S16A1509. McKINNEY v. THE STATE.
S16A1509
Supreme Court of Georgia
February 27, 2017
300 Ga. 562
NAHMIAS, Justice.
FINAL COPY
Aрpellant Roy McKinney was convicted of the malice murder of his wife, Shaquilla Weatherspoon, and cruelty to children in the third degree for beating Weatherspoon in the presence of their six-year-old daughter. His only contention on appeal is that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support his murder conviction. We affirm.1
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. On Sunday, June 2, 2002, at 1:45 a.m., Appellant called 911 and said that his wife had been missing since the night of
According to Appellant, Weatherspoon returned from Grady around 12:30 a.m., allowing him to get back into the apartment. She told him that she was going to a party at a co-worker‘s home and that she would not return that night because she would sleep at her mother‘s home, which was where their daughter was spending the night. Appellant arguеd with her, accusing her of going to
As the police investigated Weatherspoon‘s disappearance, evidence emerged that contradicted Appellant‘s story in several key aspects. The friend with whom Appellant had been drinking, Antonio Brown, confirmed that they sat outside together from about 7:00 p.m. until 11:30 p.m., although Brown said Appellant drank six or seven beers. During that time, however, Appellant did not say anything to Brown about being locked out of his apartment. Furthermore, Brown‘s and Appellant‘s stories about what happened after they parted ways differed. Brown said that he saw Appellant again between 1:00 and 1:30 a.m. standing outside by the apartment mailboxes. The next day, Appellant told Brown that he had been outside at that time because he was lockеd out of
Another neighbor, Antwon Fallin, told the police that he saw Appellant and Weatherspoon pull into the apartment‘s parking lot in their rental car around 1:00 a.m. Appellant was driving, and Weathеrspoon was slumped over in the passenger seat not moving. Although Appellant nearly hit Fallin, neither Appellant nor Weatherspoon said anything to him. Fallin found this strange because both usually spoke to him whenever they saw him. Fallin watched the car for the next five or ten minutes. It did not move from the place where it stopped in the pаrking lot, and no one got in or out.
One of Weatherspoon‘s friends and co-workers from Grady confirmed that she had invited Weatherspoon to a party that night. Weatherspoon said she would get to the party around 1:00 a.m., but she never arrived. Weatherspoon‘s mother said that Appellant called her around 1:30 or 2:00 a.m., asking if Weatherspоon was there and claiming that he was worried about her, even though based on the story Appellant gave the police, Weatherspoon was fine when she left for the party around 1:30 a.m.
Phone records supported Appellant‘s claim that he called Weatherspoon
Weatherspоon‘s friends and family corroborated Appellant‘s statement that Weatherspoon had affairs, mentioning three men specifically. These witnesses, however, painted a much darker picture of Appellant‘s relationship with Weatherspoon: it was not simply “bizarre“; it was obsessive and abusive. Three of Weatherspoon‘s clоse friends who worked with her at Grady said that Appellant was controlling and verbally abusive toward Weatherspoon. For example, he had hidden tape recorders in the apartment to monitor Weatherspoon, and he frequently checked her phone to discover if she was talking to any other men. He threatened to kill Weаtherspoon if she ever left and told her that “if he couldn‘t have her, nobody would.”
