State v. Wade

346 P.3d 838, 186 Wash. App. 749
CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedMarch 30, 2015
DocketNo. 69527-4-I
StatusPublished
Cited by56 cases

This text of 346 P.3d 838 (State v. Wade) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Wade, 346 P.3d 838, 186 Wash. App. 749 (Wash. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

[754]*754¶1

Schindler, J.

Ajury convicted Gary Wade of murder in the second degree of Michelle Thornton. Wade seeks reversal, arguing the court erred by (1) excluding other suspect evidence, (2) admitting testimony in violation of his right to confrontation, (3) denying his motion for a mistrial, and (4) refusing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offenses of manslaughter in the first degree and manslaughter in the second degree. Wade also contends the court erred by including a prior Utah conviction in the calculation of his offender score. We affirm.

FACTS

¶2 In 2010, Michelle Thornton worked as a cashier at the Upper Queen Anne Safeway and lived at the Vine Court Apartments in Belltown. Thornton was a mature and “dependable” employee, “always on time, . . . always well dressed.” The Vine Court Apartments is a secure building with a “high end” video security system. To gain access to the building, a person must have a key or be “buzzed in” by a resident through a keypad.

¶3 Thornton was friendly and outgoing and invited people to “her apartment quite a bit.” Thornton had a view of the Space Needle from her apartment and hosted an annual New Year’s Eve party with her friends to watch the fireworks. Thornton’s friends described her as “fun to be around. She loved life and loved getting outdoors.” Thornton also liked to drink alcohol and use drugs. Gary Wade often delivered cocaine to Thornton at her apartment and sometimes stayed and smoked crack cocaine with Thornton and her friends.

¶4 On December 28, 2010, Thornton posted an invitation to her annual New Year’s Eve party on her Facebook page. Thornton called her longtime “neighbor and friend” of 21 years, Richard Bollinger, twice that day to ask him to get her some “crack.” Bollinger told her he “was trying to get off [drugs]” and had erased from his phone “all the contact [755]*755information for anybody who [he] knew had any relationship to drugs and drug dealing.” Later that night, Thornton went out for pizza with her friend Charles Cruise. Thornton and Cruise had been “great friends” for 20 years.

¶5 Thornton did not show up for her scheduled 2:15 p.m. shift at Safeway on December 30 or for her morning shift the next day, December 31. Safeway Manager Gregory Fox thought it “odd” because she had never “just failed to appear.” It was “not like [Thornton] at all to miss work.”

¶6 Thornton’s friend and coworker Andrew Laissue called Thornton on December 30 but was not able to reach her. Cruise tried calling Thornton on December 29 or 30. Cruise said someone picked up the phone and then “hung it up” without saying anything. Thornton’s New Year’s Eve party did not take place as planned.

¶7 On January 3, 2011, Cruise asked the police to check on Thornton. Seattle Police Department Officer Mark Bisson and Officer Robin Roberts went to the apartment building with Cruise. The apartment manager let them into Thornton’s apartment. Cruise stood in the doorway while the officers quickly checked the living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. The officers were inside Thornton’s apartment for only “15 to 30 seconds” because it was a “welfare check ... on the person to see if they were home.”

¶8 On January 4, Thornton’s father filed a “missing person” report. On January 6, Detective Tony Eng and Detective David Ogard used the apartment manager’s key to unlock the door to Thornton’s apartment. During the search of the apartment, Detective Ogard discovered Thornton’s body inside the hall closet. Thornton was lying face up with her head “jammed against the door” and her feet “pressed up against the wall.” Thornton was naked from the waist down and had dried blood on her forehead. Detectives Eng and Ogard contacted Homicide Detective Timothy DeVore and Detective Jeffrey Mudd, the Crime Scene Investigation Unit, and a pathologist from the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.

[756]*756¶9 Seattle Police Department Crime Scene Investigation Unit Detective Kimberly Biggs testified there were no pry marks or signs of forced entry on the door or doorframe of the apartment. The police found a broken phone cord by the front door, but the telephone was missing.1 The police did not find any keys to the apartment.

