COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Moon, Judge Annunziata and Senior Judge 

Duff Argued at Alexandria, Virginia 

WILLIAM LEE TYLER 

 OPINION BY 

v. Record No. 0364-95-4 JUDGE CHARLES H. DUFF 

 JUNE 11, 1996 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

 FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 

Donald M. Haddock, Judge 

 Thierry Barston (James C. Love, IV; Love, 

Kielsgard & Associates, on brief), for 

appellant. 

 Thomas C. Daniel, Assistant Attorney General 

(James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General, on 

brief), for appellee. 

 

 William Lee Tyler (appellant) was convicted of burglary and 

grand larceny. On appeal, appellant contends that the evidence 

of his finger and thumb prints, found on both sides of pieces of 

the store's broken window glass, was insufficient to sustain his 

convictions. We disagree and affirm the trial court's judgment. 

 I. 

 On September 4, 1993, at approximately 2:30 p.m., Roger 

Wall, owner of Granny's Place children's clothing stores, locked 

and left the warehouse store located on Fairfax Avenue in 

Alexandria. The store's plate glass window was intact at that 

time. Wall returned to the store the next morning after he was 

contacted about a break-in there. Upon his return, Wall saw that 

the plate glass window had been broken. Wall determined that 

clothing, valued at $4400, was missing from the store. 
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 A police evidence technician recovered numerous latent 

fingerprints from pieces of broken glass "laying right at the 

base of the window where it was broken." The evidence technician 

discovered pieces of glass containing fingerprints, outside and 

inside of the business. On most of the "lifts," he discovered 

fingerprints on both sides of a piece of glass, "as if someone 

had picked it up . . . and set it aside." 

 A latent fingerprint examiner compared the latent 

fingerprints with known fingerprints of appellant and determined 

that appellant's fingerprints were on the pieces of broken 

glass.1

 Appellant was not an employee of the store and did not 

conduct business with the store. 

 II. 

 The issue presented on appeal is the sufficiency of the 

evidence to establish appellant as the criminal agent. "On 

appeal, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

Commonwealth, granting to it all reasonable inferences fairly 

deducible therefrom." Martin v. commonwealth, 4 Va. App. 438, 

443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987). 

 To establish a defendant's criminal agency, evidence that 

his fingerprint was found at the scene of a crime "'"must be 

coupled with evidence of other circumstances tending to 

 

 1When asked at trial by the court to state how many points 

of comparison she found between the latent prints and appellant's 

known prints, the examiner testified that in one of the exhibits 

she counted seventy-five points of comparison. 
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reasonably exclude the hypothesis that the print was impressed at 

a time other than that of the crime."'" Avent v. Commonwealth, 

209 Va. 474, 479, 164 S.E.2d 655, 659 (1968) (citations omitted). 

 The other circumstances, however, need not be totally 

independent of the fingerprint itself and "'may properly include 

circumstances such as the location of the print, the character of 

the place or premises where it was found and the accessibility of 

the general public to the object on which the print was 

impressed.'" Id. (citation omitted). 

 In Avent, the defendant's fingerprint was found on a piece 

of glass which had fallen from a window, located seven feet off 

the ground, into the burglarized store. Avent presented no 

evidence to explain the presence of his fingerprint. 

 The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed Avent's burglary 

conviction, holding that: 

 "A latent fingerprint found at the scene of 

the crime, shown to be that of an accused, 

tends to show that he was at the scene of the 

crime. The attendant circumstances with 

respect to the print may show that he was at 

the scene of the crime at the time it was 

committed. If they do so show, it is a 

rational inference, consistent with the rule 

of law both as to fingerprints and 

circumstantial evidence, that the accused was 

the criminal agent." 

Id. at 479-80, 164 S.E.2d at 659 (citation omitted). The Court 

held that the mode of entry into the store, the inaccessibility 

of the window to the public, and the fact that Avent was not an 

employee of the store and had no business in or around the store, 
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provided "a rational inference that defendant was there 

unlawfully, and there was no evidence to the contrary." Id. at 

480, 164 S.E.2d at 659. 

 In Turner v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 141, 235 S.E.2d 357 

(1977), the Supreme Court affirmed burglary and murder 

convictions where the defendant's fingerprint was found, 

impressed in blood, on a flashlight in the murdered woman's 

bedroom. The defendant had denied to the police that he knew 

anything about the crimes and told them they would find nothing 

with his fingerprints at the crime scene. Id. at 144, 235 S.E.2d 

at 359. Following Avent, the Court in Turner held that the 

evidence was sufficient to establish Turner's criminal agency. 