Weatherspoon‘s aunt and mother echoed what her friends said about Appellant‘s controlling and verbally abusive behavior, and added that Appellant‘s abuse of Weatherspoon was also physical. According to her aunt,
Weatherspoon‘s friends and relatives also said that Weathersрoon was unhappy in the relationship, had left a few times before but returned for the sake
On June 6, 2002, six days аfter she was last seen, Weatherspoon‘s body was discovered by a land surveyor in an area of woods hidden from the street near Greenbriar Mall, an area of Fulton County with which Appellant was familiar. The body was in a state of moderate to advanced decomposition. Because of the level of decompositiоn and because there were no injuries to the victim‘s bones, the medical examiner was unable to determine a specific cause of death. The only identifiable injury was a broken artificial fingernail. Because of the high concentration of insects on the victim‘s head, neck, and face, the medical examiner hypothesized that the victim suffered an injury to her head and neck, such as an asphyxial or sharp force injury. He ruled that the
The items found on and around the victim‘s body indicated that she had not been sexuаlly assaulted or robbed. Although her body was too decomposed to check for physical signs of sexual assault, her clothes were still on her and not torn. And although her Louis Vuitton purse apparently had been dumped out near her body and her wallet was empty, the purse and her credit cards were left near her body, and there had been no activity in her bank account. Several other items were also found nearby, including packing tape, a cigarette butt, and a hair pick, but these items could not be linked to Appellant or Weatherspoon or to the crime.
On the same day her body was found, Weatherspoon and Appellant‘s rental car was discovered in the Capitol Homes housing project, a high-crime area described as “nowhere near” Greenbriar Mall. The driver‘s side window had been broken, there was a rock on the floorboard of the driver‘s side, and there was glass outside the car, indicating that the car had been broken into at that location. A broken acrylic fingernail with а reddish stain was found in the right rear seat of the car; a bloodstain was found on the back of the driver‘s seat
Appellant was interviewed again after Weatherspoon‘s body and the rental car were found, and he gave a statement that was consistent with his earlier story.3 He added that although his brother and Weatherspoon‘s mother had spare keys, he did not call them to ask for a key while he was supposedly locked out. Weatherspoon‘s mother testified, however, that Appellant did call her some time between 7:00 p.m. and midnight seeking a key, but she did not give him one.
All of this evidence was presented at trial. Appellant did not testify.
2. Appellant raises only one enumeration of error, asserting that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support his conviction for malice murder,
Although no witnesses observed Weatherspoon‘s death and the medical examiner could not identify the exact cause of death, there was sufficient evidence to conclude that she was murdered. Among other things, “when she was last seen alive, [she] was ‘in apparent good hеalth, and with nothing to
The jury also was entitled to disbelieve Appellant‘s version of the events preceding Weatherspoon‘s death, particularly because, as explained above, his story conflicted with much of the other evidence. Most significantly, Appellant claimed that the victim was in their apartment from 12:30 a.m. until 1:30 a.m. and that he did not leave the apartment after 12:30 a.m., but Appellant‘s neighbor Fallin saw him in the rental car with the victim, who was slumped over and not moving, at 1:00 a.m. The jury could instead believe the testimony and other evidence indicating that Appellant was a controlling and obsessive husband with a history of spousal abuse who killed Weatherspoon during an argument after a night of drinking. See Vega v. State, 285 Ga. 32, 33 (1) (673 SE2d 223) (2009) (“‘It was for the jury to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.‘” (citations omitted)).
Appellant makes much of the fact that DNA extracted from the bloоdstain on the back of the driver‘s seat headrest in the abandoned car belonged to T. F. rather than Appellant and that Appellant‘s fingerprints did not match any of the nine latent prints found in the car. However, the State presented a reasonable theory that the presence of T. F.‘s blood was the result of an unrelated break-in of the vehicle after it had been abandoned in Capitol Homes, and no evidence linked T. F. and the victim. And because the vehicle was a rental car, the presence of unidentified prints was to be expected. As for Appellant‘s argument that the jury should have acquitted him because evidence gathered from near the body and from the car was not tested for matches to the three men with whom the victim had affairs, two of the men were specifically ruled out as suspects during the investigation, there was no evidence that any of these affairs was on-going at the time of the murder, and phone records did not show any calls between the men and Weatherspoоn on the night of her death.
In sum, the evidence was sufficient for the jury to find that Appellant
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
Decided February 27, 2017.
Murder. Fulton Superior Court. Before Judge Markle.
Stephen R. Scarborough, for appellant.
Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Paige Reese Whitaker, Marc A. Mallоn, Assistant District Attorneys; Samuel S. Olens, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Elizabeth M. Haase, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.