Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 32A04-1605-CR-1165 | December 19, 2016 Page 1 of 7

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), 

this Memorandum Decision shall not be 

regarded as precedent or cited before any 

court except for the purpose of establishing 

the defense of res judicata, collateral 

estoppel, or the law of the case.

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT

Scott Knierim

Danville, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE

Gregory F. Zoeller

Attorney General of Indiana

Paula J. Beller

Deputy Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

I N T H E

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Christa Spinks,

Appellant-Defendant,

v.

State of Indiana,

Appellee-Plaintiff.

December 19, 2016

Court of Appeals Case No.

32A04-1605-CR-1165

Appeal from the Hendricks 

Superior Court

The Honorable Stephanie LemayLuken, Judge

Trial Court Cause No.

32D05-1507-F6-535

Barnes, Judge.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 32A04-1605-CR-1165 | December 19, 2016 Page 2 of 7

Case Summary

[1] Christa Spinks appeals her conviction for Level 6 felony theft. We affirm.

Issue

[2] The sole issue before us is whether there is sufficient evidence to sustain 

Spinks’s conviction.

Facts

[3] The evidence most favorable to the conviction is that, on July 13, 2015, Spinks 

was employed at an Ace Hardware store in Brownsburg. At the completion of 

her shift at 5 p.m. that day, Spinks’s father picked her up and drove her to 

Hendricks County Estate Buyers, which is a “buy sell shop.” Tr. p. 105. Justin 

Briggs owns that shop, and it is located about one block away from the Ace 

Hardware. Spinks carried a yellow bag into the shop. The bag contained a 

DeWalt rechargeable drill with two batteries and a charger and two Craftsman 

wrench sets. The items appeared to be brand new. Briggs gave Spinks between 

$100 and $200 in cash for the items. At retail, the drill normally sold for 

$239.99; the batteries, $99.99 each; the charger, $69.99; and the wrench sets 

$29.99 each. 

[4] Briggs immediately suspected that the items Spinks had brought in were stolen 

from the Ace Hardware. At approximately 5:15 p.m. on the same day, Briggs 

called Skylar Stevenson, the owner of the Ace Hardware, and asked Stevenson 

if he was missing any items from inventory. Stevenson confirmed that a 

DeWalt drill, two batteries, a charger, and two sets of Craftsman wrench sets 
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 32A04-1605-CR-1165 | December 19, 2016 Page 3 of 7

were missing from inventory. The SKU numbers on the items Briggs purchased 

from Spinks matched the numbers for the items missing from Stevenson’s 

inventory, although the SKU numbers were not necessarily unique to the 

Brownsburg Ace Hardware store.

[5] Officer Cory Sears of the Brownsburg Police Department spoke with Spinks 

about the items she sold to Briggs. She told Officer Sears that the items had 

been in her living room for an unknown amount of time. However, Briggs told 

her father that she found the drill in a dumpster.

[6] The State charged Spinks with Class A misdemeanor theft and Level 6 felony 

theft, based on a prior theft or conversion conviction. After a jury trial, Spinks 

was found guilty of Class A misdemeanor theft. Spinks waived jury trial with 

respect to the Level 6 felony charge. The trial court found Spinks guilty of that 

charge and entered judgment and sentenced her accordingly on that charge 

only. Spinks now appeals.

Analysis

[7] Spinks contends there is insufficient evidence to support her theft conviction. 

When addressing a claim of insufficient evidence, we must consider only the 

probative evidence and reasonable inferences supporting the conviction. Sallee 

v. State, 51 N.E.3d 130, 133 (Ind. 2016). It is the fact-finder’s role, not ours, to 

assess witness credibility and weigh evidence to determine whether it is 

sufficient to support a conviction. Id. “It is not necessary that the evidence 

‘overcome every reasonable hypothesis of innocence.’” Id. (quoting Moore v. 
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 32A04-1605-CR-1165 | December 19, 2016 Page 4 of 7

State, 652 N.E.2d 53, 55 (Ind. 1995)). “‘[E]vidence is sufficient if an inference 

may reasonably be drawn from it to support the verdict.’” Id. (quoting Drane v. 

State, 867 N.E.2d 144, 147 (Ind. 2007)). However, “[e]vidence sufficient only 

to establish a mere suspicion of guilt is not sufficient to support a conviction.” 

Id. at 135.

