Oyola v. State

99 So. 3d 431, 37 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 580, 2012 WL 4125816, 2012 Fla. LEXIS 1814
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedSeptember 20, 2012
DocketNo. SC10-2285
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 99 So. 3d 431 (Oyola 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
Oyola v. State, 99 So. 3d 431, 37 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 580, 2012 WL 4125816, 2012 Fla. LEXIS 1814 (Fla. 2012).

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

This case is before the Court on appeal to review the convictions of Miguel Oyóla for the first-degree murder of Michael Lee Gerrard, false imprisonment as a lesser included offense of kidnapping, armed robbery with a deadly weapon, and grand theft of a motor vehicle. A jury recommended a sentence of death by a nine-to-three vote. The trial court accepted that recommendation and sentenced Oyóla to death. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.

FACTS

Evidence Supporting Murder Conviction

Gerrard owned and operated C & G Outdoor Services, which was an outdoor landscaping business in and around Leon County, Florida. Gerrard employed Oyóla in his landscaping business. Wakulla Bank had a long-standing business relationship with Gerrard and Gerrard’s company, and had issued Gerrard a debit card for his C & G Outdoor Services business account. On the day of the murder, a bank employee at Wakulla Bank, who had a long-term professional relationship with Gerrard and his business, received a telephone call from Gerrard. He inquired as to suspicious activities on his business debit card. She examined the account’s banking data and informed Gerrard of a series of suspicious transactions that had occurred the day before. Gerrard was both surprised and angered with regard to the transactions. He advised that he would travel to the bank to see her, but Gerrard never arrived.

The suspicious transactions recorded on the debit card included numerous purchases at two different Wal-Mart stores in Tallahassee, Florida, totaling approximately $900. There was also an additional cash withdrawal of $900 on the day of Gerrard’s murder. Wal-Mart’s video surveillance cameras recorded the transactions. The police obtained still shots of the Wal-Mart transactions in question. The still shots depicted the register during the purchase and the purchaser as he left the store. The pictures depict a man who appears to be Oyóla. Also obtained with the still shots were receipts of the transactions. Oyóla signed the receipts for two of the transactions.

During the late morning on the day of Gerrard’s murder, a neighbor of Oyola’s saw Gerrard arrive at Oyola’s home in a white truck. Gerrard stepped out of the truck and talked with Oyóla for about twenty-five minutes. The two men entered the truck and drove away. At about 2:30 p.m., Gerrard was seen with one of his employees at a Sports Authority store in his white truck with an attached white trailer.

Later that afternoon, a truck driver for a logging company was driving equipment out of the woods on a logging road in a wooded area in Jefferson County, Florida. He proceeded around a curve in the road, at which point he noticed a white truck with an attached white trailer parked in the road. The trailer started to rock and two men fell out. The men were engaged in a struggle.

The struggle became more physical and the truck driver described both of the men’s shirts as having turned red. It appeared to the truck driver as though the men were fighting to the death. At this point, the driver backed his truck around the curve and used his Citizens’ Band radio to call to a work crew for help. He informed them that two men were fighting in the middle of the road. The work crew [436]*436joined the truck driver ten to fifteen minutes later. They proceeded around the curve and to the location of the tussle. The truck and its attached trailer, as well as one of the men, were gone. The other man was on the side of the road. He was on his hands and knees and was gasping for breath. He fell face down and remained still. The driver and work crew placed a call to the 911 emergency number.

The police dispatcher received the 911 call at 3:06 p.m. A Jefferson County deputy sheriff responded. When the deputy arrived, he found a man lying face down on the side of the road. The deputy found that the man was deceased and later identified him as Gerrard. Gerrard was also later identified as the owner of the white truck and attached trailer that was previously in the logging road before the work crew found him.

In the early evening of that same day, Oyola’s live-in girlfriend arrived home to find a white truck parked across the street. When she proceeded into her home, she found Oyóla in a bathtub bathing in bleach. She found this especially peculiar because she knew that Oyóla did not like the smell of bleach and it made him sick. She also noticed a black plastic trash bag. Although she did not completely open the trash bag, she could see that the bag appeared to contain a pair of Oyola’s beige colored pants. This seemed odd to her and she asked Oyóla whether those were his pants in the bag. He informed her that she did not want to know what was inside the bag, because if she did know, it would make her ill.

A few minutes later, Oyóla dressed and left the home, driving away in his girlfriend’s automobile. Sometime after he left, Oyóla called her and instructed her to proceed to the end of the road to pick up her car. He also told her that he was going to meet some friends and that he would call her later for a ride. She walked down to the road and found her car in the same place where the white truck had been previously parked. The white truck was no longer in the neighborhood.

Approximately one hour later, Oyóla called his girlfriend and instructed her to pick him up at a K-Mart on Blairstone Road, across the street from an old Em-barq office building. When she arrived at that location, he was wearing a jacket. He was not wearing a jacket when he left their home earlier. She had never seen that jacket before, and after that evening, she never saw the jacket again.

Later that evening, Oyóla received a call from some of Gerrard’s workers requesting a ride home because Gerrard had not responded to their calls for transportation. Oyóla responded to the workers in his girlfriend’s car. When one of the workers entered the car, he noticed a jacket that he had left in Gerrard’s white truck earlier that day. Over the objections of Oyóla, the worker recovered his jacket.

During that same evening, a witness spotted Gerrard’s white trailer on the side of a road in Leon County. The trailer was not attached to anything and the ground around the trailer was on fire. The witness stopped and tried to extinguish the fire. There was an odor of gasoline around the trailer and an empty gasoline can at the scene. The witness noticed that the trailer door was open. He saw what appeared to be blood on the door and inside the trailer. The witness notified law enforcement, who responded and searched the trailer.

There was evidence of a fire on the ground near the trailer and on the interior and exterior of the trailer door. The door of the trailer appeared to have been broken or busted open from the inside. [437]*437There were multiple breaks on the inside paneling of the door indicating that someone, or something, had struck blows against the door in an attempt to force the door open from the inside. There was a line of blood and dripping patterns of blood visible on the bottom of the interior side of the door. The bloodstain pattern indicated that blood had sprayed out and projected onto the interior surface of the trailer. There was also a stain pattern on the inside of a broken section of the door that was consistent with a bloody substance having been pushed or shoved into the door after the door had been broken.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
99 So. 3d 431, 37 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 580, 2012 WL 4125816, 2012 Fla. LEXIS 1814, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/oyola-v-state-fla-2012.