State v. Spitler

599 N.E.2d 408, 75 Ohio App. 3d 341, 1991 Ohio App. LEXIS 4751
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 3, 1991
DocketNo. 90AP-1390.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 599 N.E.2d 408 (State v. Spitler) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio 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. Spitler, 599 N.E.2d 408, 75 Ohio App. 3d 341, 1991 Ohio App. LEXIS 4751 (Ohio Ct. App. 1991).

Opinion

Strausbaugh, Judge.

This is an appeal by defendant from a judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas entering judgment on a jury’s verdict which found defendant guilty of two counts of aggravated murder, one count of aggravated robbery, and one count of aggravated burglary. Since there were accompanying possible death penalty specifications, the jury, following a mitigation hearing recommended life with defendant’s first hearing to be at thirty years, and the trial court sentenced according to that recommendation.

*344 On January 28, 1990, Columbus police discovered the body of Norman Brofford in a stairwell at Dennison Avenue Medical Center (“Center”). A trail of blood began in the kitchen next to the entrance to the stairwell where police found a bullet lodged in a cabinet. Police found another bullet in the wall behind the victim’s head approximately two feet above the stair landing. Police also discovered that a locked door to Dr. Arnold Allenius’ private office on the third floor of the clinic had been forced open but that there existed no evidence of burglary in any other areas of the clinic.

Testimony at trial included that of Charles “Ghetti” McDonald, who was employed as a janitor at the Center in January 1990. McDonald asked defendant, Daniel Lee Spitler, if he would be interested in helping him clean the medical building. Apparently, McDonald had on other occasions invited other persons into the Center. Defendant accepted McDonald’s offer and ultimately entered Allenius’ office discovering more than $13,000 inside a file cabinet. McDonald testified that defendant stated that it was “God’s will” that they steal the money and that defendant then became obsessed with taking the money. McDonald told several other persons about the money who advised McDonald to tell defendant the money was gone the next day, which McDonald did. Subsequently, defendant learned that the money was not in fact missing.

The Friday evening before the homicide, defendant told McDonald that he had met Brofford and the security guard at the Center earlier in the evening. The security guard George Taylor confirmed that he had found defendant wandering around the building before closing and asked him what he was doing there. Taylor testified that defendant told him that he was looking for George and Peg and that he was supposed to meet them there. Taylor stated that he thought it was unusual that defendant would meet George Stow and Margaret “Peg” Townsend at the Center since they were the owners of the cleaning business that operated in the Center and seldom came to the clinic. Upon defendant’s request, Taylor escorted defendant to the third floor to look for George and Peg. After not finding them, defendant then asked if Brofford was there and Taylor then escorted defendant to Brofford’s apartment at the south end of the building. Defendant and Brofford then spoke to one another and when through, defendant left the building. Stow and Townsend later testified that they did not know defendant and were never scheduled to meet him at the clinic.

Mark Lowery testified that defendant had no money to get an apartment, so he was temporarily living with Lowery until he could find a job. Lowery further testified that prior to the homicide, defendant had $140 in the bank and a delinquent J.C. Penney bill. On the day of defendant’s arrest, defen *345 dant called Lowery from the jail and asked Lowery to deliver his briefcase to his attorney. Defendant told Lowery that there was a small amount of money in the briefcase. When police executed a search warrant at Lowery’s house, a large sum of money was discovered.

Jill Bloom, an operating room technician, was walking her dogs after the Super Bowl telecast, which the parties stipulated ended at 8:27 p.m., when she heard a loud noise and saw a man run from the south entrance of the clinic. The man did not check to see if the door locked behind him and ran across the parking lot between the buildings. Bloom testified that there was adequate light to see that the man had black hair, fair skin, a beard, a shag haircut, and was of average height. This physical description matched that of the defendant. Bloom later picked defendant’s photo from a photo array. Bloom was positive that the man running was not McDonald and stated she was even more sure of her in-court identification that defendant was the man she had seen than she had been at her photo-array identification.

Dennis Van Pelt, the sales manager at Motorland, U.S.A., testified that shortly after the homicide defendant bought an automobile and paid $2,130 cash in large denominations which he took out of a briefcase. Donna Weaver, a co-owner of Weaver’s Cycle Sales, testified that three months prior to the homicide, defendant put a new motorcycle on layaway since he was denied financing. After paying $200, defendant still owed approximately $1600 on the motorcycle. At some later point, defendant requested that the $200 be returned so that he could buy his car which was going to be auctioned off at a police auction in Columbus. Weaver refused to give defendant a refund and heard no more from him until he paid the remaining balance in cash the day after the homicide. Defendant used sixteen $100 bills and one $50 bill which he pulled from his briefcase. Weaver testified that defendant told her that he wanted to get the motorcycle as soon as possible because he wanted to leave Columbus. Weaver also testified that defendant was saying something about a night watchman that had been murdered at a medical building and that he could have committed the murder because he had been there a few minutes earlier.

During a taped conversation with McDonald, defendant admitted that he was inside Allenius’ office and that he had handled the money and wiped his fingerprints off of anything that he had touched and that neither he nor McDonald had anything to worry about. Defendant further stated that his alibi was being at Herby’s Bar and Tradewinds bar between 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. and that numerous people had seen him there. Herby's Bar is seven-tenths of a mile from the homicide scene and about a two- to three-and-a-half-minute drive. Byron Adams, a defense witness, testified that when he had *346 met defendant a few months before the homicide, he lacked the money to pay for a $8.54 meal, but that on the night of the homicide, défendant not only repaid the debt to Adams, but did the unusual act of buying Adams’ group of friends beer.

Defendant also testified at trial and stated that just prior to the homicide he was in bad financial shape, having just closed out his $140 bank account. Defendant also stated that he owed on an account to J.C. Penney for over a year and although it was delinquent prior to the homicide, within a few days after the homicide, he paid the account in full in cash. In explaining where the large amounts of cash had come from, defendant testified that he had received an anonymous phone call setting up a meeting with a man unknown to defendant who asked him several questions. Defendant testified that following their conversation, this unknown individual handed defendant two envelopes filled with $18,000 in cash and suggested that defendant leave Columbus.

On appeal, defendant has set forth four assignments of error for this court’s review:

“1.

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Bluebook (online)
599 N.E.2d 408, 75 Ohio App. 3d 341, 1991 Ohio App. LEXIS 4751, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-spitler-ohioctapp-1991.