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North Carolina v. Rannels6/4/1993
EXUM, Chief Justice.
Defendant was properly indicted for murder in the first degree, armed robbery, and conspiracy to commit armed robbery. The jury found defendant guilty as charged. His conviction of murder in the first degree was based upon theories of both felony murder and premeditation and deliberation. After the capital sentencing phase of the trial, because the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict as to punishment, the trial court, pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(b), sentenced defendant to life imprisonment. We find no error in defendant's trial.
I.
Evidence presented by the State, which included two voluntary, Mirandized pretrial statements given by defendant to investigating officers, tended to show the following: Defendant and his girlfriend, Linda Lopez, planned on 9 June 1989 to rob a man at a lounge in the Ramada Inn on Greenville Boulevard in Greenville, North Carolina. The plans involved "setting up" the man, apparently by using Lopez to entice him away from the lounge.
Defendant loaded a .22 caliber pistol and put it in Lopez's purse. Both defendant and Lopez then went to the lounge and met the man, Richard M. Gaddy, Sr., whom they intended to rob. Lopez began talking to Gaddy. She enticed him to leave with her in his truck. Defendant, according to one of his statements, followed in his car. According to the other statement, Lopez and the victim followed defendant.
Alfred Melofsky, food and beverage manager for the Ramada Inn, observed defendant, Lopez and Gaddy in the lounge during the evening of 9 June 1989 between 9 and 10 p.m. They were talking loudly. Melofsky observed all three leave the lounge around 10 p.m. Lopez was hanging on Gaddy's right arm and defendant walked on Gaddy's left side. Gaddy was carrying a glass he had taken from the lounge.
Both vehicles went to a secluded spot near the bar. According to defendant's statements, he got out of his car and went to the truck. He saw Gaddy fondling his girlfriend, became angry and reached for Gaddy. Gaddy tried to defend himself and "struck at" defendant with his left elbow. This angered defendant further. Defendant then got the .22 pistol out of Lopez's purse and shot Gaddy to death.
According to defendant's statements, he and Lopez then returned to the motel where they were staying. Lopez remembered that she had left her purse in Gaddy's truck. Defendant became angry again and told investigators that he "beat the hell out of the bitch." Defendant drove away, leaving Lopez. When told by investigators after his arrest in Virginia on 29 June 1989 that Lopez was in jail, defendant replied, "F__k her, I'll get another [vulgarity omitted], it's no problem."
A Greenville Police Sergeant, C. E. Weatherington, responding to a call on 10 June 1989, went to the location where Gaddy's truck had been discovered by others. Gaddy was in the truck, apparently dead, with a bullet wound in his left temple, sitting under the steering wheel and lying "over to the right." Gaddy had a glass between his legs and a burned-down cigarette between two fingers of his left hand. His front left pants pocket was turned inside out, and a dime was on the pavement under the driver's door. A woman's purse was under his head.
Autopsy revealed that Gaddy died from the gunshot wound to his left temple. Noting gray-black, sooty material and stippling around the wound, Dr. Page Hudson, a forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, believed the pistol was fired "just a few inches away" from Gaddy's head.
After the autopsy, Gaddy's clothes were given to Police Officer John Baker, who was assisting in the
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