People v. Edgeston

611 N.E.2d 49, 243 Ill. App. 3d 1, 183 Ill. Dec. 196, 1993 Ill. App. LEXIS 432
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 29, 1993
Docket2-91-0679
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 611 N.E.2d 49 (People v. Edgeston) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Edgeston, 611 N.E.2d 49, 243 Ill. App. 3d 1, 183 Ill. Dec. 196, 1993 Ill. App. LEXIS 432 (Ill. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinion

JUSTICE BOWMAN

delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, Ondrea Edgeston, was charged by indictment with first degree murder (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 38, par. 9 — 1) and attempted murder (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 38, par. 8 — 4(a)). A jury acquitted him of the attempted murder charge but convicted him of first degree murder, and the court sentenced him to 60 years in prison. On appeal defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence against him and alleges ineffective assistance of trial counsel.

On March 10, 1990, around 1:30 a.m., Charlotte Meyers heard someone knock at her front door. The knocking grew louder until it sounded like someone kicking the door. Moments after telling her son to call the police, Meyers heard a gunshot which sounded like it was just outside the front door. Police arrived about 10 minutes later.

At 2 a.m. a Rockford fire department dispatcher received an emergency call from Claire Constantine, who said she had been shot. Constantine told the officer who responded to the call that she had awakened to find two masked men in her home. One of them shot her, and they fled. Constantine died a short time later from a gunshot wound.

Shortly before 3 a.m. a Winnebago County deputy sheriff responded to a possible burglary call on Fitzgerald Road, about a mile from the Constantine residence. He found Brian DuBrock on the back porch of a house, bleeding from a gunshot wound in the left shoulder.

Around 4 a.m. Rockford police responded to a call at 1116 Irving. There they found Forest King lying in the first-floor hallway. King had been shot but was able to tell the officers that the name of his assailant was “Ondrea Edgeston.” Shortly thereafter, acting on an anonymous phone-tip, the police found defendant and Ricky Sullivan in an apartment at the 1116 Irving address. Defendant was taken into custody, and Sullivan was arrested a short while afterwards.

Later that morning witnesses found one newly spent shotgun shell on Fitzgerald Road and another near the garage at the home where Brian DuBrock had been found bleeding. Charlotte Meyers found a key, shotgun wadding, and a swatch of black cloth near a five-inch circular bum containing pellet marks which had been made in her porch.

Defendant told police Sullivan had shot King. One of the detectives, however, noticed what appeared to be blood on defendant’s coat. Later that day Officer Rice told defendant that the police believed he, rather than Sullivan, had shot King; that the blood on his coat was from the victim; and that he knew where the gun was. Defendant then told Rice the gun was under some brash in an alley across from Auburn Manor Apartments. The police later found a single-barrel, sawed-off shotgun at the location defendant had described.

When police told him they knew there was another shooting, defendant indicated that he and Sullivan had been driving in a car and picked up a man walking down the road. Sullivan had demanded the man’s money and then shot him as he tried to escape from the car. When asked if Sullivan had shot “the lady” too, defendant responded affirmatively and indicated that he had waited outside while Sullivan went into the lady’s house. Detectives Rice and Pobjecky then typed defendant’s statement. When later confronted with Sullivan's statement that defendant had been in the house with him when Claire Constantine was shot, defendant admitted he was there but maintained that he had not shot the victim.

Defendant and Richard Sullivan were subsequently charged with the murder of Claire Constantine and the attempted murder of Brian DuBrock. (Apparently, charges arising from the murder of Forest King were brought separately and are not pertinent to this appeal.) The indictment alleged that the defendants killed Constantine while committing the forcible felony of burglary at Constantine’s home. No other form of murder was charged.

At trial the prosecution read to the jury defendant’s statement to Detectives Rice and Pobjecky. Rice then testified regarding admissions made by defendant after the typed confession was taken. Defendant told him that he had obtained the shotgun from his sister’s boyfriend and that Sullivan shot Constantine as she came down the hall towards him and Sullivan. Defendant also told Rice the location of a dumpster where he and Sullivan had placed the pants they wore at the time of the shootings. The pants were later retrieved from the dumpster.

Other trial testimony revealed that defendant and Sullivan were at the Manhattan Club a few hours before the shootings. They met Mark Cox, who lived with defendant’s sister and her boyfriend, Antoine Goodwin. According to Cox, defendant asked Cox if he could use a sawed-off shotgun that Cox and Goodwin kept at their apartment. Cox agreed to supply defendant and Sullivan with a gun and phoned Goodwin to tell him defendant was coming over to get the weapon. Defendant and Sullivan left the Manhattan Club together around 12:30 or 1 a.m.

Defendant and Sullivan arrived at Goodwin’s apartment 5 or 10 minutes after Goodwin spoke with Cox. According to Goodwin’s testimony, Cox had told him there was going to be trouble at the Manhattan Club and he needed a gun. Goodwin placed the shotgun and some shells in a gym bag and gave the bag to defendant. At that time defendant was at the apartment for only two or three minutes, just long enough to pick up the gun. However, around 3 a.m. that morning defendant and Sullivan again came to Goodwin’s apartment, arriving in a small tan or beige car. Goodwin testified that he did not know if “it was an Escort or what.” Both defendant and Sullivan had blood on their pants. When Goodwin asked what happened, Sullivan responded that “[s]he woke up and I just started blasting.” Goodwin told the two men they had to leave.

Additional testimony about the night of the shootings, and evidence gathered afterwards, completed the State’s case against defendant. Barbara Cox, Sullivan’s girlfriend, testified that Sullivan was with her, at her home, the evening before the shootings. Around 10:30 defendant telephoned and spoke with Sullivan. Shortly after-wards, Sullivan left in Barbara Cox’s tan Omni. He did not return the car. Brian DuBrock remembered that he was walking toward his home on Fitzgerald Road when two black men in a car stopped and asked him if he needed a ride. He heard them ask for his wallet. The next thing he recalled was getting shot. He guessed that Sullivan, the guy with “kinky hair,” had shot him. DuBrock’s driver’s license was found in the glove box of the car Sullivan and defendant had used the night of the shootings. The key Charlotte Meyers found on her front porch worked the lock of the glove compartment of the Omni. Finally, the fibers in the piece of black cloth found on Meyers’ porch were consistent with the fabric of the jeans Sullivan had discarded in the dumpster the morning of the shootings.

Defendant testified in his own behalf. He had become reacquainted with Sullivan, who had only recently been released from prison, one or two days before the shootings. During that time defendant and Sullivan visited with each other and with defendant’s brother, sister, and other friends. The evening before the shooting incidents, at defendant’s invitation, Sullivan picked up defendant and two girls and drove to the Manhattan Club.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
611 N.E.2d 49, 243 Ill. App. 3d 1, 183 Ill. Dec. 196, 1993 Ill. App. LEXIS 432, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-edgeston-illappct-1993.