Stogsdill v. State

552 S.W.2d 481 (1977)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Price was last seen alive on the morning of April 14, 1975, by his brother-in-law, Al Furr. Price had over a hundred dollars on his person. Jerry Smith, an oil worker, and two co-workers discovered a body under a bridge they were repairing. The body under the bridge was nude, beaten, stabbed, and sexually mutilated. The body was identified as Price. Price had been severely beaten and his reproductive organs had been removed by 'a very fine, knifelike cut.' Dr. Fletcher, a pathologist, stated that the wounds would have easily been caused by being stabbed with a lug wrench. The autopsy revealed a high content of alcohol and barbiturates in the body, leading Dr. Fletcher to conclude, 'My opinion is that had he [deceased] not -- any person with that level of drugs in his system, in his blood, untreated would die, without any further injuries.' Bohannon 'spotted a suitcase and some clothing floating in the river.' Bohannon was able to recover the items and took them to the Vernon Police Department. The following day, an investigation of this area of the river resulted in the recovery of clothing and a lug wrench. A Deputy Sheriff found a social security card with the name Billy Ed Price on it and some photographs under a bridge on a farm to market road about one and a half miles north of the bridge. Hendry observed a boot laying just off the shoulder of the road, 'and possibly fifty, maybe seventy-five yards further down the road I noticed another one.' Hendry retrieved the boots and a search of that area by the Sheriff resulted in the recovery of a leather dress glove. The boots, the glove, and some of the items of clothing found belonged to the deceased. Kump testified that sometime during the harvest season of 1975 D picked him up at about 8:00 p.m. when he was 'hitchhiking' a ride to his motel. They drove around for a long time and D told him that 'he wanted to cut my dick and balls off with a pocket knife -- he wanted to make a woman out of me.' Laney, a transient, testified he met D in a bar and bought beer, and went drinking. They stopped at a roadside park where additional beer was consumed and Laney 'blacked out.' The only thing Laney remembered after this point was '. . . being struck from around the right-hand to the rear side with an object.' D had struck him numerous times and received severe injuries to his body but he did not believe his sexual organs had been 'tampered with.' Gibbs testified about the condition he found Laney in. The court instructed the jury that evidence of the extraneous offense was admitted only on the issue of identity. P did not point to any circumstances to connect D with the crime. P relied on a comparison of casts of tire tracks at the scene and two tires taken from a pickup truck sold by D to Thomas and the comparison of known hair of the deceased and hairs which were picked up with a vacuum cleaner used on the interior of the same truck on August 12, 1975. An expert testified that it was possible that D's tires could have made the impressions at the crime scene. John Hippard, a special agent assigned to the F.B.I. laboratory testified about the hairs found. (At this point we caveat any testimony by the FBI “hair laboratory” in that it was fraudulent and false and done for a large number of decades convicting a lot of innocent people for crimes they did not commit based on the FBI’s false lab testimony and fake science.) Hippard concluded that the hair taken from the scene and from D's truck were microscopically alike and explained 'whenever they are microscopically alike then my conclusion is that they could have come from the same source.' Hippard eventually admitted on cross that 'hairs do not possess enough individual microscopic characteristics to be positively identified as originating from a particular person to the exclusion of all others.' Dr. Irving C. Stone, from another state lab, testified that known body hair taken from the deceased and hair found on the tire tool 'could have come' from the same source. On cross-examination, Dr. Stone agreed that a definite identification of hair cannot be made, 'since there's a possibility of more than one source of that hair.' Dr. John Randall, from another lab, did trace mineral analysis of the hair and observed sodium, bromide, manganese, copper, aluminum, zinc, and gold. The hairs differed significantly on sodium but the rest matched. Randall based the sodium variance on the contamination of the samples. There was testimony that salt water occasionally gets into the creek. D was convicted and sentenced to death. D appealed on the sufficiency of the evidence.