COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Moon, Judge Annunziata and 

 Senior Judge Hodges 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

EDWARD LORENZ, a/k/a AKITO KUNIMOTO 

v. Record No. 2483-93-2 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

 JUDGE WILLIAM H. HODGES 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA AUGUST 1, 1995 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND 

Thomas N. Nance, Judge 

 Susan D. Hansen, Deputy Public Defender (David J. 

 Johnson, Public Defender, on brief), for appellant. 

 Thomas C. Daniel, Assistant Attorney General (James S. 

 Gilmore, III, Attorney General, on brief), for 

 appellee. 

 

 Edward Lorenz (appellant) was convicted of second degree 

murder in the death of his three-year-old daughter. On appeal, 

appellant contends that the evidence was insufficient to 

establish malice. He alleges that the child's death occurred 

contrary to his intentions and thus he could be convicted of no 

crime higher than involuntary manslaughter. Finding no error, we 

affirm. 

 I. 

 Appellant and his wife, Pamela Lorenz, had a child, Eva, on 

January 25, 1986, in Eden, North Carolina. Appellant, Pamela, 

and Eva moved to Richmond in February 1989, where appellant and 

Pamela worked for the Central Motel. The family lived in a room 

at the motel. According to Pamela's testimony, appellant 

complained that the child had been spoiled and did not listen to 

 

 *Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not 

designated for publication. 
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orders. Appellant also drilled his daughter in the German 

language and became frustrated with her when she made mistakes in 

pronunciation or grammar. 

 Appellant disciplined Eva by hitting her on the head with 

his shoe or the back of his hand. When Eva wet her pants, 

appellant required her to wear the wet clothing all day. Once, 

appellant made Eva eat her own vomit. In early April 1989, 

Pamela noticed that Eva was quieter and more withdrawn than usual 

and appeared to have trouble walking. The toddler complained of 

pain in the back of her neck. 

 On April 13, 1989, appellant asked Eva a question, to which 

she responded, "no." Appellant angrily threw the child in the 

air. She struck her head either on the wall or a piece of 

furniture, and fell to the floor. Her eyes rolled up in her head 

and she stopped breathing. Appellant and Pamela administered 

CPR. Neither parent attempted to call for a rescue squad. Eva 

began to bleed from her mouth and nose. She did not regain 

consciousness and died. 

 Pamela bathed Eva's body, dressed her in a white dress, and 

wrapped her in a blanket. Appellant said that he wanted to bury 

Eva in an area that was not populated so there would be little 

chance that the child's body would be found. Appellant obtained 

an atlas of Richmond, selected a site for the grave, and marked 

out a route on the map. He put Eva's body in a fruit crate and 

buried her behind the First Bethel Baptist Church in Henrico 

County. 

 When an acquaintance in Richmond later asked appellant about 
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the child, appellant stated that she was with a babysitter or 

family friend. Appellant told Pamela to write to the Bureau of 

Vital Statistics in North Carolina to try to get a death 

certificate stating that Eva died in Greensboro, North Carolina. 

 He directed Pamela to tell people who asked that Eva had died 

there. When appellant and Pamela moved to France, appellant told 

his aunt that Eva had passed away from an illness. 

 On January 3, 1990, hunters discovered the child's skull, 

visible above ground, near the First Bethel Baptist Church. Dr. 

Marcella Fierro, the medical examiner, determined the cause of 

death to be "a brain injury" and that the child suffered multiple 

skull fractures. Fierro testified at trial that at least one 

linear fracture to the back of the child's head had been received 

prior to death. 

 Detective Gregory Auditore first spoke to appellant on May 

9, 1993, in Los Angeles, California. In that interview, 

appellant said that Eva had not suffered any injury prior to her 

death. He said that Eva had been sitting on the floor eating a 

sandwich and watching television; when she stood up, she had 

trouble breathing, and fell to the carpet. Appellant said his 

efforts to resuscitate her failed. He denied being angry with 

her or throwing her. 

 The following day, Auditore escorted appellant on the 

airplane back to Virginia. En route, appellant told Auditore 

that he had a plan which would not require Pamela to come to 

court. When Auditore asked appellant if he planned to tell the 

truth, appellant answered that he did. While waiting to change 
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planes in the Dallas airport, Auditore asked appellant if he 

killed Eva and appellant said he did. He said that Eva hit her 

head on the wall. When Auditore asked if it was a "slam" against 

the wall, appellant answered in the affirmative. At that point 

in the interview, appellant stated that he needed an interpreter 

who spoke German before he could explain further what had 

happened. 

