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State v. McGarvey12/6/2005
Submitted on Briefs: September 21, 2005
On November 14, 2003, a jury convicted Appellant Troy McGarvey on two counts of deliberate homicide, based in significant part on an extra-judicial confession recounted by two trial witnesses. The court sentenced McGarvey to 100 years on each homicide count, with a consecutive additional ten years on each count for the use of a weapon. McGarvey maintained his innocence throughout all phases of the investigation, trial and sentencing, moving for a directed verdict at the close of the State's case. On appeal, McGarvey argues that the District Court erred in denying McGarvey's motion for a directed verdict because the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to support the verdict. We affirm.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Clifford Grant and Norman Nelson died from multiple gunshot wounds at Grant's twenty-acre property near Ferndale, Montana, in July of 2001. Grant tightly guarded his property, kenneling over fifty pit bulls and posting signs on the locked gates reading "No Trespassing" and "Beware of Dogs." Motion detectors and security lights lined the perimeter fence within the property. Grant lived in an enlarged mobile home, while Nelson, for several months prior to the murders, resided in a camper trailer on the property. An additional trailer home had been occupied at different times by two men from Yakima, Washington-Tony Sanchez and Louis Rodriguez. Sanchez had been running methamphetamine between Yakima and the Flathead Valley, Montana, for at least two years prior to the murders and had regularly supplied methamphetamine to Grant, making personal deliveries to the property approximately every two weeks.
On the day of the homicides, Sanchez and his sixteen-year-old nephew, Arnoldo Lopez, drove to Grant's property to retrieve Sanchez's truck and jet skis and to deliver a supply of methamphetamine. Sanchez and Lopez both testified that upon their arrival, Appellant McGarvey, whom they had never met before, came from around the west side of Grant's property and told them that he had knocked on Grant's door but received no answer. According to Lopez (though not Sanchez), McGarvey, without prompting, mentioned setting off firecrackers in an attempt to wake Grant. At some point, Nelson noticed the three men on the property and came out from his camper trailer to greet them. Because Grant was apparently not home, Sanchez and Lopez both testified that they retrieved the truck (which required a jumpstart) and then left, leaving McGarvey and Nelson alone on the property.
Detectives first learned of the murders on July 12, 2001. Prompted by local rumors, law enforcement's investigation initially focused on the "Mexican Mafia." Approximately two weeks after the killings, however, Flathead County Sheriff's Office received a tip from an anonymous female caller who stated that she had overheard somebody in a bar named "Tony"or "Troy" bragging about having killed Grant and Nelson. The tipster said the man lived on Harmony Road and was Grant's cousin. McGarvey, a distant cousin to Grant and who resided on Harmony Road, thus became the focus of law enforcement's investigation. From the beginning, McGarvey denied any involvement with the homicides.
The State, in large part, based its case on testimony from Robert Armstrong and Stan Edwardson, Jr. Edwardson rented a shop building from McGarvey's mother and allowed Armstrong, his helper, to move his camper trailer to the site behind the shop. Both men claimed that on the day of the killings, McGarvey confessed to shooting Grant and Nelson. Armstrong testified that he first overheard McGarvey tell McGarvey's step-son about "something bad [that] had happened dow
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