the area. Roger Green took defendant to his car and helped him start it.

On May 31, 1988, Ms. Hernandez's body was found by a logger in the pipe line area of Wayne County about 450 feet from where defendant's car was stalled the morning of May 7. The body was uphill from the pipe line access road that runs from Highway E. It was at a location approximately one-half mile from Ms. Hernandez's residence.

The body was decomposed--it consisted primarily of skeletal remains--with various body parts missing. The body parts that were found were scattered over an area 200 feet long. A piece of thick electrical wire was wrapped around the left wrist with a loop at the other end that would permit both hands to be tied together. The right hand was not found. Clothing, shoes and rings were found at the scene that were later identified as belonging to Ms. Hernandez.

Defendant's car had been searched at Troop E Headquarters of the Missouri State Highway Patrol on May 18, 1988. Lt. Jim Keathley of the patrol was asked what was noted in the examination of the car. He answered, "After putting the vehicle up on a lift we looked under the vehicle and I removed several pieces of what appeared to be possible tissue and several lifts of what appeared to be blood on the vehicle and also on the passenger's side inside windshield there were some shoe prints left on the inside of the window." The shoe prints matched the shoes that were later found at the site where the body parts were discovered.

Jerry Moore told an investigator for the Butler County Sheriff's Department, ² Officer Bill Heaton, that Ms. Hernandez left the Crossroads Lounge the morning of her disappearance with someone named John. Officer Heaton learned of defendant's identity from Ms. Hernandez's brother and requested the Wayne County Sheriff to arrange for him to interview defendant.

On May 17 a Wayne County deputy sheriff brought defendant to Butler County to be interviewed. They arrived at the sheriff's office about 12:30 p.m. where he was questioned by Officer Heaton.

Initially, defendant told three different stories. He first denied seeing Ms. Hernandez on May 7. Later, he admitted being at the Crossroads Lounge in the early morning hours of May 7 and leaving Ms. Hernandez. Defendant's second story was that he and Ms. Hernandez stopped for gas at a 7-11 Store; that Ms. Hernandez met three girls there and left with them. Defendant's third story was that he and Ms. Hernandez left the lounge together, drank a few beers and got into an argument. He said he and Ms. Hernandez smacked one another; that he woke up the next morning on a gravel road and did not know where she was.

Defendant was taken to Highway Patrol Troop E Headquarters the evening of May 17. He was questioned further by Highway Patrol Sergeant Donnie Smith. He told Sgt. Smith that he had gone to the Crossroads Lounge to pick up Ms. Hernandez after work and take her to her residence. He said they got into an argument on the way home; that he stopped the car and the two of them got out. Defendant told Sgt. Smith that Ms. Hernandez hit him in the chest; that he pushed her and she fell down. He claimed that she got up and walked into the woods. He said that was the last time he saw her.

Later the same evening, defendant told Sgt. Smith that the previous statement he made to him was a lie. He said he picked Ms. Hernandez up at the Crossroads Lounge and drove around with her. He said they got into an argument while they were still near the lounge and got out of the car. He said he pushed her away and she fell over an embankment and hit her head. He said he knew she was dead; that he panicked, got in his car and drove home.

At another time during defendant's interrogation by Sgt. Smith, he stated he had been with Ms. Hernandez during the early morning hours of May 7; that they got into an argument and he threw her off a bridge at Fisk, Missouri. A search of that area failed to turn up any evidence to corroborate defendant's story.

On the morning of May 18, defendant gave a written statement to Officer Heaton. In it defendant stated there had been a struggle during which Ms. Hernandez smacked him. He said he smacked her and she fell over an embankment.

The jury also heard testimony from Robert Leon Schlater, an inmate at the Missouri Department of Corrections who had been in the Wayne County jail in September 1988, when defendant was there. Mr. Schlater said defendant discussed the death of Janice Owens Hernandez. Mr. Schlater told the jury:

He told me on the night that this incident happened that he picked up the girl and they was out riding around and he took her out to a place called the pipe line, where the body was supposed to have been found. Anyway, he said they got into an argument and they had a fight and he was on top of her and had her by the hair of the head and he was beating her head against the ground and there was a rock underneath her head and at one time when he pushed her head down he kind of felt her body went lifeless and at that time he drug her off by the feet and got in his car and spin in his car to cover his tracks and left.

Another witness, Darrell Markham, testified that he and defendant had been at the Greenville Eagles Club in November 1988. He had been arguing and fighting with defendant. Mr. Markham was asked, "Did [defendant] say anything else with regard to threatening you the same way he had a girl or anything?" He answered, "That's--He said he would do me just like he done the girl."

Defendant's first allegation of error is directed to the denial of his motions for judgment of acquittal at the close of the state's case and at the close of all the evidence. He contends "the state's evidence was insufficient to convince a rational trier of fact of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, since the evidence failed to prove that Janice Hernandez died as the result of a homicide as opposed to an accident without reference to [defendant's] statements." He contends the corpus delicti of the offense of murder in the second degree was not established.

Defendant's first point is based on the principle that in order to support a conviction, the existence of the crime charged must be proven by evidence independent of a mere confession of guilt. See State v. Howard, 738 S.W.2d 500, 504 (Mo.App.1987). However, "[i]f there is evidence of corroborating circumstances which tend to prove the corpus delicti and correspond with circumstances related in the confession, both the circumstances and the confession may be considered in determining whether the corpus delicti is sufficiently proved in a given case." State v. Skibiski, 245 Mo. 459, 150 S.W. 1038, 1039 (1912).

"[F]ull proof of the corpus delicti independent of the defendant's extrajudicial confessions is not required." State v. McQuinn, 361 Mo. 631, 235 S.W.2d 396, 397 (1951). "The corpus delicti in a homicide case consists of (1) a person's death, and (2) the criminal agency of another." State v. Vincent, 785 S.W.2d 805, 810 (Mo.App.1990).

There is an abundance of evidence of corroborating circumstances that tends to prove corpus delicti and...