# FILED
June 10, 1998 Cecil Crowson, Jr. Appellate C ourt Clerk IN THE COURT OF CR IMINAL A PPEALS OF TENN ESSEE AT KNOXVILLE MARCH 1998 SESS ION

STATE OF TENN ESSEE, ) ) C.C.A. NO. 03C 01-9706-CR-00205 Appellee, ) ) POLK COUNTY VS. ) ) HON. R. STEVEN BEBB, MELVIN DOUGLAS CHASTA IN, ) JUDGE

) Appellant. ) (Second-Degree Murder)

FOR THE APPE LLANT: FOR THE APPELLEE:
CHARLES CORN JOHN KNOX WALKUP Public Defender Attorney General & Repor ter RICHARD H UGHES CLI NTO N J. MOR GAN Asst. Public Defender Asst. Attorney General P.O. Box 1453 John Sevier Bldg. Cleveland, TN 37364-1453 425 Fifth Ave., North Nashville, TN 37243-0493 JERRY N. ESTES District Attorney General SHARI TA

YLOE Asst. District Attor

ney General P.O. Box 1351 Cleveland, TN 37364-1351

OPINION FILED:____________________

AFFIRMED JOHN H. PEAY, Judge2 

### O P I N I O N

The defendant wasi ndicted for the first-degree murder of his wife, Karen Chastain, and the cause proceeded to trial. The ju ry found the defendant guilty of second-degreemurde r, and the trial court sentenced the defendant to twenty years impri sonment as a Range I standard offender. The defendant now appeals as of right from his conviction. He argues that the evidence presented at trial was legally insufficient to support a conviction. The defendant also argues that because the trial court erred in admitting his confessions into evidence, he is entitled to a new trial. Finding no merit in the defendant’s

contentions , we affirm.
At trial, a police dispa

tcher testified that she had receiv ed a 911 call from the defendant at 9:00 a.m. on March 25, 1996. She dispatched a police officer, Officer Mike Gobble, to thedefendant’s house, and he arriv ed at 9:03 a.m. According to Officer Gobble, the defendant told him that his wife had committed suicide . The de fendant appeared nervous, jittery , and u ps et. Officer Gobble went upstairs in the defendan t’s house, where he found the victim dead, lying across the bed with wounds t o her throat and chest. Under the victim’s arm was a knife, and lying at her feet was an empty plastic cup that smelled of alcohol. Besides the defendant, the defendant’s elderly mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease,was the only other per son in the house.
AgentDavid Guy of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigati on testified that he had arrived at the scene at approximately 11:00 a.m. He saw the victi m lying on the bed and observed multiple stab w ounds to both the victim’s neck and chest. The victim was wearing three shirts

in a layered fashion, but there w ere no rips or tears any

where on the victim’s clothing. No fingerprints we re found on the knife or on the red cup. He collected3

blood samples from splatters acros s the bedroom walls, and he noticed what appeared to be blood on the back of the defendant’s hands. Thedefendant told him that he had gotten the victim’s blood on his hands when he had checked for a pulse,but Agent Guy did not believe the defendant’s ex planation to beconsistent with the l ocation of the blood, which was on the back of the defendant’s hands rather than on the insideof his fingers
or his palm. Agent Guy f urther test ified that the clothing the defendant’ s mother was wearing at the time tested negativ e for blood. However, the jeans the defendant w as wearing at the time h ad tested positive for blood, although the source of the blood remained unknown.

