State v. Bell

728 S.E.2d 439, 221 N.C. App. 535, 2012 WL 2890957, 2012 N.C. App. LEXIS 868
Court of Appeals of North Carolina·Decided July 17, 2012·No. No. COA11-864·Published

Opinion

GEER, Judge.

Defendant Alfred Manga Bell appeals from the judgments entered on his conviction of three counts of second degree kidnapping, two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon, four counts of first [537] degree sexual offense, and one count of first degree burglary. Defendant primarily contends on appeal that the trial court improperly denied his motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of a search of his apartment. Although the trial court found that defendant consented to the search, defendant contends the trial court erred in failing to find that the consent was voluntary. Because defendant contended at trial that he did not consent at all and did not argue that any consent was involuntary, the trial court’s order, including its determination that defendant gave “valid” consent was adequate.

Facts

The State’s evidence tended to show the following facts. On the night of 4 September 2010, Stacey Thornburg was living with her son and her mother, Sandra Johnson, in a single family home in Person County, North Carolina. That evening, Ms. Thornburg went to her bedroom, leaving her son watching television. Sometime after going to sleep, Ms. Thornburg was awakened by a noise in the house. She got out of bed and started down the hallway when she saw a man dressed all in black come out of the laundry room holding a gun. The man was wearing a black mask and gloves and a black waist-length leather jacket. The gloves had some sort of white markings on them.

When Ms. Thornburg saw the intruder, she screamed. The intruder told her to quit screaming, or he would hurt her family. After she stopped, the intruder led her down the hall to the living room where her son, who had fallen asleep on the couch, asked what was happening. The intruder, speaking with an African or Jamaican accent, told Ms. Thornburg to put her son in his room. Ms. Thornburg told her son to go to his room, and he did.

The intruder asked if Ms. Thornburg had any money in the house. She said she had just a few dollars in her purse. The intruder then asked if there was anyone else in the home, and Ms. Thornburg admitted that her mother was there. When the intruder asked if Ms. Thornburg’s mother had any money, she told him that she likely did not. The intruder still directed Ms. Thornburg to go to her mother’s bedroom. After Ms. Thornburg’s mother, Ms. Johnson, opened the door to her bedroom, the intruder entered the room, and she gave him a diamond ring that he put into his pocket.

The intruder asked the two women if they had a camera. After Ms. Thornburg brought the intruder the camera, he told the two women to sit on the edge of the bed and disrobe. The intruder then demanded that Ms. Thornburg insert her fingers in Ms. Johnson’s [538] vagina and perform cunnilingus on her — afterwards, he forced Ms. Johnson to do the same to Ms. Thornburg. The intruder used the camera to photograph the women during the sexual acts. The intruder also penetrated both women with his fingers. Ms. Thornburg noticed that he appeared to have on latex gloves instead of the black gloves she had first seen.

While the women were in Ms. Johnson’s bedroom, Ms. Thornburg’s son began to cry out. Ms. Thornburg called to him every three minutes to tell him that everything was going to be okay and to stay in his room. At one point, defendant told the women that if they went to the police, he would publish the pictures he had taken of them. He claimed that if they did not call the police, he would return the camera to them in a month.

Towards the end of the invasion, the intruder claimed that he had acted as he had because he had lost his job, he needed money for rent, his wife had left him, he was going to lose his home, and he had a son Ms. Thornburg’s son’s age. The intruder then grilled Ms. Johnson about Bible verses and made the two women stand and pray with him. After praying, the intruder told Ms. Thornburg to take the gun from him and to hold it so that he could see if he could trust her and her mother. After she held the gun, he took it back from her. He also returned the diamond ring Ms. Johnson had given him. The intruder then told the women that they could go to Ms. Thornburg’s son’s room. After giving Ms. Thornburg a hug, the intruder left the house.

After the women had assured Ms. Thornburg’s son that everything would be okay, Ms. Johnson called the police. The police arrived within minutes at around 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. Ms. Thornburg told them there had been a man who lived next door who was from Africa and had a son. When one of her neighbors, Donna Bruster, called to make sure that the family was okay, Ms. Thornburg asked her if she remembered the name of the man from Africa who had a son and lived next door. Ms. Bruster confirmed that he was called “Alfred,” he had lived with their neighbors for some months because he had separated from his wife, and he had a son.

Ms. Thornburg gave a description of the intruder and of what he was wearing to the officers. The Sheriff of Person County, Dewey Jones, was one of the officers who responded to Ms. Johnson’s call. Ms. Bruster met Sheriff Jones in the yard and told him that she and Ms. Thornburg thought that the intruder could be a man who used to [539] live next door with other neighbors. She told the Sheriff that the man’s name was “Alfred” and that he spoke with an African or Jamaican accent like the one Ms. Thornburg had described.

From that information, the Sheriff's Department determined that the man who had lived with the neighbors was defendant Alfred Manga Bell, and his current address was in Durham. Sheriff Jones and Investigator Ryan Weaver contacted the Durham Police Department and met three Durham officers near the address where defendant was living. Sheriff Jones, Investigator Weaver, and one of the Durham officers entered the address, a boarding house, at approximately 10:00 a.m. and found defendant in his room.

Sheriff Jones and Investigator Weaver asked for defendant’s consent to search his room, and defendant agreed. Defendant stood in the hallway with some of the Durham officers and watched Sheriff Jones and Investigator Weaver conduct the search. In a dresser with partially opened drawers, Sheriff Jones found a silver camera of the type described as stolen by Ms. Thornburg. At approximately the same time, Investigator Weaver lifted the bed's mattress and found two black gloves with white markings similar to those described by both Ms. Thornburg and Ms. Johnson. When the officers discovered those items, defendant revoked his consent to their search.

Sheriff Jones and Investigator Weaver immediately withdrew from the room and called the District Attorney’s Office for advice. Based on that advice, Sheriff Jones and Investigator Weaver reentered the room and recovered the items they had found prior to defendant’s revocation of his consent, including the black gloves, some latex gloves, and the camera. They did not, however, search any further. When the officers turned on the camera, it showed pictures of Ms. Thornburg and Ms. Johnson engaged in sexual acts.

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State v. Bell, 728 S.E.2d 439, 221 N.C. App. 535, 2012 WL 2890957, 2012 N.C. App. LEXIS 868 (N.C. Ct. App. 2012).

728 S.E.2d 439 (State v. Bell) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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