State v. Brigman

629 S.E.2d 307, 2006 N.C. App. LEXIS 1071, 2006 WL 1318704
CourtCourt of Appeals of North Carolina
DecidedMay 16, 2006
DocketNo. COA05-712.
StatusPublished

This text of 629 S.E.2d 307 (State v. Brigman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Brigman, 629 S.E.2d 307, 2006 N.C. App. LEXIS 1071, 2006 WL 1318704 (N.C. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

MARTIN, Chief Judge.

Defendant was convicted by a jury of eighteen counts of first degree sex offense and twenty-seven counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor. The convictions were consolidated into five judgments, for which he received two sentences of 339 months to 416 months imprisonment and three sentences *310of twenty-five to thirty months imprisonment, all to be served consecutively. Defendant appeals.

The State presented evidence at trial tending to show that on 15 April 2002, the Rockwell Police Department received a call from defendant's neighbor regarding three children who were walking down the street towards Highway 152. Hugh W. Bost, Jr., Chief of Police for the town of Rockwell, responded to the call and located the three children.1 They were all boys of pre-school or kindergarten age. The youngest of the three was not wearing any clothes, and Chief Bost smelled what he believed to be feces on his legs. The older two were "haphazardly clothed and dirty." One of the children told Chief Bost where they lived, and when he took them to the residence, Kimberly Brigman, defendant's wife and the mother of all three children, answered the door. She was not aware the children had left the house. At that time, Chief Bost returned the children to Mrs. Brigman.

Chief Bost reported the incident to the Rowan County Department of Social Services (DSS). Marcus Landy, a DSS investigator/case manager with Child Protective Services, went to defendant's residence later that night to investigate the home. When he arrived, he noted the children were extremely dirty with black feet and dirty palms. They had "feces down their legs where they had used the bathroom on themselves." The youngest child was "soaking wet" with urine. Mr. Landy noticed the entire home smelled like urine, and Kimberly Brigman told him the children used the bathroom in the corners of the house. Mr. Landy also found moldy food in the kitchen and noticed that the refrigerator was dirty. He believed it was in the children's best interest to be taken into DSS custody immediately, and they were placed with foster parents that night.

Foster parents Tammy and Michael McClarty took in the older two boys, Child 1 and Child 2, who were four and five years old respectively. Tammy McClarty testified that over the next few months, both boys, but particularly Child 2, had numerous bowel movements in their pants. On or around 12 June 2002, Mrs. McClarty heard Child 2 in another room screaming, "Lick me, lick me." When she went to see what they were doing, she observed them on the couch and "[Child 2] was laying on his back and [Child 1] was laying on top of him, and [Child 2] had [Child 1] by his shoulders and he was face to face and he was screaming, `Lick me, lick me.'" She asked the boys what they were doing, and Child 2 said they were playing "puppy." She separated the boys on the couch, and went to tell her husband she could not help with dinner at the moment. When she returned, "[Child 1] was laying on his back, and [Child 2] was laying next to him and had his hands between [Child 1's] legs." She again asked what they were doing, and they said they were playing the "picture game." The boys said the picture game was when defendant and their mother would take pictures of them. The boys demonstrated sexual poses they would do for the pictures and said they were not wearing any clothes when the pictures were taken.

The boys also described a "licking" game to Mrs. McClarty. She testified Child 2 told her that in this game, "they would lick each other's naked butts and naked weenies." He said defendant and their mother were both present when they played, as well as their youngest brother, Child 3, and that defendant "was the winner so he got to lick everyone's naked butts and naked weenies." Child 2 said he was also a winner so he got to "lick his mommy's butt. . . . and [Child 1's] too." Child 1 at first denied licking anyone, but then admitted to licking "Mommy's butt." Child 2 stated that Child 3 also "licked the weenie." When Mrs. McClarty questioned them on what they meant by "weenie," Child 2 "pointed to his crotch area and said, `this weenie.'" Mrs. McClarty recorded this conversation on a tape recorder, then later that night typed out notes from the recording. She reported the conversation to DSS and gave her notes to the boys' social worker. Two attempts were made to interview the boys in the next few days, but they would not talk to the interviewers. Mrs. McClarty also *311took the boys to the Northeast Medical Center for medical examinations.

Child 2 was adopted; his adoptive mother testified at trial that when Child 2 first came into her home in July of 2002, he had "severe night traumas" four to six times a night, numerous temper tantrums, and "[h]e continuously soiled his pants." Over time, his behavior, sleep, and bowel control improved greatly. However, when he was in the courtroom for defendant's trial, "he wet his pants." Since that day, according to his adoptive mother, he had "continued to wet and soil his pants," he was "having tantrums that he hadn't had in several months," and he did not want to eat or sleep.

Child 3 was two years old when he was placed in DSS custody in April of 2002. He went to the home of foster parents, who also took in Child 1 in July of 2002. The foster mother testified that one night as she was preparing to give Child 3 a bath, he took a set of plastic baby keys and "shove[d] one of them up into his rectum." He also "took his index finger and stuck it up in his bottom." She testified that Child 3 said "Kim put keys in me. Kim did it. Kim did it." About a week later, Child 3 again said that Kim put keys and a finger in his bottom. On another occasion, Child 3 also "rub[bed] his private part on [the] couch and excited himself" so that he urinated. The foster mother also testified that Child 1 told her defendant "messed with his weenie all the time. . . . [and] that Richard pulled pinched, rubbed, and licked his weenie." Child 1 told her defendant "put his weenie in [Child 1's] mouth . . . . [and] this made him choke and sometimes throw up." Child 1 said "he had to swallow white stuff that looked like milk." Since the trial began, Child 1 and Child 3 have both had nightmares every night. Child 1 woke up screaming "Richard, Richard, please do not hurt me." Child 3 said he dreamed about "Kim hurting [Child 1] and Richard hurting [Child 2]." Upon seeing defendant in the courtroom at trial, Child 1 became very angry, and Child 3 told his foster mother he "did not like seeing Richard because Richard was bad."

The boys' foster father testified that Child 3 told him "Kim and Richard" bit all three boys on their "weenie[s]." Child 3 also said defendant put his "weenie" in the child's mouth, as well as in his brothers' and Kim's mouths. The foster father also found Child 3 masturbating one day, and the child told him defendant had "[p]layed with me [sic] weenie." Child 1 and Child 3 both told the foster father defendant made them take their clothes off and watch pornography. They also described an occasion where defendant urinated into a cup and the whole family drank it. They also had to "drink pee from his weenie" and "sometimes it was white." Child 1 described one of his nightmares to the foster father in which "Kim had my weenie in her mouth." Child 1 said this had really happened to him, as well as to the other boys and to defendant.

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Bluebook (online)
629 S.E.2d 307, 2006 N.C. App. LEXIS 1071, 2006 WL 1318704, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-brigman-ncctapp-2006.