DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FOURTH DISTRICT

EDWARD JERMAINE BABBS,

Appellant,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

No. 4D12-1425

[March 23, 2016]

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, 

Broward County; Bernard I. Bober, Judge; L.T. Case No. 09-20236CF10A.

Kevin J. Kulik of Kevin J. Kulik, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Nancy Jack, 

Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

GROSS, J.

This case involves the murder of a young pregnant woman and her 

fetus, which was viable at the time of her death. Appellant was the 

biological father of the unborn child. The victim was discovered in a car 

parked in a parking lot. She had been shot once in the head and once in 

the abdomen. Appellant is currently serving a life sentence without the 

possibility of parole. Appellant argues that the state’s evidence was 

insufficient to support the trial court’s denial of his motion for judgment 

of acquittal. Because the State presented competent, substantial evidence 

inconsistent with appellant’s theory of innocence, we affirm.

“The standard of review for the denial of a motion for judgment of 

acquittal is de novo.” Ortiz v. State, 36 So. 3d 901, 902 (Fla. 4th DCA 

2010) (citing Pagan v. State, 830 So. 2d 792, 803 (Fla.2002)). “‘If after 

viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, a rational 

trier of fact could find the existence of the elements of the crime beyond a 

reasonable doubt, sufficient evidence exists to sustain a conviction.’” 

Garrido v. State, 97 So. 3d 291, 298 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012) (quoting Williams 

v. State, 59 So. 3d 373, 375 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011)).
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Because there were no witnesses to the shooting and no outright 

confession, this case involves circumstantial evidence. “When the 

evidence against a criminally accused person is circumstantial, a motion 

for judgment of acquittal should be granted if the state fails to present 

evidence from which the jury can exclude every reasonable hypothesis 

except that of guilt.” Brothers v. State, 853 So. 2d 1124, 1125 (Fla. 5th 

DCA 2003). In such circumstances, “the proper task of the trial judge is 

to review the evidence, taking it in the light most favorable to the state, in 

order to determine whether there is competent evidence from which the 

jury could infer guilt to the exclusion of all other inferences.” Martin v. 

State, 728 So. 2d 775, 776 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999) (citing State v. Law, 559 

So.2d 187, 189 (Fla.1989)). “The State is not . . . required to rebut every 

possible scenario which could be inferred from the evidence. Rather it 

must introduce competent evidence which is inconsistent with the 

defendant's theories.” Schwarz v. State, 695 So. 2d 452, 454 (Fla. 4th DCA

1997) (citing Law, 559 So. 2d at 189).

The state’s evidence put appellant at the scene at the time of the 

murder. The state also presented statements made by appellant showing 

consciousness of guilt, and evidence to suggest a motive. Appellant had 

expressed frustration about the victim’s decision to go forward with the 

pregnancy. He told her that she “was ruining his life” and that “he didn’t 

want anything to do with it and that she should just get rid of it.” 

The victim’s body was discovered at approximately 5:00 p.m. on 

October 2, 2009, in a parked car in the parking lot of a Winn Dixie 

shopping plaza. The medical examiner reported to the scene at about 

11:00 p.m., and immediately noticed a gunshot wound to the victim’s 

abdomen. The medical examiner estimated a 24-hour period of when 

death occurred. A second gunshot wound to the back of the victim’s skull 

was discovered during the autopsy.

The victim was last seen by her cousin, Jovanna Boyd, the night before. 

After receiving a text message, the victim left in a red Ford Taurus—the 

same car in which her body was found. Boyd did not know where the 

victim was going. Boyd called and spoke with the victim at about 10:53 

p.m., during which she heard a male voice in the background. Boyd told 

the victim to “beat her home.” 

At around 12:10 a.m., the victim still had not come home. Boyd called 

the victim’s phone a number of times, all of which went unanswered. Boyd 

called appellant at 1:06 a.m. and asked if he had seen the victim. 

