Opinion ID: 1059037
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: riner's activities prior to and after the fire

Text: Two issues caused recurring disagreements between the Riners during their marriage. One of those issues concerned Riner's discipline of Denise's son by her previous marriage. In the early part of August 1998, Denise learned that Riner had choked and slapped her son at a family reunion. That incident exacerbated the Riners' already existing marital difficulties, causing Denise to meet with an attorney on August 4 to obtain information about divorce proceedings. The next day she opened a checking account in her own name. On August 7, she confronted Riner with her knowledge about his abuse of her son and demanded that he move out of the martial residence. Riner apparently agreed to move on the following weekend, which would have been the weekend immediately after the fire. However, he told one of the fire investigators that Tuesday night, August 11, 1998, was to be his last night in the marital home. The other subject causing disagreement was the couple's financial condition. Within a week after the Riners were married in 1990, Riner quit his job. Throughout the marriage, Denise, a nurse, provided the primary financial support for the family. By mid-1998, Riner had pressing financial difficulties. He had incurred several substantial debts and was delinquent in some of his financial obligations. In particular, Riner had agreed to make restitution in the amount of approximately $5,400 by October 1998 as a condition of probation in a federal pre-trial diversion program in which he was participating. Due to his failure to pay the restitution as scheduled, Riner still owed about $2,900 as of June 1998 and was therefore facing the possibility of being prosecuted on federal bank fraud charges. In fact, he was scheduled to meet with his federal probation officer on August 12, 1998, the day of the fire. The probation officer had also learned that Riner had two outstanding criminal charges, one a misdemeanor and one a felony, for having issued two checks for which there were insufficient funds to pay the checks. After Denise's death, Riner collected approximately $8,500 from Denise's employer and then paid the restitution in full. Riner insisted, however, that he paid the federal restitution with money he had received from selling two vehicles. He also paid the indebtedness owed to a local merchant for the two checks that were returned for insufficient funds. Riner also filed two insurance claims. One was a fire insurance claim in the amount of $186,820.24, of which the sum of $116,453.00 was for personal property. The second claim was on a group life insurance policy provided to Denise by her employer. In anticipation of receiving funds from those claims, Riner purchased a used Mercedes automobile by borrowing $9,000 on a 30-day single payment note. He also relocated himself and the three Riner children to eastern Tennessee and made an offer to purchase a house there for the price of $169,000. The day before the fire, a neighbor observed Riner storing three trash bags in a building located apart from the Riner house. In March 1999, Riner sold jewelry at a pawn shop located in Bristol, Tennessee. Denise's sisters subsequently accompanied a police officer to the pawn shop and identified three rings found there as belonging to Denise. The rings were part of the jewelry Riner sold, and the Commonwealth introduced evidence showing that the rings would have been damaged or destroyed if they had been in the Riner house during the fire. One of the rings came from Denise's great-grandmother. Another ring was a diamond anniversary band that Denise wore daily and was, in fact, wearing on the day prior to her death. The third ring was a pearl ring that Denise had received as a birthday gift from her co-workers at her place of employment.