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State v. Smith12/9/2004
ouse painter and friend of Hayes from Youngstown, moved in temporarily while he did some painting for Hayes' son. Although Williams expressed romantic interest in Hayes, Hayes was not interested in a relationship because she knew that Williams sometimes became violent when he drank too much.
{ } On July 25, 2003, Williams was fired from his painting job. He returned to the apartment and began drinking heavily. By the time Hayes returned home from work at 7 p.m., Williams was intoxicated. At Williams' urging, Hayes agreed to have a few drinks with him outside on the porch.
{ } At around 11 p.m., Hayes told Williams she was going to bed. Hayes went into the bedroom she shared with defendant and found him watching television. The two argued loudly over the fact that defendant had been out late the previous evening.
Defendant left the bedroom and went into the living room, where Williams confronted him. Williams told defendant to calm down and "treat [Hayes] right." (Tr. Vol. II, 209.) Defendant told Williams to stay out of his business. The two exchanged more heated words and then began wrestling. During the struggle, Williams twice threw defendant to the floor. Williams then picked up a brass candlestick from a nearby table and raised it in a threatening manner.
{ } Defendant went back into the bedroom and told Hayes that Williams had "called out." (Tr. Vol. I, 123.) Hayes noticed Williams standing just outside the bedroom door holding the candlestick. She told him to stay out of the bedroom; Williams complied with that order. According to Walker, who had been watching the scene from the kitchen, Williams put the candlestick down and was "huffing and puffing" like he was tired from the wrestling match. (Tr. Vol. II, 225.)
{ } In the meantime, defendant put on a shirt and shoes and left the bedroom, armed with a handgun Hayes kept under the bed. Defendant returned to the living room and called Williams a "bitch." (Tr. Vol. II, 212.) Williams retorted that defendant was a "bitch" because he had retrieved a gun. Id. The name-calling escalated to a physical altercation, which eventually moved toward the front door. According to Walker, defendant struggled to resist Williams' efforts to push him out the front door. At that point, Hayes ordered Walker to join her in the bedroom. Shortly thereafter, Walker and Hayes heard two or three gunshots, approximately five seconds apart.
{ } When the shooting stopped, Hayes and Walker returned to the living room and found Williams slumped against the wall just inside the front door. Hayes called 911; Columbus police and emergency medical personnel arrived shortly thereafter. Williams was transported to a nearby hospital, where he later died.
{ } One of the responding police officers aired a description of defendant over the police radio. Shortly thereafter, defendant was apprehended in a nearby wooded area without incident. Hayes' gun was found in the area. Two shell casings were found on the landing outside the front door.
{ } An autopsy revealed that Williams sustained three gunshot wounds to the chest, right hip and left thigh; the chest wound was fatal. Ballistics testing established that two spent bullet fragments recovered from Williams' body were fired from Hayes' gun. A toxicology analysis showed that Williams' blood-alcohol level was .20. DNA testing revealed that Williams' blood was on defendant's shoe and trouser leg; defendant's own blood was on his injured left hand.
{ } A police report filed after the incident did not denote that a candlestick was found near Williams' body. Crime scene photographs depicted a candlestick sitting on a table in the cente
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