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State v. Daughtry7/28/1995
WHICHARD, Justice.
Defendant was convicted of the first-degree murder of Jennifer Narron, his former girlfriend, and sentenced to death. He appeals from his conviction and sentence. We conclude that defendant received a fair trial, free of prejudicial error, and that the sentence of death is not disproportionate.
The State's evidence tended to show that the victim was killed on 9 April 1992. At that time she was living with her boyfriend, Michael Hopkins, in his Smithfield apartment. Hopkins testified that he last saw the victim alive at about 4:00 p.m., just before he went to bed. When he awoke around 7:30 p.m., he discovered the victim's body lying in a pool of blood near the front steps outside his apartment. Hopkins ran to his landlady's house and called the police; he waited at the end of the driveway until the officers arrived.
The Smithfield Police Department received a call at 7:38 p.m., and officers arrived at Hopkins' apartment a few minutes later. They found the victim's naked body face down next to the apartment steps. Her head lay in a pool of blood, and a stick protruded from her rectum. Her left arm extended along the left side of her body, palm up; her right index finger was in her mouth. SBI Special Agent David McDougall examined the scene. He found several articles of the victim's clothing on the ground near the body and a three-inch-thick log containing blood and strands of hair atop a woodpile not far away. He saw no signs of a struggle or other violence inside the apartment.
Dr. Karen Chancellor, a forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, testified that she found multiple bruises and abrasions on the victim's head, face, and neck. The lower jawbone was fractured in two places, and the back of the scalp had four separate lacerations, each exposing bone. She also found multiple skull fractures, hemorrhaging around the brain and brain stem, and bruises of the brain tissue. Chancellor testified that both internal and external lacerations existed in and around the vagina and rectum. Further, the injuries around the rectal area were consistent with an object being rotated in the rectum. She opined that death resulted from blunt-force trauma to the head, the victim had been hit at least five times, and the log McDougall found could have been used to inflict the injuries.
SBI Special Agent Scott Worsham testified that hair taken from the log was consistent with the victim's. He removed the stick from the victim's rectum under McDougall's supervision. The stick had been embedded about six and one-half inches into the rectum and inserted at such an angle that it could have penetrated some other part of the body, such as the vaginal area.
SBI Special Agent Mark T. Boodee, an expert in forensic serology, testified about the results of DNA testing, which revealed that blood samples taken from the pants defendant wore on the night of the murder contained DNA material that matched the victim's. SBI Special Agent Peter Duane Deaver, another expert forensic serologist, testified that blood found on the log and on defendant's pants was the same type as the victim's blood but not the same as defendant's.
Defendant testified that he and the victim had lived together for about three and one-half years; they broke up in March 1992. On the day of the murder he left work around 3:00 p.m., drank some beer on the way home, and also drank a few beers at a local tavern. He arrived at his grandmother's house, where he was living, between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. He then went to Mike Hopkins' home at about 6:30. He and the victim sat on the steps outside the apartment talking for a while. The next thing he remembered was being two
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