Work v. State
| Decision Date | 31 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | NO. 03-19-00961-CR,03-19-00961-CR |
| Parties | Meagan Rena Work, Appellant v. The State of Texas, Appellee |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
FROM THE 167TH DISTRICT COURT OF TRAVIS COUNTY
NO. D-1-DC-14-301864, THE HONORABLE P. DAVID WAHLBERG, JUDGE PRESIDING
Appellant Meagan Rena Work was indicted for multiple offenses related to the death of her two-year-old son, C.T. In cause number D-1-DC-14-302145, she was charged with first-degree injury to a child causing serious bodily injury. See Tex. Penal Code § 22.04(a)(1), (e). In cause number D-1-DC-14-302146, she was charged with first-degree injury to a child by omission causing serious bodily injury. See id. § 22.04(a)(1), (b)(1), (e). In cause number D-1-DC-14-301864, she was charged with two counts of second-degree tampering with physical evidence, a human corpse. See id. § 37.09(c), (d)(1). Pursuant to a plea-bargain agreement, appellant entered an open plea of guilty to the injury to a child by omission causing serious bodily injury charged in cause number D-1-DC-14-302146 and the two counts of tampering with physical evidence, a human corpse, charged in cause number D-1-DC-14-301864. As part of the plea-bargain agreement, the injury to a child causing serious bodily injury charged in cause number D-1-DC-14-302145 was dismissed. The trial court found appellant guilty of all three offenses and, after hearing punishment evidence, sentenced appellant to confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for thirty years for the injury to a child by omission and twenty years for each of the tampering offenses, see id. §§ 12.32, 12.33, ordering the sentences to be served concurrently, see id. § 3.03(a). In four points of error on appeal, appellant contends that the trial court abused its discretion in denying her second amended motion to suppress the statements that she made to the investigating officers. We will affirm.
BACKGROUND
Factual Background1
On the evening of September 10, 2014, Kevin Freed, a patrol officer with the Cedar Park Police Department, met with a concerned citizen who had come to the police station to make "an outcry about the welfare of a young child" because she believed the young boy, two-year-old C.T., was missing and had been abused. The citizen showed the officer photographs depicting the child with significant injuries that appeared, to the officer, to be inflicted rather than naturally occurring. Officer Freed conferred with his supervisors, and they determined that a welfare check on the child was warranted.
Officers eventually found the child's mother, appellant, at around 10:00 p.m. later that night at a residence on Cypress Lane, but C.T. was not with her. When the officers tried to ascertain the boy's location, appellant indicated that her son was with her friend in Sachse, which she said was a city outside of Houston.2 The officers contacted Sachse Police to follow up onappellant's information—to go to the friend's home, find C.T., and conduct a welfare check on him. The Sachse Police went to the friend's house and discovered that C.T. was not there. They conveyed that information to the Cedar Park Police, along with information that appellant had texted her friend, while the Sachse Police were there, instructing her friend to tell the police that C.T. was there. The Cedar Park officers confronted appellant with the fact that her son was not at her friend's home in Sachse, but appellant insisted that she had taken C.T. to her friend's house outside of Houston. The police remained unable to ascertain the child's location or condition. After contacting the on-call detective, a decision was made to transport appellant to the Cedar Park police station to further the investigation.3
They arrived at the Cedar Park police station a few minutes after 11:00 p.m. (on September 10th), and appellant was taken to the "soft interview" room, which is a room with a "laid back environment" used for interviewing witnesses and victims, particularly children, that has a loveseat and toys. Christopher Dailey, a detective with the Cedar Park Police Department, began interviewing appellant around midnight. He informed her that she was "not under arrest" but was "not free to leave." He then gave her Miranda warnings, see Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 478-79 (1966) (), which appellant indicated that she understood. Appellant first repeated the Sachse story previously given to the patrol officers at the Cypress Lane residence—that she had dropped C.T. off with her friend in Sachse. However, aboutforty-five minutes into the interview, appellant admitted that she had lied about Sachse and said that C.T. had been kidnapped from her truck outside a truck stop in Austin the week before. After getting further information about that incident, Detective Dailey left the interview room.
