Whittington v. State

313 S.E.2d 73, 252 Ga. 168
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedMarch 6, 1984
Docket40337
StatusPublished
Cited by43 cases

This text of 313 S.E.2d 73 (Whittington v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Whittington v. State, 313 S.E.2d 73, 252 Ga. 168 (Ga. 1984).

Opinions

Hill, Chief Justice.

Teresa Faye Whittington was found guilty of murdering Cheryl Marie Soto and was sentenced to death.1 She brings this appeal. This case was tried and is reviewed under the Unified Appeal Procedure.

The evidence presented was sufficient to allow the jury to find the facts which follow. Teresa Whittington graduated from Madison County High School in May 1981, and began working at a Starvin’ Marvin store in Athens, Georgia, in August where she met Richard (“Rick”) Soto during the first part of October 1981. She recounted her relationship with him and the January 26,1982, murder itself in her statement, which was admitted at trial, as follows:

“I have known Rick Soto since sometime the first part of October, 1981. He came into the Starvin’ Marvin Store on Highway 72 where I worked. We talked to each other a couple of times and Rick [169]*169asked me out. At the time, I didn’t know he was married at the time. We started dating and one time I called his house áiid a girl answered. I asked him later who the girl was and he said it was a girl he had dated. About two days before Thanksgiving, 1981, Cheryl called me at the Starvin’ Marvin Store and asked me if I had been seeing Rick. I asked her what business it was of hers, and she told me that she was married to him. That night, I got my mother to drive me over to Rick’s house. Mama stayed in the car and I went in the house. Cheryl and Rick were there. Cheryl and I talked and she told him that he would have to make a choice between us. He told her that he would have to think about what he was going to do, and they started arguing. Mama came to the door then and said she had to go home, so I left. Right after that, Rick said he was going to get a divorce. Then he said he couldn’t, because her family was worth money, that her grandmother had a lot of money and there was a lot of insurance on Cheryl. He said that he was going to try and work it out. He told me that he married Cheryl for the money. About a week or two later, Rick started talking about getting rid of Cheryl. He talked about throwing the radio in the tub when she was taking a bath. He asked me if I would get rid of Cheryl and make it look like an accident. Before we talked about this, Cheryl had left Rick and gone home to live with her parents. This was in January, 1982. She went to her parents on a Monday. We went out on Friday and he told me he was going to call her and ask her to come home. He said he was going to do this so her parents would think they were back together. We continued to see each other after she came back. We saw each other two or three times. Monday, January 25th, 1982 Rick called me and told me that the neighbors weren’t at home. He had said before that he would have to do it when the neighbors weren’t at home. He came and picked me up. We went and got some gas and we came home and sat in the driveway and talked. Rick was supposed to call me on Tuesday and when he didn’t call, I called him at work. On Monday when we were sitting in the car we talked about killing Cheryl. Rick said I would have to be the one that did it. He said that if I loved him, I would do it. That same day, he had showed me how to shoot the gun. He told me he didn’t know if he could pull the trigger. That was why I had to do it. On Tuesday, he came and picked me up and told me the neighbors were gone. He was just sitting in the car grinning at me. The plan was that he was going into the house and act like they had made up and ask her to take a bath with him. When we got to the house, he went in and then he came back out and told me that everything was set. He grabbed me and kissed me. I took the gun off the console between the bucket seats and went into the house. When I went into the house, Cheryl was in the tub. Rick also had told me to knock the radio into the tub to make it look like an accident. I [170]*170was standing in the door and she looked at me and I shot her. She was standing in the tub and she fell up against the wall. I ran out and went to the car. I had left the house door open and I could hear Cheryl making a noise in the house. Rick asked me if she was dead. I said I don’t know. He told me to get back in there and get it over with. I went back in the house. I went to the bathroom and saw that she wasn’t in there. I saw the blood and followed it into the living room. She was standing in the living room. She looked at me and kept saying, ‘Please don’t, Teresa. You know you’re not doing right.’ She kept asking me why. I raised the gun and shot her again. She fell on either her side or her front. I think it was her side. I went back to the car. Rick had locked Gypsy [his dog] in the pickup truck. Rick asked me if I was okay. I said I was scared and he told me not to worry. We left then. I laid the gun between the seats. Rick was taking me home. We stopped on the Diamond Hill Road, the road I live on, and Rick took the bullets out of the gun and handed them to me. I threw one out. Then he drove up a little and I threw another out. There were only two. Rick then drove me to Quality Grocery. I called Donna at work and she wasn’t there. I then called her house and talked to Donna’s mother. Then I called home and told Mama I was going to Donna’s. I walked over to Donna’s. Before Rick left the grocery, he told me he was going to go check on Cheryl to make sure. He told me he would call me. He called me at Donna’s about 15 minutes after I got there. He asked me how I was doing. I asked him if he had been to the house and he said yes. I asked if she was dead and he said no. He said he’d wait about an hour and check on her again. He said it was just a matter of time before it was over with. He said he would fix the house so it would look like someone had broken in. He asked me if there was anything he had forgotten. I told him to mess up the house real good. He said as soon as he got through, he’d call me. I told him to get rid of the radio. He had told me to push the radio into the tub and if that didn’t work, to shoot her. When I pushed the radio, it came unplugged. This is a true statement. I have read all seven pages and it is the truth.”2

Other evidence established that Richard Soto had purchased the murder weapon on July 3,1981, and eleven days later obtained a $50,000 term life insurance policy on his wife, some three months before he met the defendant. An insurance agent testified that he visited their home and wrote the policy with both of the Sotos present. The policy contained a double indemnity clause which provided that it would pay $100,000 in the event that Cheryl Soto died an accidental death.

[171]*171A co-worker of Soto’s testified that Cheryl Soto worked at the same location, albeit on an irregular schedule. Rick and Cheryl kept a radio at their work bench. On the morning of January 26,1982, he saw Rick leave with the radio and return in less than five minutes empty handed. He identified the radio which was found in the bathtub after Cheryl Soto’s murder as the same radio which Rick had removed from his work bench that morning. He also testified that Soto had left work sometime between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. on January 26,1982, and that at about 3:00 p.m. he saw Soto driving his car, with a female passenger, toward his home. He further testified that Soto returned and worked from approximately 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.

One of the Sotos’ neighbors testified that Richard Soto came to her home at approximately 5:00 p.m. and asked her to call the police and get an ambulance because Cheryl had been shot. She did so. Sheriff Jack Fortson and Deputy Morgan both arrived at the Soto home at 5:08.

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313 S.E.2d 73, 252 Ga. 168, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whittington-v-state-ga-1984.