David Dewayne Owens v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 9, 2014
Docket05-12-01201-CR
StatusPublished

This text of David Dewayne Owens v. State (David Dewayne Owens v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
David Dewayne Owens v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

AFFIRMED; Opinion Filed June 9, 2014.

S In The Court of Appeals Fifth District of Texas at Dallas No. 05-12-01201-CR

DAVID DEWAYNE OWENS, Appellant V. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the Criminal District Court No. 1 Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. F12-51368-H

OPINION Before Justices Lang-Miers, Myers, and Lewis Opinion by Justice Myers Appellant David Dewayne Owens was convicted by a jury of murder. The trial court

found the two enhancement paragraphs alleging prior felony convictions true and sentenced

appellant to life imprisonment. In three issues, he argues the evidence is insufficient to support

the conviction, the trial court erred by denying his motion for mistrial, and the trial court erred by

admitting hearsay statements. We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Dallas Police detective Seth Rosenberg testified that on June 4, 2011, he was directed to a

crime scene––an apartment on Nomas street in Dallas, Texas. When he arrived at the crime

scene at around 7:30 p.m., the front door to the apartment was open. He looked inside and found

“piles of clothes all over the place” and a woman on the bed. She was not moving. At that point,

Rosenberg and the other officers believed the woman had died from natural causes because there were no signs she had been murdered or harmed, and there was some jewelry and other items on

the nearby “tables and stuff” that was not taken. He testified that the apartment was so dusty and

dirty the officers “couldn’t fingerprint anything.” Used syringes and other drug paraphernalia

were found in the apartment, which Rosenberg testified looked like a drug user’s house.

Teresa Marsh testified that she knew the deceased, Dorsey Beatrice Jackson, or Dorthy B,

who was seventy-two years old at the time of her death, because they would smoke crack and

inject heroin together. Marsh admitted to having a criminal record, including five prior felony

prostitution convictions, misdemeanor prostitution convictions, and four prior convictions for

delivery of a controlled substance. At the time she testified, Marsh was incarcerated for delivery

of a controlled substance. Marsh testified that she had known Jackson for approximately ten

years. Marsh used to stay at Jackson’s apartment to get “high” and change clothes. At other

times, she stayed in an empty apartment at the apartment complex because the deceased would

not allow prostitutes in her apartment while she was away. Marsh testified that Jackson’s

behavior was unpredictable. She could be “real mean” and sometimes pulled knives on people,

but at other times was pleasant. Marsh testified Jackson “[p]retty much” displayed the behavior

of a typical drug addict.

Marsh spent the night of Friday, June 3, 2011, in an empty apartment at the complex.

On the following morning, Saturday, June 4, Marsh woke up “because we had to get out of the

apartment before the manager came.” She admitted that she got high on heroin before leaving.

At around one o’clock in the afternoon, Marsh and two other people were walking behind

Jackson’s apartment and noticed the rear door was open. Inside the apartment they found

Jackson’s naked body lying on the bed, with one eye open. The apartment had been “trashed

real bad,” and appeared to have been ransacked. Marsh told a neighbor to call the police.

At trial, Marsh looked at the crime scene photos and testified that Jackson was covered

–2– with a blanket she did not normally use. She testified that the blanket seen in the photographs

was normally kept in a closet, and that the apartment did not normally appear the way it looked

in the photographs. Marsh also recalled that Jackson had a “brand new” air conditioner in her

apartment. It was not there on the day they found her body, but the apartment was still a “little

bit” cool inside, suggesting the air conditioner had been running recently. Marsh had last seen

Jackson alive the previous Wednesday. She testified that she knew appellant and had seen him

at Jackson’s apartment “a few times” in the approximately seven years she had been staying at

the apartment complex on Nomas street.

Lakeisha Thomas testified that she first met appellant sometime around 2003 or 2004,

through a mutual friend. They had a brief relationship at that time, but it ended when Thomas

got back together with her husband. Appellant and Thomas rekindled their relationship in about

2011, by which time Thomas had been separated from her husband (they subsequently divorced).

In 2012, she was with appellant when he went to speak with Dallas Police Department detectives

regarding the instant case. She met Detective Brent Maudlin, who gave her a business card.

About one week later, she drove appellant to a second interview with the detective. While they

were driving to the interview, appellant changed his mind and decided he did not want to go.

Thomas started asking appellant questions as to why he did not want to go to the interview. She

did not know why the police wanted to talk to him. Appellant told her not to worry about it but

Thomas persisted, pointing out that Maudlin was expecting them. Thomas recalled that she was

asking appellant “why all of a sudden we’re not going to talk to the Detective for the interview.”

As the conversation escalated and appellant grew angrier, he told her that “he did it, that’s why.”

Thomas pressed appellant for details, thinking he had gotten “into a fight with his friends

or something or maybe it was guns involved or something.” He told Thomas “he had strangled

or it was strangling or strangulation.” She asked him what he was talking about, and appellant

–3– told her “it had to do with a murder.” He also told her that, on the day of the murder, a lot of

people were “hanging out and doing whatever” at this person’s house, and that he went back to

the house later that night. The incident occurred when appellant went back to the residence.

Appellant did not provide many other details about what happened. He did, however,

demonstrate with his hands how he strangled the person “[u]ntil she stopped breathing,” which

was the only indication Thomas had that the victim was female. Appellant told her one of his

thumbs was “dislocated or hurt or injured because of the amount of pressure” he applied during

the strangulation. But appellant never told Thomas where or when he strangled the woman, who

she was, or why he did it; nor did she see anything about it in the news.

Thomas told appellant he needed to talk to the detective. Appellant replied that “[d]ead

people can’t talk, so that’s why a lot of crimes go on and things happen because if they’re not

alive to talk to people, you will never know anyway.” He said he wanted to get out of the car to

use the restroom, so she stopped at a Wendy’s restaurant. She stayed in the car while appellant

went inside then called Maudlin, telling him appellant had just “confessed to me what he had to

say about the murder.” Maudlin told her to calm down and to take appellant wherever he wanted

to go, after which she could talk to him. When Thomas ended the call to Maudlin, she called her

mother to let her know she was scared and did not know what to do. She was still on the phone

with her mother when appellant returned, and she continued talking to her mother as appellant

got in the car. She wanted her mother to know where she was in case anything happened to her.

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