Opinion ID: 1059433
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Evidence Adduced During the Guilt Phase

Text: As required by familiar principles of appellate review, we will recite the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing party in the circuit court, and we will accord the Commonwealth the benefit of all inferences fairly deducible from that evidence. Dowden v. Commonwealth, 260 Va. 459, 461, 536 S.E.2d 437, 438 (2000). On Sunday, January 16, 2000, the defendant, Parker, Michael William Lenz, and three other inmates attended a meeting of a group referred to as the Ironwood Kindred. The meeting occurred in a room in Building J-5 at the Augusta Correctional Center in Augusta County. Earl Jones, a corrections officer, supervised the six inmates who attended the meeting. A door separated Officer Jones from the inmates. However, the door contained a window which permitted Jones to observe the inmates. Officer Jones saw a commotion in the room. As he walked to the door, three of the inmates ran out, and said . . . `They're stabbing him.' Officer Jones saw the defendant and Lenz stabbing Parker, who was lying on the floor. Jones testified that Parker was on his back making a feeble attempt to ward the knife strokes off from him. . . . Remington was on Parker's right; and as Parker would put his hand up, Remington would push [Parker's] hand aside, and stab him with . . . the knife. Lenz was on the other side, and doing basically the same thing. Jones, who was unarmed, did not enter the room but opened the door and told Remington and Lenz to stop stabbing Parker. They simply looked at [Jones], and went back to stabbing Parker. Parker was not armed with any type of weapon. Jones used his radio to summon help. Two corrections officers, John Edward Simmons and Edward Lee Houching, responded. Jones, accompanied by Simmons and Houching, entered the room, and Simmons directed Remington and Lenz to drop their weapons. Lenz placed his weapon on a table, but Remington continued to hold onto his. Eventually, Remington surrendered his homemade kni[fe] to the officers. Jones testified that Remington seemed really excited and happy. Corrections Officer Simmons testified that he saw Inmate Parker laying on the ground in a fetal position, with Inmate Lenz and Inmate Remington standing over top of him, stabbing him several times. Simmons saw Remington stab Parker [a]bout four or five times. Corrections Officer Houching testified that when he responded to the crime scene, he saw Mr. Parker, laying on the ground, in a fetal position. Inmate Lenz and Inmate Remington were bent over, stabbing him. Remington stabbed Parker [a]round the chest area; the stomacharound the stomach. Houching saw Remington stab Parker eight to ten times. Rita K. Dietz, a registered nurse, rendered assistance to Parker after the attack. When she entered the room where the assault had occurred, Parker was laying in the floor, and there was a pool of blood around his chest area. Dietz described Parker's condition as critical. She made that assessment because of [t]he amount of blood; all his chest woundsthere was air coming out of his chest. Dietz stated that Parker was placed on a stretcher and he helped to roll himself on the sheet, with us; and we lifted him by the drawsheet . . . [a]nd, of course, blood was pouring out. And we put him on the stretcher, and . . . we brought him to the front to meet the ambulance as fast as we could. Parker died later that evening at a hospital. Dr. Gregory Price Wenger, who was employed as an Assistant Chief Medical Examiner for the Western District of Virginia, performed an autopsy on Parker's body. Wenger qualified as an expert witness on the subject of forensic pathology. Wenger determined that Parker died from multiple sharp force injuries. Parker had 68 stab wounds to his body. The wounds were scattered over the surfaces of the body, involving his chest, his abdomen, his back, his arm  his right arm. [The wounds] penetrated vital internal organs. Parker had seven stab wounds in the left lung and three stab wounds in the right lung. Parker's liver contained seven stab wounds. In response to the question, did any one of these stab wounds by itself cause Mr. Parker to die?, Wenger replied: Certainly the ones internally, that produced the injuries to the lungs and liver, were the most serious ones. There isn't any safe place that you can stab people. All these [wounds] had produced some bleeding. Together, just the large number of stab wounds that he had, even the soft tissue ones certainly contributed. Dr. Wenger testified that all the wounds occurred when Parker was alive, and all the wounds contributed to his death.