Opinion ID: 1279670
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: substantial evidence to support jury's findings and verdict

Text: [1] The standard for appellate review of a jury's finding is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Green, 94 Wn.2d 216, 616 P.2d 628 (1980). Reviewing the entire record, we find that there was substantial evidence to support the jury's findings and verdict that defendant killed the victims in order to steal their property and to prevent his identification as their killer. The evidence indicates that Jeffries, within hours of killing both victims, attempted to sell a television set to the Elliots. That same evening (March 19), Jeffries went to a bar with a large amount of Canadian currency, and bought drinks for his fellow pool players. Two days later, he unsuccessfully attempted to sell placer gold, which had belonged to Philip Skiff. Four days later he left the area stealing the Skiffs' truck, chain saw, television set, guns and numerous other articles. During this entire episode he attempted to avert suspicion by telling Alfred and Frieda Opdahl that the Skiffs left for a 2-day trip and upon returning would go away for an extended trip. He told the Elliots a different story: the Skiffs were moving and they wanted to sell some of their possessions. If Jeffries simply stole the Skiffs' property, without killing them, they presumably would have contacted the police and he would have been apprehended. Thus, he had to kill them in order to hide the fact that he committed the theft. By killing them Jeffries could escape detection for a substantial period of time. In fact, the killings probably would have gone undetected for years if there had not been so much activity on March 19 around the Skiff residence. Defendant and the neighbors knew that the Skiffs often took short and extended trips. In the last few years the Skiffs had gone to Scotland, Samoa, and California for varying periods of time. Jeffries knew that no one would be suspicious if the Skiffs were not seen for awhile. Fortuitously, on the 19th many people saw the defendant and noticed what he was doing. The Opdahls' daughter and grandchildren came to visit and as a result the Opdahls were outside most of the day and at the Skiffs' house. The Elliots who only dump brush a couple of times a year happened to do so on the 19th. Picture exhibit 214 shows that Philip Skiff was shot twice in the back of the head in gangland style with a .22 caliber pistol and/or pistols, which inferentially indicates it was one of Skiff's pistols and necessarily the guns had to be stolen prior to Philip's murder. Helland, his Canadian prospecting associate, testified that Jeffries said that he had stashed away two such pistols which presumably were the same guns that were used to kill the Skiffs. Rex Elliot testified that he had seen one of the pistols on the kitchen table at 3:30 p.m. on the 19th. The picture also shows that the remaining five bullets, fired into Philip, were in his back. The evidence also indicates that Inez had fled for her life into the jewelry shop and barricaded the door. She must have had good reason to fear Jeffries, and the obvious inference is that she knew of her husband's murder. State's exhibit 112, a picture of the shop where Inez was gunned down, shows that her killer shot at the door and then kicked it in (heel prints show on the door). Furthermore, because she was shot 10 times, the inference, from the evidence, is unmistakable that Jeffries shot her using both of Philip's pistols, as one had a magazine of only nine bullets and the other six, and that he did so to prevent his identification as the killer of her husband and to cover his crimes of theft and murder.