Appellant was left alone in the soft-interview room for almost an hour, during which time she moved to the loveseat to lie down. Detective Dailey returned with a map of the area that appellant had described, and she pointed out the location where C.T. had been kidnapped. The detective again left the room at about 2:30 a.m. (on September 11th), asking appellant before he left if she needed to use the restroom. She said that she did, and the detective found an officer to escort her to the restroom. After her restroom break, appellant returned to the loveseat. Detective Dailey, his fellow detectives and officers, and officers from other law-enforcement agencies coordinated to follow up on the information that appellant had provided as well as to investigate other sources for information.
Detective Dailey returned just after 3:00 a.m. for about five minutes and asked appellant a few additional questions. Appellant asked the detective if they had "figured anything out or talked to anybody" who had information that could help them find C.T. When he told her that they were "still working on it," she asked, "You still don't know anything?" The detective told her that he would "let [her] know." While the police efforts to find C.T. were ongoing, appellant slept on the loveseat. As part of their efforts, police obtained search warrants for appellant's truck, which they considered to be a crime scene based on appellant's statement that C.T. had been kidnapped from there, and appellant's cell phone in order to gain possible information to assist in locating C.T.
About one and a half hours later, in the early morning hours of September 11th, Lieutenant Chanse Thomas, another detective with the Cedar Park Police Department, joinedDetective Dailey in interviewing appellant. They woke up appellant at approximately 4:20 a.m. and asked her if they could "talk to [her] a little bit more." She said, "Yeah." She told them that she was not feeling good and felt like throwing up. Lieutenant Thomas offered her the trashcan, and she explained that "that's why [she] had it."4 She did not indicate that she needed medical assistance or say that she could not talk to them because she was not feeling well. Detective Dailey asked appellant if she was hungry; she said that she was not and confirmed that she still had water.5 He then again gave appellant Miranda warnings since the lieutenant had joined the interview. Appellant orally confirmed her understanding of each of the constitutional rights. Detective Dailey asked appellant if she "still want[ed] to talk to [them]," and she said, "Yes, sir." Lieutenant Thomas then asked appellant if she was hungry or if "food might help [her]." They briefly discussed her pregnancy, and appellant told them that she was four months pregnant. Lieutenant Thomas again asked appellant if she was hungry, and she said that she was "not really hungry." He told her that if she got hungry to let them know "so [they] [could] go get something for [her]." In the ensuing interview, appellant persisted in her story that C.T. had been kidnapped from her truck. A few minutes before 5:00 a.m., the lieutenant again asked appellant if she wanted something to eat, and she declined. He asked if she was sure, offering "something from Jack-in-the-Box, Whataburger, anything like that," and she confirmed that she did not want anything to eat. He also offered appellant water but noted, as she indicated, that she already had some water. The detectives then left the interview room. A few minutes after they left, appellant vomited intermittently for about five minutes into the trashcan.
About twenty minutes later, at 5:18 a.m., the detectives returned and confronted appellant with the fact that the information that she had provided about the kidnapping conflicted with information that the various law-enforcement officers had gathered in their efforts to find C.T. They informed her that officers had talked with her boyfriend, Michael Turner, in the San Saba County Jail, and he had told them that she let C.T. go with some people at a Chick-Fil-A. Appellant then described giving C.T. away to a man and woman, unknown to her, in a Chick-Fil-A parking lot at the beginning of August. She told the detectives that she was on the side of the road with C.T. asking for money and a place to stay when a man and woman pulled over into the Chick-Fil-A parking lot. She said they discussed her situation, prayed together, shared a meal, and then she gave C.T. to them. Appellant did not know their names, because she did not ask, and said that they were "not from around here." She described the couple, gave the approximate ages of two children the couple had with them, and described their car. She told the detectives that they could get the footage from the security camera at the Chick-Fil-A to confirm her story and get information about the couple's car. The detectives left the interview room...
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