State v. Glear

696 S.W.2d 820, 1985 Mo. App. LEXIS 4183
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 25, 1985
DocketNo. 47510
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 696 S.W.2d 820 (State v. Glear) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Glear, 696 S.W.2d 820, 1985 Mo. App. LEXIS 4183 (Mo. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinion

SMITH, Presiding Judge.

Sometime during the night of January 15-16, 1980, Patricia Modglin was stabbed to death in her apartment. After 28 months of a “frustrating” investigation defendant Mark Glear, an alcoholic transvestite, was arrested on May 19, 1982, on burglary charges. During a ten hour period following the arrest he gave three statements, an oral, a written, and an oral admitting that he killed Ms. Modglin. In December 1982 he was charged with capital murder and following trial was convicted of manslaughter with punishment assessed at ten years imprisonment. He appeals.

On appeal he raises as error primarily the failure of the trial court to suppress the three statements. Based upon the claimed inadmissibility of those statements he further asserts that he is entitled to a judgment of acquittal. The state has conceded that in the absence of any of the statements there is insufficient evidence to support the conviction.

The victim was stabbed three times in the neck area. This apparently occurred in her living room and she either moved to the bedroom or was taken there. Death occurred very shortly after the stabbings. A fire was set in the bedroom, either on the victim or in close proximity to her body and she sustained severe burns to her body. She was dead when the fire was started. Both entrances to her apartment were locked when the firemen, who discovered her body, arrived. Her Ford Maverick automobile, parked near the rear patio door of the apartment, was taken and subsequently found on fire some distance from the apartment. The fire had been set in the interior of the vehicle.

Putting aside defendant’s admissions there was no evidence to establish his acquaintanceship with the victim or his presence in her apartment. Fingerprints found on a magazine used to drape the body belonged to the victim’s son or as to one print were unidentified. A bloody print found on a wall was not the defendant’s. It was covered with soot, indicating its presence prior to the fire. Hair fragments found on the victim’s body did not match hair samples taken from defendant. There were bloody footprints of stocking-clad feet found on the kitchen tiles which bore a distinctive foot pattern. Police took impressions of defendant’s feet but no evidence was introduced that the prints on the tile were made by defendant.

In the afternoon and evening of May 18, 1982, defendant was drinking heavily. By nine o’clock that evening he had fallen off a bar stool, fallen in the men’s room of a bar damaging a towel rack, and had been refused further service by a barmaid because he was too intoxicated. She described defendant as more intoxicated than anyone she had ever seen. After leaving the bar defendant fell off a wall and police were summoned. They took defendant and his bicycle to his grandmother’s house where they left him. The police testimony minimized the extent of defendant’s intoxication at that time.

[822]*822Around midnight defendant was arrested as a burglary suspect. The suspicion involved a series of break-ins in which women’s lingerie was stolen. Defendant was orally given his Miranda warnings by patrolman Vollmar at the time of his arrest. He was taken to the police station where the rights were repeated and where he was asked to initial the rights form. He initialed two lines of the rights form dealing with his right to remain silent and that any statement would be used against him. He did not initial the remaining blanks on the rights form although he did sign a line at the bottom of the form. The police testified that the absence of further initials was because defendant felt it was unnecessary as he understood his rights. Defendant testified that it was because he was so drunk he could not sign and because he did not wish to waive his rights. The initials he did affix and his signature are an unreadable scrawl and in great contrast to the compact and precise initials and signature he affixed to a subsequent form 10 hours later. On the original form he wrote only “Me” of his residence address of “Mc-Donough.” All of the officers involved with defendant after his arrest testified that he had been drinking but was not severely intoxicated. One officer stated that if defendant had been stopped for a traffic violation the officer would have required a breathalyzer test. In his police report concerning defendant's arrest, Officer Vollmar stated he had given defendant his rights and “the subject would make no statement to this officer concerning the burglaries.” The officer explained this at the suppression hearing as meaning that he, the officer, did not want to talk to defendant about the burglaries.

While defendant was waiting in the hall of the police station he asked Officer Pen-rose if he could put on a woman’s slip which he was carrying in his pocket at the time of his arrest. The officer allowed him to put the slip on over his trousers. While waiting with Penrose, defendant opined that he was in need of medical assistance for his alcoholism and transvestism. During the time that defendant was wearing the slip, Sgt. Tullock entered the police station. He made some comment on Mark being in trouble. Defendant was questioned about the burglaries for approximately an hour by Penrose. Then Tullock had Mark brought to him for questioning concerning the Modglin murder. Tullock determined that defendant had been given his rights and they were not repeated. Tullock had not had prior substantial involvement in the Modglin murder investigation.

Tullock questioned defendant for approximately three hours. Initially defendant denied having anything to do with the Modglin murder. Tullock then stated that it appeared that defendant's fingerprints matched those found in the apartment. This statement was admittedly untrue as was a subsequent one about a slip missing from the apartment. Through the next several hours, utilizing at least in part leading questions, Tullock elicited from defendant an involvement in the murder. The thrust of the story was that defendant met the victim at a bar, had some drinks with her, and accompanied her home. In the apartment defendant and victim disagreed on the nature of the sexual activity in which they would engage, he struck the victim, lit a fire in the bedroom, took the victim’s car keys, left through the patio doors, took the victim’s car, drove some distance and left the car after setting it on fire. No notes of the interrogation of defendant were made during the interrogation by either officer present, no audio tape recording was made, and no video tape recording was made. The absence of recordings was explained as not being department policy and because getting access to the equipment would have required waking up a higher ranking officer. Erhard, the officer who witnessed the oral statement prepared his written report a year later, one week before trial, relying solely on memory.

At the conclusion of the oral statement, defendant was asked if he would give a written statement. His answer was either that he would not until he received medical [823]*823help or that he would after he had seen a doctor, depending on which police officer’s testimony is credited. Tullock answered “Yes” when asked if defendant refused to give a written statement. On at least three occasions Tullock testified that defendant stated he wished to see a lawyer during the initial interview. On each occasion when examined further Tullock stated he misspoke and meant to say that defendant wanted to see a doctor. Following defendant’s statement about giving a written statement Tullock terminated the interview.

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Related

State v. Grant
784 S.W.2d 831 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1990)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
696 S.W.2d 820, 1985 Mo. App. LEXIS 4183, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-glear-moctapp-1985.