Gill v. State

376 S.W.3d 529, 2010 Ark. App. 524, 2010 Ark. App. LEXIS 568
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedJune 23, 2010
DocketNo. CA CR 09-368
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 376 S.W.3d 529 (Gill v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gill v. State, 376 S.W.3d 529, 2010 Ark. App. 524, 2010 Ark. App. LEXIS 568 (Ark. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

RITA W. GRUBER, Judge.

|,In the very late morning of March 22, 2007, Paul Douglas Gill telephoned 911 to report that he had discovered his wife dead of a gunshot wound at their home in Fordyce, lying in their bed in a pool of blood. Sandra Kaye Gill was the fourth wife of Mr. Gill, who had been a staff sergeant in the National Guard and For-dyce’s Chief of Police. Mr. Gill was charged on August 2, 2007, with her capital murder and with committing the felony with a firearm. He was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and the firearm charge, and was sentenced to forty years’ imprisonment. He now appeals, raising four points. First, he contends that the evidence was not sufficient to support the verdict. He also contends that the trial court erred by allowing articles of clothing to be introduced into evidence, allowing the testimony of his third wife, and refusing to grant a mistrial. We affirm.

I. Sufficiency of the Evidence

|2The intent necessary for first-degree murder may be inferred from the type of weapon used, the manner of its use, and the nature, extent, and location of the wounds. Walker v. State, 324 Ark. 106, 918 S.W.2d 172 (1996). A person commits first-degree murder if “[w]ith a purpose of causing the death of another person, the person causes the death of another person.” Ark.Code Ann. § 5-10-102(a)(2) (Repl.2006). A criminal defendant’s intent or state of mind is seldom capable of proof by direct evidence and must usually be inferred from the circumstances of the crime. Leaks v. State, 345 Ark. 182, 45 S.W.3d 363 (2001). It is ■within the province of the trier of fact, not the reviewing court, to weigh the evidence and assess the credibility- of witnesses. Harmon v. State, 340 Ark. 18, 8 S.W.3d 472 (2000). Moreover, inconsistent testimony does not render proof insufficient as a matter of law. Id.

Mr. Gill moved for a directed verdict at the conclusion of the State’s evidence and again at the close of all the evidence. On appeal he repeats the arguments he made below, that the unconnected circumstantial evidence did not show whether his wife’s death was suicide or homicide, nor did it show beyond a reasonable doubt that he killed her. He does not dispute that law enforcement officers found her body on its left side when they arrived, his .38 Special Smith & Wesson tucked under her left arm and the holster behind her. But he points out that there was conflicting evidence on whether the crime scene had been manipulated. He notes that the cause of death remained “undetermined” for several months and that the time of death was calculated as anywhere from 2:30 a.m. until 7:00 a.m. He alleges that police “botched” physical evidence when sheets and pillows taken from the scene |3were thrown into the coroner’s dumpster and not retrieved for days, no tests for gunshot residue were performed on Mr. or Ms. Gill’s hands, and testing was not done on the contents of her stomach. He asserts that the State did not prove that on the day of the murder he wore the plaid shirt and blue jeans alleged to be his, on which fine particles of gunshot residue were found. He notes testimony of expert witness Zoe D’Aoust, a criminologist at the state crime laboratory, that anyone around a gunshot victim could get residue particles on themselves; that not “a lot of stock” was put on particles’ location on clothing because they move around; and that police usually threw everything together in a bag, with an unknown manner of handling the items. He points out that the two neighbors who heard a gunshot attributed the sound to unrelated causes.

A motion for directed verdict is a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. Ross v. State, 346 Ark. 225, 57 S.W.3d 152 (2001). The test for determining the sufficiency of the evidence is whether substantial evidence, direct or circumstantial, supports the verdict; substantial evidence is evidence of sufficient certainty and precision to compel a conclusion one way or another and pass beyond mere suspicion or conjecture. Id. On appeal, the evidence is reviewed in the light most favorable to the appellee and only the evidence supporting the verdict is considered. Id. Guilt can be established without eyewitness testimony, and evidence of guilt is not less because it is circumstantial. Id.

Overwhelming evidence of guilt is not required in cases based on circumstantial evidence, and the test is one of substantiality; to be substantial, the evidence must exclude |4every reasonable hypothesis other than the guilt of the accused. Id. The question of whether the circumstantial evidence excludes every hypothesis consistent with innocence is for the jury to decide; the reviewing court must determine whether the jury resorted to speculation and conjecture in reaching its verdict. Id.

The State’s witnesses whose testimony was pertinent to the first issue included criminal investigator Brad Mahue of the Fordyce Police Department, Fordyce Patrol Sergeant Scott Hornaday, and Deputy Cary Dunn of the Dallas County Sheriffs Department, who all responded to the 911 call. Testimony was also given by Arkansas State Police Special Agent Rick McKelvey, who handled the investigation, and Dallas County Coroner Tom Tidwell, who pronounced death at 12:51 p.m. and observed that rigor mortis had set in. Neighbors William Lyon and Brooke Turner each testified to hearing a single shot between 3:00 and 3:30 a.m. that morning. Lyon attributed it to deer poaching, and Brooke thought a missile was being fired at Camden. Brooke’s dogs raced across the yard to the Gills’ property, where Mr. Gill’s dogs were barking and “going crazy.” Tom Bevel, a blood-splatter expert and crime-scene reconstructionist who reviewed crime-scene photographs and the autopsy report, opined that stippling of gun powder around the entry wound indicated the shot had been fired from “some distance” away. Patterns of blood flow on the victim and the weapon, her position in bed, and the position of the gun in relation to her arms led him to conclude that someone had manipulated the gun after the shot was fired.

Defense witnesses disputed Bevel’s conclusion about the evidence at the crime scene Rand the post-mortem blood flow. Forensic pathologist Dr. Robert Bux testified that the cause of death was “undetermined” and — because of insufficient physical evidence and the way it had been handled — could not be determined to be homicide or suicide. He opined that the victim was seated “when she shot herself’ and then rolled or fell, and he said that the vast majority of qualified people would conclude that the cause was undetermined. But he clarified that he could not testify that the death was a suicide or homicide. Paul Erwin Kish, an expert in blood-stain-pattern analysis, reviewed crime-scene images and physical evidence including bed pillows, bed linens, and the gun. He saw nothing inconsistent with the gun’s position creating the stain patterns and blood-flow pattern, and he said the revolver’s grip had insufficient characteristics to show that the blood on the victim’s arm was transferred from the grip.

Brandy Gunn, Kaye Gill’s only biological daughter, testified that the women talked regularly on the telephone and that both worked at Ouachita County Medical Center, where Ms. Gill directed the nursing home.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Kenneth Murry v. State of Arkansas
2026 Ark. App. 33 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2026)
Rhatez Furlow v. State of Arkansas
2023 Ark. App. 192 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2023)
Vickie Joyce Graham v. State of Arkansas
2022 Ark. App. 502 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2022)
Jeremiah Alan Webb v. State of Arkansas
2020 Ark. App. 368 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2020)
Green v. State
544 S.W.3d 574 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2018)
Hurst v. State
2014 Ark. App. 710 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2014)
Stover v. State
2014 Ark. App. 393 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2014)
Anthony v. State
2014 Ark. 195 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2014)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
376 S.W.3d 529, 2010 Ark. App. 524, 2010 Ark. App. LEXIS 568, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gill-v-state-arkctapp-2010.