¶10 Detective Mudd testified that the living room looked as though “there might have been some kind of struggle.” The couch was “askew,” and there was a broken picture frame on the floor. To the left of the couch was a beige extension cord with “bent prongs and suspected feces.” The police found a pink bathrobe to the right of the couch with what appeared to be fecal stains. They found the belt to the bathrobe on the living room floor.

¶11 The police also found feces on the living room floor, on a towel in the bathroom, and on pajama bottoms in the bedroom. They found underwear tangled up with blue tights, stained with feces, in the bathtub. The tights were partly inside out, as if “removed off a person at the same time [as the underwear] in one motion.”

¶12 King County Medical Examiner’s Office Forensic Pathologist Dr. Timothy Williams examined Thornton’s body at the apartment. The trail of dried blood from the abrasion on the right side of her nose ran across her forehead “in a direction against gravity” as compared to the position of the body in the closet. Dr. Williams testified the line of dried blood on her forehead was “consistent with the body having been moved at some point after that blood had started to run.”

¶13 Dr. Williams also observed “a number of abrasions on her neck” and “a large number of . . . petechial hemorrhages, small pinpoint hemorrhages in the skin of the face.” Dr. Williams testified that Thornton’s face was “engorged with blood,” creating the “distinct possibility” that she had [757]*757been strangled. According to Dr. Williams, it is “very common” for a person to “evacuate their bowels” upon death.

¶14 Dr. Williams estimated the time of death at 1:00 a.m. on December 30. A toxicology report later showed Thornton had a blood alcohol level of 0.07 grams per decaliter and her blood contained cocaine metabolites. Dr. Williams concluded the death was a homicide and the manner of death was asphyxia from strangulation.

¶15 Seattle Police Department Latent Fingerprint Examiner Betty Newlin processed the apartment for latent prints. Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory (WSPCL) Forensic Scientist Kari O’Neill obtained swabs from Thornton’s body for DNA2 testing. O’Neill later determined the DNA profile from the left and right nipples was “consistent with coming from the same unknown male individual.”

¶16 Initially, the police investigation focused on Thornton’s ex-boyfriend Georgios Broutzakis. In June 2009, Broutzakis was convicted of assaulting Thornton and the court issued a no-contact order. The police interviewed Broutzakis on January 21.

¶17 Broutzakis denied any involvement in Thornton’s death and gave the police a DNA sample. Broutzakis acknowledged leaving nine of the saved voice mail messages on Thornton’s phone, including several threatening messages. Five of the messages are from May 2009 and May 2010, and four of the messages are from August, October, and November 2010. The final three messages are not threatening.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State Of Washington, V. Scott Allan Thornton
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2025
State Of Washington, V. Eson Puleuea Herr
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2025
State Of Washington, V. Eric C. Banfield
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2024
State Of Washington, Res/cross-app. V. Mical Darion Roberts, App/cross-res.
553 P.3d 1122 (Court of Appeals of Washington, 2024)
State of Washington v. Robbrie Purdell Thompson
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2024
State Of Washington, V. Michael Lynn Wilson
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2024
State Of Washington, V. James L. Lyon
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2023
State Of Washington, V. Jamel Lewis Alexander
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2023
State Of Washington, V. Richard Eric Nesbit
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2022
State Of Washington, V. Mark David Glenn
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2022
State Of Washington, V. Darion A Lipsey
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2022
State Of Washington, V. Cristian Manuel Amador
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2022
State Of Washington, V. Vincent Landes
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2021
State Of Washington, V. Jack Ross
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2021
State Of Washington, V. Cody Thomas Moehrle
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2021
Personal Restraint Petition Of Martin A. Jones
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2021
State Of Washington v. Michael A. Smith
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2021
State Of Washington v. Kelli Colleen Gonzales
Court of Appeals of Washington, 2020

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
346 P.3d 838, 186 Wash. App. 749, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-wade-washctapp-2015.