AgentGuy further testified that at approximately 1:00 p.m., the defendant had voluntarily ag reed to go to the sheriff’s station for questioning. The defendant was read his Miranda

rights at 3:00 p.m., and at 4:17 p.m., the defendant gave his first o f four sworn statements, each of w hich was introduced int o evidence and read to the jur y. In the defend ant’s fi rst state ment, th e defen dant rep resente d that he had wa ked at 8:30
a.m. that morning. His mother was in the living room, watching telev

ision. He noticed that his wife’s car was still parked in the driveway. Thinki ng t hat his wife might be upstairs asleep, he went to the upstai rs bedroom, where he found her l ying on the bed. He noticed cuts on her body, so he ran downstairs to call 911. The defendant d id n ot mention that he believed his wife’s death to be

the result of suicide, but he di d say that he believed his mother w as physically capable of killing his w ife.
According to Agen t Guy , the defendant agreed to further que stioning. At 10:30 p.m., he gave a

second sworn statement. In this statement, the

defendant said he had waked in the middle of the night, gone upstairs, and had foun d his wife lying on the bed with a woun d to her ne ck. Wh en he rea lized she wa s dying, he became a ngry,4

picked up the knife, and stabbed her in the chest. He said he nev er stabbed her in the neck. He returne d down st airs, went back to bed, and woke again at 8:30 a.m. H e fed the cats, made some coffee, and then dialed 911.

Again, the def endant agreed to further ques tioning, and at approximately 11:00 p.m., he gave a third sworn statement. According to this statement, the defendant had waked during the night, gone upstairs, and had found his wife lying on the bed with
a wound to her neck. His wife then asked him to “put her out of her misery ,” so he took the knife from her and stabbed her numerous times in the chest. He said it was possible that he also stabbed her in the neck. He stated that he did not want his wife’s death

to look like a suicide becaus e he did not want her family to be devastated.

At midnight, thedefendant gave his fourth and final sworn statement to the police. According to this st atement, when the defendant had waked in the middl e of the nig ht, he found his wife in the upstair s bedroom with a knife in her hand. She t old hi m to leav e her alone. He took the knife from he r and accidentally stab bed her. He then flew into a rage and began stabbing her multiple ti mes. He went back to bed and slept until 8:30 a.m. He fed the cats, made some coffee, call ed 911, and told the pol ic e dispatcher

that his wife had committed suicide. Following this statement, the defendant was placed under arrest

.

Dr. Charles Harlan, t he medical examiner who per formed the autopsy on the victim, also testified at trial. According to his testimony, the body of the victim, who
was left-handed, had a laceration to the right wrist, twelve stab wounds to the left neck, and fifteen stab wounds to the left chest. Of the victim’s stab wounds, only thr

ee wounds to the chest were fa tal as they penet rated the victim’s heart and cause d internal blee ding.5

The victim’s blood alco hol reading was .37 %, which is high enough to cause a person to lose consciousness. Dr

. Harlan testified it w ould have been difficult for someone w ith such a high blood alcohol readi ng to inflict such deep chest wounds on herself, and in his opinion, the victim’s d eath had been a homicide.

The defendant’s theory of defense was that the victim committed suicide. By stipulation, the victim’s psychiatric records were read to the jury. These reco rd s covered the year prior to the victim’s deathand contained references to depres sion and suicidal thoughts. A friend of the vi ctim also testified that the vic tim had been very depressed because of financial problems with her business. To rebu t Dr. Harlan’s testimo ny, the defendant introduced the testimony of Dr. Randall Pedigo. Dr. Pedigo was
a former medical examiner, but his medical license had been revoked t wo years prior

to trial due to eight

felony convictions for u nlawful dispensation of controlled substances and sexual battery. At the time of tri al, Dr. Pedigo was on probation. Dr. Pedig o testified that he h ad examined documents and photogr aphs in this case, and in hi s opinion, t h e victim’s wounds could have been either self-inflicted or infli cted by assault. He based his opinion that the victi m’s wounds could have bee n self-inflicted on the idea that s uicide patients will often ma ke limited attempts to cut themselves and thus inflict multip le shallow wounds on themselves. I t was also Dr. Pedigo’s opinion that a person w ith a .37% blood alcohol content might be able to inflict st ab wounds sim ilar to the wounds found on the victim if that person was an experienced drinker.