Appellant told Boyd that the victim had left a little while ago—about 11:00 

p.m. Appellant also mentioned that the victim had left her phone with 

him. 
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Earlier, on the evening of October 1, appellant went to a high school 

football game with two friends, Ismael Sierra and Denzel Chandler. Sierra 

and appellant were in joint possession of two guns which they kept in a 

Spider-Man book bag. One of the guns was a semi-automatic, which they 

were holding for a friend, and the other was a revolver, which Sierra and 

appellant co-owned. While at the game, appellant purportedly got into an 

altercation with an individual by the name of Jameal. 

After the game, around 10:30 p.m., Sierra, Chandler, and appellant 

went to another friend’s house. Chandler and appellant left after no more 

than 15 minutes. Sierra did not see the revolver after appellant left.

Chandler dropped appellant off at his house around or before 11:00 p.m. 

At 12:26 a.m., appellant called Sierra asking for a ride. Sierra was 

unable to help because his car was not working. At 12:29 a.m., appellant 

called Chandler asking for a ride. Appellant said that he was at the 

Southwest Broward Junior Athletic Association, but that Chandler could 

pick him up at a nearby McDonald’s. The Winn Dixie where the victim’s 

body was found was located off the same street as the athletic association. 

Chandler drove appellant straight home, and along the way, asked him 

where he had been. Appellant said that he was “at his chick’s house.” 

When they got to appellant’s house, appellant threw the revolver down on 

the seat of the car and told Chandler to “hold it down for him.” 

When Sierra spoke with appellant the next day, appellant told Sierra 

that if anybody asked, to tell them appellant was with him from 11:00-

12:00 the night before. Later that day, Sierra spoke with appellant’s 

stepdad and told him that appellant had been with him the night before. 

After Sierra found out about the murder, he called appellant’s stepdad and 

told him that he had lied and that appellant had asked Sierra to say that 

he was with him. 

When Chandler heard that appellant was being questioned about the 

murder, he threw the gun in a nearby lake, so as not to have any 

involvement with the situation. Chandler later told law enforcement about 

the gun, and accompanied them to the lake to show them exactly where 

he threw it. 

The revolver was recovered from the lake on October 13. Four .22 

caliber long rifle cartridges were found inside the gun. These were live 

rounds. Also inside the gun were two shell casings, indicating that two 

bullets had been discharged. Although the gun initially appeared to be 

inoperable, it was made functional and test fired with similar ammunition 

to that of the projectile taken from the victim’s abdomen. The projectile 

was determined to be consistent with the type of ammunition that would 
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be within one of the .22 caliber casings in the revolver. A cartridge of the 

same make and caliber as those found in the revolver was also recovered 

during a search of appellant’s bedroom. 

The cell phone records of both appellant and the victim also supported 

the state’s case. From 9:53 – 10:20 p.m. on October 1, 14 text messages 

were exchanged between the appellant and the victim. No outgoing calls 

were made from appellant’s phone between 10:36 p.m. and 12:26 a.m. 

There were only incoming calls. An incoming call on appellant’s phone at 

12:06 a.m. pinged off a cell tower within a 2 mile radius of where the 

victim’s body was found. The 12:26 a.m. call to Sierra and the 12:29 a.m.

call to Chandler both pinged off cell towers less than 2 miles from where 

the body was found. 

Although appellant did not put on a case at trial, his hypothesis of 

innocence was that the evidence did not show that he killed the victim. He 

made a number of statements to law enforcement over the course of the 

investigation, admitting that he was with the victim the night of the 

murder, but asserting that he had parted ways with her by 11:00 p.m. 

Appellant also tried to suggest Jameal—the individual with whom he got 

into an altercation at the football game—as an alternate suspect. The only 

evidence to support this possibility was a statement appellant made to 

Monisha Dawkins that he saw the victim leave the football game with a 

guy named Jameal. The reasonableness of this hypothesis was weakened 

by Boyd’s testimony that the victim was with her all day until the victim 

left that night in the red Ford Taurus. 

In light of the state’s evidence of appellant’s statements to Sierra and 

Chandler, the phone records placing appellant in the vicinity of where the 

victim’s body was found, the consistency of the two shell casings with the 

projectile taken from the victim’s abdomen, and appellant’s conduct with 

the revolver, appellant’s theory that “Jameal did it” was not a reasonable 

hypothesis of innocence. Accordingly, there was no error in the denial of 

appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal. 

LEVINE and CONNER, JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.