Walker v. State, 18S00-9102-CR-147

• Citation: 587 N.E.2d 675
• Decision Date: 06 March 1992
• Docket Number: No. 18S00-9102-CR-147,18S00-9102-CR-147
• Parties: Robert D. WALKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
• Court: Supreme Court of Indiana

Page 675

587 N.E.2d 675

Robert D. WALKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

No. 18S00-9102-CR-147.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

March 6, 1992.

Rehearing Denied May 7, 1992.

William G. Bruns, Cannon & Bruns, Muncie, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen. of Indiana and Geoff Davis, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

GIVAN, Justice.

A jury trial resulted in the conviction of appellant of Murder, to which he was sentenced to a term of sixty (60) years.

The facts are: The victim in this case, Earnest Daugherty, age eighty-two, lived alone in his trailer in Muncie, Indiana. At 11:15 a.m. on July 15, 1985, Daugherty was observed as being in good health. At approximately 1:00 p.m. that same day, his daughter, Bessie Martin, visited the trailer and found that it had been broken into. Upon entering, she heard her father moaning. She found him in the bedroom bleeding from the head. She noticed a box fan overturned in the bedroom, the telephone was dead, and a carton of Viceroy cigarettes she had purchased for her father the day before was missing from on top of the refrigerator where Daugherty always kept his cigarettes.

Police and an ambulance were summoned but Daugherty eventually died of his wounds. The pathologist concluded that Daugherty died of severe head injuries from being struck by a blunt instrument, compatible with having been struck by the fan.

The day after Daugherty's injuries, appellant, who lived in a trailer four doors from Daugherty, told police he was sick in bed when the beating occurred. However, appellant's live-in girlfriend repeatedly telephoned him at home on July 15 between 11:30 and noon with no answer. Later that day, appellant would not answer his girlfriend's questions about what had happened at Daugherty's trailer or where he had been earlier that day. Appellant was unusually quiet that night and became upset the next day when he learned his girlfriend had spoken to police.

Within a week of the incident, appellant began drinking alcohol with his friend Wayne Wells and told Wells that he was nervous. He related that recently he and Troy Miller had gone into the home of an "old man" looking for social security money. The old man was in the bedroom and did not hear them enter. Appellant admitted he beat the old man and hit him with the fan causing his own clothes to become bloody. Although the old man attempted to resist, appellant stated he was not moving when they left him. He told Wells he took a carton of cigarettes and that he and Miller took some money. However, appellant asked Wells not to reveal what he had told him.

After Wells talked to police in April of 1990, Detective Irelan and Detective Charles Hensley interviewed appellant. Appellant at first denied any participation in the murder, stating that he suspected his ex-roommate "Paul." He told the detectives that Miller admitted the murder and that he (appellant) was sick in bed at the time of the murder. After the police confronted appellant with inconsistent statements and questioned him as to why he knew of certain details of the crime which had not been published, appellant stated he wanted to be honest, began to cry, and asked if he would be jailed. Appellant stated he was acting as a lookout for Miller who broke into the trailer looking for money, killed the man, came out with a carton of cigarettes from atop the refrigerator, and had blood on his clothing.

After a prayer in which he admitted he "sinned very badly," he admitted he had gone into the trailer and that he got blood on his clothing in an attempt to see if the old man was dead. He stated that when they left, the old man was still alive and that Miller took a carton of cigarettes from on top of the refrigerator and money from the man's wallet. He first told police that they both changed clothes at a railroad trestle where Miller had stashed a change of clothes for them, but when questioned about the anticipated need for a change of clothing, he stated that they in fact had separated and that he returned home wearing his bloody clothes. The fact that cigarettes had been taken and the fan was a probable weapon was information which the police had not released to the public.

Appellant expressed remorse and told the officers he was an accessory. However, when the officers suggested video-taping his statement, he made a complete denial and requested counsel.

Jail inmate Chris Smith testified that while he and appellant were in jail together, appellant offered to pay him money to "help" with his alibi by telling police that Smith knew who had really killed Daugherty and that appellant was only a lookout. When Smith told appell...