Kayla Jean Lardieri v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 13, 2017
Docket03-15-00247-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Kayla Jean Lardieri v. State (Kayla Jean Lardieri 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
Kayla Jean Lardieri v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN

NO. 03-15-00247-CR

Kayla Jean Lardieri, Appellant

v.

The State of Texas, Appellee

FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF COMAL COUNTY, 207TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT NO. CR2014-090, HONORABLE DIB WALDRIP, JUDGE PRESIDING

MEMORANDUM OPINION

A jury convicted appellant of the offenses of attempted capital murder, see Tex. Penal

Code § 19.03, aggravated robbery, see id. § 29.03, aggravated kidnapping, see id. § 20.04, and

tampering with physical evidence, see id. § 37.09. In three issues, appellant challenges the factual

sufficiency of the evidence to support the convictions against her as the principal actor or a party.

See id. §§ 7.01(a), 7.02; Johnson v. State, 23 S.W.3d 1, 10–12 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000) (describing

factual sufficiency standard of review). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, however, has directed

reviewing courts that the legal sufficiency standard in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979), “is

the only standard that a reviewing court should apply in determining whether the evidence is

sufficient to support each element of a criminal offense that the State is required to prove beyond a

reasonable doubt.” Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893, 912 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). Applying the Jackson legal sufficiency standard, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support the

convictions and affirm.

BACKGROUND1

On a freezing night in December 2013, appellant, who was seventeen years old, along

with two other women, attacked the victim in the back bedroom of a trailer in Comal County. The

women had asked the victim to come to the back bedroom and then confronted her with accusations

that she was an “informant,” had recorded drug transactions, “cloned” phones, and had slept with

one of the other women’s boyfriend. Prior to the attack, the victim took her clothes off to show the

women that she did not have a “wire” on her. After the victim took off her clothes, appellant stabbed

the victim with a knife, tased the victim “anywhere in between seven to ten times,” and beat and

kicked her. One of the other women also tased, stabbed, beat, and kicked the victim, and the third

woman recorded part of the attack. The women also prevented the victim from leaving by

“stomping” on her and putting their body weight on her when the victim tried to leave the room. The

victim, who remained naked, was then handcuffed, gagged, blindfolded, shackled, hogtied, and

wrapped in a sheet. Appellant helped carry the victim, wrapped in the sheet, out to a shed on the

property, and the victim was left in the shed with the door locked. The victim’s possessions in the

trailer were gathered, and appellant accompanied her boyfriend with the victim’s backpack and her

1 Because the parties are familiar with the facts of the case, its procedural history, and the evidence adduced at trial, we provide only a general overview of the facts of the case here. We provide additional facts in the opinion as necessary to advise the parties of the Court’s decision and the basic reasons for it. See Tex. R. App. P. 47.1, 47.4. The facts recited are taken from the testimony and other evidence presented at trial.

2 other possessions, including her phone, to another location that had a fire pit, where “[they] all burnt

it all,” including appellant’s clothing that she was wearing during the attack.2

At some point during the night, the victim was able to remove the handcuffs from her

hands (but not the ones on her ankles). She then “threw” herself out an open window in the shed,

crawled across the street, obtained a blanket from a neighbor’s porch, and got into the neighbor’s

unlocked car. The following morning the victim began honking the car horn, and the neighbor found

her in the car, “frantic,” “bleeding,” naked, and with her ankles still cuffed. Although the victim

“begged” the neighbor not to call the police because the victim was afraid “that they would kill her,”

the neighbor called the police. Police and emergency personnel arrived at the scene, and the victim

was transported by ambulance to a hospital. The victim was able to identify her assailants, including

appellant, and to describe the events of the prior night in detail.

Appellant was arrested and then indicted several months later. Appellant entered a

plea of not guilty to each charge against her, and the case was tried before a jury. The State’s

witnesses included the victim, the neighbor who found her, investigating deputies and detectives

with the Comal County Sheriff’s Office, co-defendants who were granted testimonial immunity,

including her boyfriend, and a woman who had discussed the incident with appellant while they were

both in jail. The State’s exhibits included photographs of the trailer and shed, the cuffs, chains, and

gag that were used on the victim, and the victim’s wounds; a video recording of the scene of the

crime; a video recording of a police interview of appellant’s boyfriend; and audio recordings of

2 Appellant presented evidence including her own testimony to support her position that she did not rob the victim or destroy evidence.

3 interviews of the victim while she was being treated at the hospital. There were also photographs

of the burnt items that were found in the location where the victim’s possessions were burned,

including the remains of a burnt phone, metal wallet, and one of the victim’s pay stubs. The physical

evidence included the cuffs and other items that were used to detain the victim, and the sheet that

appellant and the co-defendants wrapped the victim in before locking her in the shed. The police,

however, were unable to locate the knives, tasers, or alleged recording of the attack, and the victim

never recovered any of her possessions that she had taken to the trailer, including her phone, clothes,

metal wallet, a necklace, and a laptop.

The defense’s witnesses included appellant, a “cousin’s cousin” of the victim who

testified that the victim told him that “it wasn’t as bad as everybody seemed—that it looked to

everybody,” and another individual who was in jail with appellant. This individual testified that the

other individual who was in jail and testified for the State had a “bad” reputation for being truthful

and that she observed that appellant was “[s]ad and remorseful, that she regretted it.” During her

testimony, appellant admitted that she was involved in the incident, including that she stabbed,

kicked, and tased the victim, but she explained that the plan was just “to scare her off” and that she

never intended to kill or rob the victim. She also testified that they were all smoking

methamphetamine the night of the incident. As to stabbing the victim, appellant testified that the

victim “ran into” her knife when the victim was “lunging” and that she kicked the victim by “reflex”

when the victim kicked her. She, however, admitted to tasing the victim multiple times. She further

testified that she did not attempt to help the victim because she was afraid of one of the other

4 women, who looked “crazed,” and also because she “didn’t want to get into trouble” and that she

also deleted the recording that was made by one of the other women during the incident.

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Related

Jackson v. Virginia
443 U.S. 307 (Supreme Court, 1979)
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Johnson v. State
23 S.W.3d 1 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2000)
Roberts v. State
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Brooks v. State
323 S.W.3d 893 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2010)
Byrd v. State
336 S.W.3d 242 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2011)
Rabbani v. State
847 S.W.2d 555 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1992)
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Norris, Michael Wayne
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Carrizales v. State
414 S.W.3d 737 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2013)
Anderson, Rodney Young
416 S.W.3d 884 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2013)
Dobbs, Atha Albert
434 S.W.3d 166 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2014)
Acosta, Victor Manuel
429 S.W.3d 621 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2014)

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