COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Baker, Annunziata and Senior Judge Hodges 

Argued at Norfolk, Virginia 

JOHN SILAS BYARD 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION*

v. Record No. 0638-95-1 BY JUDGE JOSEPH E. BAKER 

 APRIL 9, 1996 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

 FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF VIRGINIA BEACH 

Frederick B. Lowe, Judge 

 Lawrence H. Woodward, Jr. (Shuttleworth, 

Ruloff & Giordano, on brief), for appellant. 

 John K. Byrum, Jr., Assistant Attorney 

General (James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney 

General, on brief), for appellee. 

 In this appeal by John Silas Byard (appellant), the sole 

issue presented is whether the evidence is sufficient to support 

his bench trial conviction by the Circuit Court of the City of 

Virginia Beach (trial court) of grand larceny in violation of 

Code § 18.2-95. We have reviewed the evidence contained in this 

record and find that it is sufficient to support the judgment of 

the trial court. 

 Upon familiar principles, we view the evidence in the light 

most favorable to the Commonwealth, granting to it all reasonable 

inferences fairly deducible therefrom. Higginbotham v. 

Commonwealth, 216 Va. 349, 352, 218 S.E.2d 534, 537 (1975). 

 On April 14, 1994, Sharon Winstead (the victim) reported 

 

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

designated for publication. 
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early for work at the Radisson Hotel in Virginia Beach. She 

arrived at the hotel at approximately 6:05 to 6:10 a.m. and 

visited with the security guard in his office. The security 

office is located on the first floor of the hotel, near the rear 

exit. She carried with her a purse containing car keys, a 

wallet, credit cards, $55, two checks, and a ring. Upon arriving 

at the security office, she placed her purse on the floor, under 

a chair, by the back door. 

 About fifteen to twenty minutes after her arrival, she went 

to the kitchen, which is on the second floor, to get coffee. She 

returned to the office "a couple of minutes later." At that 

time, her purse was where she had left it. Both the victim and 

the security guard were called away from the office to the hotel 

lobby by Jonathan Kastner (Kastner), an assistant general 

manager. They were gone from the office for approximately five 

to ten minutes. When the victim returned to the office from the 

lobby, her purse was missing. She immediately reported the theft 

to Kastner. 

 Over this time period, appellant, a former employee at the 

hotel, was seen in various locations throughout the hotel. 

Calvert Johnson (Johnson), a cook, who knew appellant from his 

former employment, testified that appellant spoke with him about 

employment opportunities around 6:20 to 6:30 a.m. on the basement 

level of the hotel. Johnson told appellant that if he wanted a 

job to find Kastner or to wait in the employees' lounge until the 
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personnel office opened. The victim, who knew appellant from his 

prior employment, saw him in the second floor kitchen when she 

left the security office on the first occasion. Kastner 

testified that he spoke with appellant about 5:50 to 6:00 a.m. in 

the kitchen and, learning that he had previously been fired from 

the staff, refused him a job, and ordered him to leave the 

building. Kastner observed appellant head toward the rear of the 

hotel and down to the first floor rear exit, which is adjacent to 

the security office. Kastner testified that it was probably 

within five to ten minutes of talking to appellant that he called 

the victim away from the security office to work in the lobby, 

and no more than fifteen minutes after talking to appellant that 

the victim reported the theft to him. Kastner stated that he was 

not specific about the times of day he testified to, but that he 

knew it was very early in the morning. Mary Mayo, an employee, 

testified that she saw appellant on the first floor walking 

toward the cafeteria. 

 Detective Robert L. Christman, Jr. testified that he 

recovered the victim's ring on April 21, 1994, at a pawn shop 

located about three blocks from the hotel. According to pawn 

shop records, the ring had been pawned by appellant at 

approximately 5:47 p.m. on April 14, 1994. 

 Steven P. Roebuck, an employee at the pawn shop, identified 

appellant as the person who pawned the ring the day of the theft 

and stated that the ring produced at trial matched the 
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description of the ring received from appellant. At trial, the 

victim identified the ring as the one stolen from her purse. 

 When the Commonwealth rested, thereafter, appellant 

presented no evidence in his own behalf. 

 Appellant contends that his unsworn statement to the police, 

that on the day of the theft he purchased the ring from a person 

identified only as "Kim," and that he was working in Portsmouth 

and hence could not have been at the hotel when and where the 

theft occurred, is evidence of a reasonable hypothesis of 

innocence that entitled him to be acquitted. We disagree. 

 As the Commonwealth observes, for appellant's hypothesis of 

innocence to be accepted as a matter of law, the trial court 

would had to have believed that the person identified only as 

"Kim" or someone other than appellant (1) slipped into the 

security office, unnoticed by any of the witnesses who testified 

to seeing appellant in the vicinity of the office at the time, 

within the five to ten minutes in which it was unattended; (2) 

stole the victim's purse; (3) exited the hotel unseen; and (4) 

sold the ring to appellant later that day. In addition, the 

trial court would have been required to believe (1) that 

appellant was not at the hotel on April 14, 1994, despite the 

testimony of four witnesses to the contrary; (2) that he was, 

instead, in Portsmouth for all or most of the day; and (3) that 

he returned to Virginia Beach in time to purchase and pawn the 

ring by that evening. 
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 The combined force of the evidence leads unmistakably to 

appellant as the criminal agent and reasonably excludes the 

hypothesis advanced by appellant. See Turner v. Commonwealth, 

218 Va. 141, 148, 235 S.E.2d 357, 361 (1977). 

 For the reasons stated, the judgment of the trial court is 

affirmed. 

Affirmed.