 On May 11, 1993, in Henrico County, appellant told 

investigators that Eva had collapsed after she could not get any 

air. He stated that approximately one week before Eva's death he 

had shoved her into a wall, but there had been no outward sign of 

injury. When asked if he killed Eva, appellant said "no." 

Subsequently, however, appellant said he threw Eva into the wall 

the same day that she had difficulty breathing and passed out. 

He admitted that he threw her into the wall because he was angry, 

and accepted responsibility for her death. 

 At his bench trial, appellant testified that Eva had been 

eating a sandwich, started to say something, stopped breathing, 

and never started breathing again. He said that he only tossed 

her in the air in a playful way. Appellant testified that on the 

day Eva died, he did not strike her or throw her into the air. 

 II. 

 Appellant contends that the evidence did not establish 

malice on his part, but "only gross and culpable negligence in 

that Eva was killed contrary to [his] intent." 

 "On appeal, we review the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the Commonwealth, granting to it all reasonable 
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inferences fairly deducible therefrom." Martin v. Commonwealth, 

4 Va. App. 438, 443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987). Furthermore, 

the fact finder must determine the weight to be given evidence 

and whether a witness' testimony is credible. Bridgeman v. 

Commonwealth, 3 Va. App. 523, 528, 351 S.E.2d 598, 601 (1986). 

 "Murder at common law is a homicide committed with malice, 

either express or implied." Pugh v. Commonwealth, 223 Va. 663, 

667, 292 S.E.2d 339, 341 (1982). The question of whether a 

defendant acted with malice is to be determined by the fact 

finder. Id. See Branch v. Commonwealth, 14 Va. App. 836, 841, 

419 S.E.2d 422, 426 (1992). 

 "Express malice is evidenced when 'one person kills another 

with a sedate, deliberate mind, and formed design.' Implied 

malice exists when any purposeful, cruel act is committed by one 

individual against another without any, or without great 

provocation . . . ." Pugh, 223 Va. at 668, 292 S.E.2d at 341 

(quoting M'Whirt's Case, 44 Va. (3 Gratt.) 594, 604 (1846)). See

Price v. Commonwealth, 18 Va. App. 760, 767, 446 S.E.2d 642, 646 

(1994). 

 Malice is unnecessary to prove the crime of manslaughter, 

but is the "touchstone by which murder and manslaughter cases are 

distinguished." Essex v. Commonwealth, 228 Va. 273, 280, 322 

S.E.2d 216, 219-20 (1984). To establish the crime of seconddegree murder, "the defendant must be shown to have wilfully or 

purposefully, rather than negligently, embarked upon a course of 

wrongful conduct likely to cause death or great bodily harm." 

Id. at 280-81, 322 S.E.2d at 220. 
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 The evidence established that appellant acted with malice 

when he caused the injuries which killed his daughter. Appellant 

inflicted harsh physical punishment on the three-year-old in the 

weeks prior to her death. At the time of the offense, appellant 

was angry with the child, and punished her by throwing her into 

the air, away from his reach. She fell to the hard motel room 

floor. While falling, she hit her head, either on the wall or 

furniture, and sustained a fatal injury to her head. 

 Appellant's actions after the child died further support the 

trier of fact's finding of malice. Appellant told Pamela he 

wanted to bury the child in a sparsely populated location to 

lessen the chances that anyone would find the child's body. He 

told Pamela to attempt to obtain a fraudulent death certificate 

which would state that Eva died in North Carolina. In Richmond, 

when asked about the child's whereabouts, appellant lied and said 

that she was with a babysitter or family friend. In France, he 

lied to his aunt and said that Eva had died from an illness. 

 Furthermore, the court, as fact finder, could consider 

appellant's ever-changing stories to law enforcement authorities 

about Eva's death as evidence that he was "attempting to conceal 

his guilt by making inconsistent explanations." Iglesias v. 

Commonwealth, 7 Va. App. 93, 110, 372 S.E.2d 170, 179-80 (1988) 

(en banc). 

 The trier of fact was not required to accept appellant's 

trial testimony that Eva simply had fallen on the floor. See

Cantrell v. Commonwealth, 7 Va. App. 269, 290, 373 S.E.2d 328, 

339 (1988). The court was entitled to conclude that appellant 
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lied and to infer that he testified untruthfully in order to hide 

his guilt. See Daung Sam v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 312, 320, 

411 S.E.2d 832, 837 (1991). The court rejected appellant's 

testimony and expressly accepted Pamela's account of the events. 

 Viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the 

evidence was sufficient to support a finding that Eva's death was 

the result of appellant's deliberate and cruel act. Thus, the 

judgment of the trial court is affirmed. 

 Affirmed.