King v. State

130 So. 3d 676, 38 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 556, 2013 WL 3333096, 2013 Fla. LEXIS 1377
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJuly 3, 2013
DocketNo. SC11-2258
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 130 So. 3d 676 (King v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
King v. State, 130 So. 3d 676, 38 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 556, 2013 WL 3333096, 2013 Fla. LEXIS 1377 (Fla. 2013).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Cecil Shyron King, who was forty years old at the time of the crime, appeals his conviction and sentence of death for the December 2009 first-degree murder of eighty-two-year-old Renie Telzer-Bain. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const: For the reasons set forth below, we affirm King’s conviction and sentence of death.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The Guilt Phase

Renie Telzer-Bain’s family last saw her alive on Monday, December 28, 2009, at 5:30 p.m., when her daughter-in-law, Lyza Telzer, along with Lyza’s son and Lyza’s son’s friend, visited her. Lyza and Renie were very close, spoke multiple times .per day, and saw each other five times per week. Lyza made a point of seeing Renie very often because of Renie’s age and because Renie lived by herself. Renie liked to stay up late watching television and to sleep in until 10 or 11 a.m.

The next day, Tuesday, December 29, Lyza began trying to reach Renie around 4 p.m. As the day progressed and she had not been able to reach Renie, Lyza became concerned. She called Renie’s neighbor to ask if he would keep an eye out for Renie. The neighbor had noticed that Renie’s garage door was open at 10:30 a.m. that morning and that her car was missing. He believed at the time that Renie had inadvertently left the garage door open, and either he or his wife closed it.

Lyza went to Renie’s house around 7 p.m., along with Renie’s neighbor. The garage door was closed, and when Lyza opened the garage, Renie’s car, a 2001 Cadillac, was missing. The door from the house to the garage was locked, which was unusual because Renie only locked that door at night. The neighbor pried open the door, and they entered the house. Upon entering the house, Lyza believed a burglary occurred — the house was ransacked, and Renie was an extremely neat, [680]*680meticulous person who always kept her house in order. Lyza and the neighbor then discovered Renie’s body in the bedroom on the floor.

The sliding glass door was opened about an inch, and the frame was damaged. The pole that normally kept the door from being opened was not in the door. Numerous items were missing from the house, including a flat screen television, silverware, jewelry, wallets, clothing, purses, cosmetic bags, a tool chest, and weekly and monthly planners with Renie’s handwriting in them. Subsequent investigation by law enforcement revealed no fingerprints of value in the house.

Investigators found a container of cantaloupe on the kitchen table. On the top of the container was a piece of fruit that appeared to have a bite mark, which was swabbed for DNA. Lyza testified that Re-nie often kept cantaloupe or fruit in containers in the fridge. The DNA swab from the fruit revealed a partial male DNA profile (with eleven of thirteen loci being identifiable).

Shoe prints were discovered on the exterior garage door, where it appeared that someone had tried to kick the door in. Additional shoe prints were found near the entry where the yard was fenced in. The size of the prints indicated a large-sized shoe.

Dr. Rao, a medical examiner, testified that the cause of death was blunt head trauma. The victim had been struck at least seventeen times with the head and claw of a hammer, sustaining injuries on the back of her head, to the front of her neck, on the. back of her neck, on her upper back, on the back of her right hand, on her right leg, and on her left knee. Three of the blows were to the head, which would have been fatal and rendered the victim unconscious. The wounds on the victim’s right hand and left arm were defensive wounds, sustained as the victim was trying to ward off blows.

The missing Cadillac was found the day after Renie’s body was discovered, located within a few blocks of King’s apartment. Fingerprints found inside the car matched those of Rashad Montford, King’s cousin. Police subsequently interviewed Montford, who explained that he borrowed the car from King. According to Montford, he went to King’s apartment in late December 2009, and King offered to let him borrow a newer model Cadillac, which was parked around the corner. King did not explain where he had gotten the car, and Montford did not ask. Montford borrowed the car twice that day. While he was borrowing the car, Montford called King at one point to tell him that he was going to be out with the car for a little while longer. Police corroborated this call using phone records. King instructed Montford to leave the vehicle a few blocks away from where King lived when he returned it.

While he was speaking with police, Montford offered to wear a recording device and visit King to get him to talk about the vehicle, with the aim of clearing Mont-ford’s name. Montford visited King twice while wearing the recording device, but King did not admit that he had given Montford the car. King instructed Mont-ford to “say you don’t know” when questioned by police about the vehicle. King’s fingerprints were not found inside the Cadillac.

James Roman testified that he was the owner of a residential lawn service company that had serviced Renie’s yard for four or five years. King worked for Roman from July until October 2009. Roman and King cut Renie’s yard together eight or ten times. Roman always went with King to cut Renie’s yard. King did not have a vehicle, so Roman would sometimes give [681]*681him a ride. Roman made it a point not to go inside his clients’ residences, and Roman testified that King never went inside Renie’s house. Roman does not believe that King ever met Renie. Renie never came outside to give them food or drinks, and she paid Roman by leaving a check under the door mat.

Roman was out of town at the time of the murder. While out of town, he received a phone call from King, who mentioned that something had happened to one of the clients for whom Roman worked. King usually only called Roman to speak about work.

On January 8, 2010, King pawned a gold bracelet, identified as belonging to Renie, for $300. The bracelet did not have any unique identifiers, such as charms or initials. The lead detective testified that it would be a good item to pawn if King was trying to stay under the radar.

During the investigation, police checked the phone records for King’s cell phone. On the morning of the murder, he made a phone call at 5:24 a.m. The phone call was routed using a tower that was near the bus station downtown, three miles away from his residence. Normally a phone call bounces off the cell tower that is closest to the person making the call. If King was home at the time of the phone call, there was a high likelihood that the phone call would have routed through a different tower. No other calls were made until 10:10 a.m., and that phone call routed through a tower that was closer to King’s residence. Police went to the bus station and determined that there was a bus route that left the station and stopped directly across from the entrance to Renie’s subdivision. On the day of the murder, there was a bus leaving the bus station on that route at 5:25 a.m. The bus driver confirmed that the bus ran on schedule on that particular day, but stated that he would be unable to identify King because it was rush hour.

Police executed a warrant on King and searched his residence on February 1, 2010. Numerous items belonging to Renie were found in his residence.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
130 So. 3d 676, 38 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 556, 2013 WL 3333096, 2013 Fla. LEXIS 1377, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/king-v-state-fla-2013.