State v. Barriner

34 S.W.3d 139, 2000 Mo. LEXIS 80, 2000 WL 1873832
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedDecember 27, 2000
DocketSC 81666
StatusPublished
Cited by100 cases

This text of 34 S.W.3d 139 (State v. Barriner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Barriner, 34 S.W.3d 139, 2000 Mo. LEXIS 80, 2000 WL 1873832 (Mo. 2000).

Opinions

COVINGTON, Judge.

Appellant, Cecil Barriner, appeals his convictions and death sentences for two counts of first degree murder, section 565.020, RSMo 1994, for the murders of Irene Sisk and her granddaughter, Candace “Candy” Sisk. Reversed and remanded.

I.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, State v. Werner, 9 S.W.3d 590 (Mo. banc 2000), the facts are as follows. In December 1996, appellant began to fear that he had failed a urinalysis test for the presence of controlled substances. Appellant was concerned that his probation would be revoked. Resolving to leave his residence in Poplar Bluff, appellant planned to travel to the Tallapoosa, Missouri, residence of nineteen year old Candy Sisk and Irene Sisk, Candy’s seventy-four year old grandmother, to obtain money from them. Appellant had been in a relationship with Candy Sisk’s mother, Shirley Niswonger, from 1993 until 1996, and during that time had become acquainted with Candy. Appellant had accompanied Niswonger on at least two occasions when she traveled to the Sisks’ house to borrow money. Appellant believed that the Sisks were financially well-to-do.

Late in the afternoon of December 15, 1996, appellant visited Daniel and Samantha Simmons, friends who lived only a few miles from the Sisk residence. Appellant told Samantha Simmons that he was going to Tallapoosa to collect some money and drove away in the white Ford Tamms automobile he was using for transportation. He returned shortly thereafter, stating that no one had been home. Daniel and Samantha Simmons then accompanied appellant to Tallapoosa in the Ford Taurus, where appellant passed by the Sisk house three times. During the drive, appellant said that “the girl was going to pay him some money” and pointed to a note that he [142]*142had left on the Sisks’ door. Samantha Simmons noticed that during the drive appellant held and played with a purple Crown Royal bag that contained something that she could not see.

On December 16, at approximately 8:45 a.m., Candy telephoned her aunt, Debbie Dubois, and reported that a man had been to the house a short time before. Candy told Dubois that the man had told Irene that he had “a Christmas gift for Candy from her mother in jail.” Candy told Du-bois that her grandmother said that the man had acted strangely, and that the same man had been in Tallapoosa the day before asking for directions to the Sisk residence. Candy reported that she had not seen the man herself, but had observed the man’s car, which was a white Ford Taurus. Dubois attempted to telephone a relative to ask him to check on Irene and Candy but was unable to reach him. Du-bois then called Candy, told her she had failed to reach the relative, and instructed Candy to call her again if the man returned.

Several minutes after 9:00 that morning, a bank teller at a bank in nearby Risco attended to a man driving a white Ford Taurus. The teller saw Candy riding in the passenger seat, dressed in a nightgown and wrapped in a blanket. The teller saw another person in the rear seat. The driver gave the teller a check in the amount of one thousand dollars, signed by Candy and to be drawn on her account. After having Candy sign the required cash receipt, the teller gave the man one thousand dollars in cash, with one hundred dollars in twenty dollar bills, as the driver requested.

At approximately 10:45 that morning, Dubois attempted at least twice to telephone Candy and Irene at the Sisk residence. The telephone rang repeatedly, but no one answered. Dubois was concerned because one telephone line had an answering machine and because Candy, who had undergone back surgery four days before, was not supposed to leave the house for six weeks. Dubois drove to the Sisk house. There she found Candy and Irene dead. She tried to call the police, but, upon finding that the telephones in the house were missing, she drove to see a relative, who notified the authorities.

Candy’s body was on the bed in her bedroom. Her hands were bound in front of her with rope. She was unclothed below the waist. A pair of sweatpants and a pair of panties were on the floor nearby. Her neck had been slashed six to eight times. A knife protruded from her chest. An autopsy revealed that Candy bled to death from the neck slashes, and that the knife was thrust into her chest after she died. Several bite marks were identified on her left breast. She had been anally violated with a blunt object at or after the time of her death, resulting in lacerations to her rectum and vagina.

Irene’s body was on the floor of her bedroom next to the bed. She had been hog-tied, her wrists and ankles bound together with the same length of rope. An autopsy revealed that seventeen superficial stab wounds in a localized area on her left chest, five of which penetrated the chest cavity and lung, were inflicted fifteen to forty-five minutes before she died. Three deep slashes to her throat caused her death.

A routine investigation of the murder scene led to several relevant discoveries. Officers found the purses of Candy and Irene near their respective bodies; each had been opened, and there were two checkbooks lying near Irene’s purse. In one of these checkbooks a cheek for one thousand dollars had been made out to cash but was not signed. A television and VCR were missing from Candy’s bedroom. Officers found an empty box for a videotape of the movie “Independence Day” near where the VCR had been. Multiple telephones in different areas of the house were disabled or missing. A utensil drawer in the kitchen of the residence was smeared with Irene’s blood.

[143]*143Some time after the deaths of Irene and Candy, appellant checked into a motel in Poplar Bluff. Appellant paid for the room in cash and told the clerk that he wanted to be alone. Later that afternoon, appellant visited Kevin Dennis and gave him a VCR for use in salvaging parts. Appellant also changed clothes while at Dennis’s house.

On December 18, two days after the bodies of Irene and Candy were discovered, Lieutenant Steven Hinesly of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and Deputy Sheriff Scott Johnston of Butler County contacted appellant at his brother’s home. Appellant agreed to accompany the officers to troop headquarters in Poplar Bluff to discuss the homicide. Appellant denied knowing that the Sisks had been murdered and denied killing them. Appellant claimed to have made trips to Cape Girar-deau and two other towns on the morning of the murders to do some Christmas shopping. When Lieutenant Hinesly professed skepticism that appellant could have traveled so far so quickly, appellant changed his story; he then claimed that he was using methamphetamine at the home of Kevin Dennis when the murders were committed.

The next evening, Lieutenant Hinesly again interviewed appellant, this time at the Butler County Sheriffs office. After reading appellant his Miranda rights, Hinesly told appellant that the story concerning Dennis had not checked out, and that the police had discovered other information since appellant’s first interview. At that point, Hinesly observed, appellant “became depressed” and said that he wanted to tell the truth but could not. Appellant then asked to speak to his brother. After consulting with .his brother for a short time, appellant admitted that he had murdered Irene and Candy.

Appellant told Lieutenant Hinesly that Irene and Candy had disagreed over whether to give appellant money, and that Irene had begun to write a check but never finished it.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
34 S.W.3d 139, 2000 Mo. LEXIS 80, 2000 WL 1873832, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-barriner-mo-2000.