The Court noted that the "significant fact" in the case was that 

a crime of violence was involved and the fingerprint was 

impressed in blood. Id. at 147, 235 S.E.2d at 360. 

 The same year that Turner was decided, the Court, in Ricks 

v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 523, 237 S.E.2d 810 (1977), affirmed the 

burglary and grand larceny convictions of a defendant whose 

fingerprint was found on an applesauce jar, which had contained 

pennies, located in the bedroom of the burglarized home. Ricks 

told the police that he had never been in the victim's house. At 

trial, Ricks testified that he had touched the jar when he had 

trespassed in the house several months prior to the burglary. 

Id. at 525, 237 S.E.2d at 811. 

 The Court noted that the fingerprint was found on an object 
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which was stored in the bedroom of a private home, a place 

inaccessible to the public in general and Ricks in particular. 

"Thus, evidence of the print has been coupled with evidence of 

'other circumstances' which tend to reasonably exclude the 

hypothesis that the fingerprint was impressed at a time other 

than during the commission of the crimes." Id. at 527, 237 

S.E.2d at 812. The Court held that the fingerprint and attendant 

facts established that Ricks was at the scene when the crimes 

were committed, giving rise to the rational inference that Ricks 

was the criminal agent. Id. 

 In Parrish v. Commonwealth, 17 Va. App. 361, 437 S.E.2d 215 

(1993), we affirmed the robbery conviction of a defendant whose 

palm print and thumb prints were found on a bank deposit slip 

which had been attached to money in a deposit bag stolen from the 

restaurant manager as he attempted to leave the restaurant to 

make a deposit. Laboratory analysis of the deposit slip revealed 

that Parrish's left and right thumb prints were on the front of 

the slip and a partial left palm print was on the back. 

 We noted that Parrish's palm print on the back of the 

deposit slip could only be explained if pressure had been applied 

to the back of the document. We held that the jury could infer 

that some solid object must have been behind the deposit slip 

when the palm print was left and that the solid object was the 

roll of stolen money. Id. at 365, 437 S.E.2d at 217. 

 We concluded that the "unexplained circumstances of the 
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placement of the palm print on the bank deposit slip and the two 

thumb prints on the front within such a short time after robbery 

were sufficient for a rational finder of fact to conclude beyond 

a reasonable doubt that Parrish was the robber."2

 Id. at 365, 

437 S.E.2d at 218. 

 III. 

 The instant case is analogous to Avent. Appellant's 

fingerprints were found on both sides of individual pieces of 

broken glass from the window. The glass fragments containing 

appellant's prints were found inside and outside of the 

business.3

 Most of the latent "lifts" showed the prints of 

fingers on one side of the glass piece and a thumb print on the 

other. Thus, appellant unquestionably handled the glass pieces 

after the breaking occurred. 

 As in Avent, appellant was not employed by the store and had 

no business dealings there. As in Avent, appellant presented no 

evidence to explain the presence of his fingerprints. 

 This case also is similar to Parrish. While the timing of 

the crimes in this case was not determined with the precision in 

Parrish, as in Parrish, the unexplained placement of appellant's 

 

 2The victim in Parrish testified that from the time he was 

robbed until the police returned to him with the deposit slip was 

thirty to forty-five minutes. 

 3While the evidence technician could not state which 

specific glass fragments containing prints were located inside 

the store and which ones were found outside of the store, he 

testified that he found fragments containing latent prints both 

outside and inside of the business. 
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thumb and fingerprints on both sides of the glass pieces found 

inside and outside the store provided sufficient evidence for a 

rational fact finder to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that 

appellant committed the crimes. 

 Moreover, this case, where prints were found on both sides 

of glass fragments, is unlike Granger v. Commonwealth, 20 Va. 

App. 576, 459 S.E.2d 106 (1995). There, we reversed the robbery 

conviction of a defendant whose fingerprints on the liquor bottle 

used to injure the victim provided the only evidence of his 

guilt. We noted that Granger's fingerprints were located "on the 

handle and body of the half-gallon bottle, a location not 

inconsistent with someone holding the bottle to pour from it." 

Id. at 578, 459 S.E.2d at 106-07. We stated that the evidence 

did not establish when Granger had touched the bottle or that he 

touched it at the scene of the crime. Id. at 578, 459 S.E.2d at 

106. Thus, the evidence did not "exclude the hypothesis that 

Granger may have handled the bottle for an innocent purpose 

before the robbery." Id. at 577, 459 S.E.2d at 106. 

 Here, however, no reasonable hypothesis of innocence 

flowed from the evidence before the trial court. Thus, the court 

did not err when it found sufficient evidence to convict 

appellant of the burglary and larceny charges. 

 We affirm the judgment of the trial court. 

 Affirmed.