The defendant testified on his own behalf. According to his t estimony, he and his wife had consumeda large quantity o f alcohol the night before his wife’s death. His wife woke and left their bed during the night. When he woke the following morning, he found her upstairs lying on the bed and he called 911. He tes tified that he did not

kill6

his wife, but

that his mother was not mental ly stable and was capable of killingher. He further testified that only the firs t sworn statement

he gave to the police officer s had been correct, and the only r eason he gave the other stat ements was because he had been mentally distraught and intimidated.

On rebuttal, the State introduced the testimony of on e of the victim’s friends. She testified that four days pri or to her dea th, the vic tim had sa id she was go ing to leave the defendant becaus e he physically and mentally abused her. Sheriff Bill Davis also testified that he had been present when the defendant w as questioned and that he had not heard anyone threaten or coerce the defend ant into giving his sworn statements.

At the conclus ion of the evidence, the jury found the defendant guilty of second-degreemurder. The defend ant now a rgues that the evidence i s insufficient to support the jury’s verdict. As support for this argument, the defendant contends that the medical evidence suggests the victim’s death could h ave resulted from sui cide ra ther than homicide; that the physica l ev idenc e failed to conclusively show the defendant stabbed his wife; and that the defendant’s s econd , third, and fourth sworn s tatements cannot support the jury’s v erdict because they shoul d ha ve been s uppressed as involuntarily given. We fail to find merit in the defen dant’s arguments.

A defendant challenging the suffici ency of the proof has the burden of illustratingto this Court why the evidence is insufficient to support the v erdict returned by the trier of

fact in his or her case. This Court will not disturb a v erdict of guilt for lack o f sufficientevidence unless the facts c ontained in the record and any inferences that may be drawn from the facts are insuffici ent, as a matter of law, for any

rational trier of fact to find the defendantguilty beyond a r easonable doubt. State v. Tuggle , 639 S.W.2d 913,7

914 (Tenn. 1982); see Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979).

Moreover, we do not reweigh or re-evaluate the evidence and are required to afford the State the strongest leg itimate view of the proof co ntaine d in t he record as well as all reasonable and legitimate inferences which may be drawn therefrom. State
v. Cabbage , 571 S.W.2d 832, 835 (Tenn. 1978). Questions concer ning the credibility

of wi tnesses, the weight and value to be given to the evidence, as well as factual iss ue s raised by the evidence are r esolved by the trier

of fact, not this Court. Id. In this way, a guilty verdict rendered by

the jury and approved b y the trial court accredit s the testimony of the State’s witnesses. State v. Grace , 493 S.W.2d 474, 47 6 (Tenn. 1973).

Here , the defendant improperly asks this Court to reweig h the evidenc e presented to the jury. For instance, while the defendant argues that some of the medical evidence supports his theory of defense,i.e., that the victim c ommitted suicide, sufficient evidence remains in therecord to support the State’s theory of prosecution, i.e. , that the defendant stabbed the vi ctim. C onflicts in evidence such as this are properly resolved bythe fact finder, and in the instant c ase, the jury believ

ed the State’s version of the events. When viewingthe totality of the evidence and all re asonabl e infere nces drawn from the evidence in the lig ht most favorable to the St ate, th e jury was present ed sufficientevidence from which to c onclude the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See Tuggle , 639 S.W.2 d at 91 4; Cabbage , 571 S.W .2d at 83 5. Furthe r, we reject the defendant’s attempt to argue that his multipl e sworn statements confessing to the murder of his wife should hav e been suppressed. The record fails to reflect that the defendant secured a ruling on his mot ion to supp ress, lodged an objection prior to the confessions being offered into evidence, or included th is argument in his new trial motion. Thus, the defendant has waived this issue on appeal. T.R.A.P. 3(e); see State v. Clinton ,8

754 S.W.2d 100, 10 3 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1988).

Finding sufficientevidence in the record to support the jury’s verdic

t of guilt, we affirm the defendant’s convic tion.

_______________________________

JOHN H. PEAY, Judge

CONCUR:

______________________________ PAUL G. SUMMERS, Ju dge

______________________________ CORNELIA A. CLARK , Special Judge