[8] Spinks specifically asserts there is insufficient evidence that she took the items 

from the Ace Hardware or that she knew they were stolen when she sold them 

to Briggs. In order to convict Spinks of theft, the State was required to prove 

that she knowingly or intentionally exerted unauthorized control over property 

of Ace Hardware, with intent to deprive Ace Hardware of any part of the 

property’s value or use. See Ind. Code § 35-43-4-2(a).1 Spinks’s argument goes 

to lack of mens rea or intent.

[9] Spinks relies heavily upon Fortson v. State, 919 N.E.2d 1136 (Ind. 2010). In that 

case, the defendant was driving a truck that had been reported stolen about six 

or seven hours before he was pulled over by police and arrested. There was a 

passenger in the truck who was allowed to go free. The defendant denied 

having stolen the truck and claimed it had been loaned to him by another 

person, but police did not ask who the other person was. The State charged the 

defendant with receiving stolen property, and he was convicted of that offense.

 

1 The offense is elevated from a Class A misdemeanor to a Level 6 felony if a defendant has a prior unrelated 

conviction for either theft or criminal conversion. I.C. § 35-43-4-2(a)(1)(C). Spinks makes no argument 

regarding the elevation of her offense.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 32A04-1605-CR-1165 | December 19, 2016 Page 5 of 7

[10] On appeal, our supreme court reversed the conviction for insufficient evidence. 

Fortson, 919 N.E.2d at 1143-44. In doing so, although the case involved a 

conviction for receiving stolen property and not theft, the court took the 

opportunity to discard the rule allowing for a theft conviction to be supported 

solely by the defendant’s unexplained possession of recently stolen property. Id.

at 1143 (overruling Bolton v. State, 254 Ind. 648, 261 N.E.2d 841 (1970)). The 

court further explained:

That is to say, the mere unexplained possession of recently stolen 

property standing alone does not automatically support a 

conviction for theft. Rather, such possession is to be considered 

along with the other evidence in a case, such as how recent or 

distant in time was the possession from the moment the item was 

stolen, and what are the circumstances of the possession (say, 

possessing right next door as opposed to many miles away). In 

essence, the fact of possession and all the surrounding evidence 

about the possession must be assessed to determine whether any 

rational juror could find the defendant guilty beyond a 

reasonable doubt. 

Id. The court also noted that, knowledge that property is stolen may be 

established by circumstantial evidence. Id. (quoting Barnett v. State, 834 N.E.2d 

169, 172 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005)). 

[11] Here, there is no direct evidence that Spinks knew the property she sold to 

Briggs had been stolen, such as eyewitness testimony or security camera footage 

of her stealing the property or a confession to that effect. However, Fortson

explicitly does not require such direct evidence. And, we readily conclude there 

are more pieces to the puzzle here than were present in Fortson—enough pieces
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 32A04-1605-CR-1165 | December 19, 2016 Page 6 of 7

to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Spinks was guilty of theft. Within 

fifteen minutes of completing her shift at Ace Hardware, Spinks sold items to 

Briggs at his store about a block away from the Ace Hardware. The items 

appeared to be brand new and matched items Stevenson discovered were 

missing from Ace Hardware’s inventory. Spinks sold the items for considerably 

less than their retail value. Spinks then gave clearly false and inconsistent 

explanations for where she had gotten the items from to her father and Officer 

Sears. In other words, Spinks had plain and easy access to items identical to 

ones missing from Ace Hardware’s inventory and essentially “fenced” them for 

cash within minutes of completing her shift. The circumstantial evidence is 

overwhelming that Spinks at the least knew the items were stolen and exercised 

unauthorized control over them with intent to deprive Ace Hardware of their 

value and use. It goes well beyond merely establishing that she possessed 

recently stolen property. This supports her conviction for theft.

[12] Spinks attempts to shift suspicion for the theft of Ace Hardware’s property onto 

her boyfriend, Tim Hueston. Hueston also was employed by Ace Hardware 

and also worked the same shift as her on the day in question and also was given 

a ride home after work by her father. Both Briggs and Stevenson had suspicions 

that Hueston was involved in theft; he was considered a suspect by Officer 

Sears but was never charged with any crime. However, it was Spinks and 

Spinks alone who went into Briggs’s store and sold the items to Briggs. The 

evidence ties Spinks to the theft, not Hueston. Spinks’s insinuation that 
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 32A04-1605-CR-1165 | December 19, 2016 Page 7 of 7

Hueston was the true thief is an invitation to reweigh the evidence, which we 

must decline.

Conclusion

[13] There is sufficient evidence to sustain Spinks’s conviction for Level 6 felony 

theft. We affirm.

[14] Affirmed.

Kirsch, J., and Robb, J., concur.