Opinion ID: 1248901
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Offenses Relating to Deborah Jean Elliot

Text: As to Deborah Jean Elliot, defendant was charged with and convicted of first-degree murder on the basis of felony murder as well as premeditation and deliberation. On 23 December 1996, Elliot spoke with one of her sisters about her plans for Christmas. Elliot was supposed to go to her other sister's house about 1:00 p.m. on 24 December to stay for Christmas, but she never arrived. This sister told the police that Elliot was using crack and was a prostitute. One of the last people to see Elliot alive and the only person who the State could produce as a witnesswas Cleon Gibbs, who was the owner/manager of the Martin Street Mini Mart in Raleigh, near Moore Square. Elliot went into the store on the morning of 24 December 1996 to purchase some items. On 26 December 1996, Oliver Parrish was working at a building on North West Street near downtown Raleigh. The building was formerly part of Pine State Creamery. Parrish had the responsibility of making sure the doors were locked. In a section of the building where there are three bays, he found the body of Deborah Elliot. She was in the second bay, lying face-down, and she was naked except for shoes and socks. After defendant was arrested on 4 February 1997 for the assault on Shelly Jackson, Marty Ludas, a latent print examiner who was accepted by the trial court as an expert in the field of footwear identification, received a pair of tennis shoes that had been taken from defendant. Ludas compared the shoes to a shoe print taken from glass pieces that had been put together at the Elliot crime scene. Ludas formed the opinion that only one shoe could have made that shoe print: defendant's left shoe. Dr. D.E. Scarborough performed an autopsy on Elliot on 27 December 1996. Elliot had a large laceration over the right side of her forehead, and her underlying skull was fractured. She had hemorrhaging over the surface of her brain, and there was actual tearing of the brain relating to the laceration and fracture in her forehead. There were numerous abrasions and scrapes over her arms and legs and substantial bruising, hemorrhaging, and swelling around both of her eyes. Elliot also had multiple scratches over the front and right side of her neck and a small amount of hemorrhaging on the left side of the larynx in the neck.