Opinion ID: 4376408
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Murder and Trial Evidence

Text: In 1994, a grand jury indicted Trice, who was a Florida Highway Patrol Trooper, on charges of first-degree murder, violation of a domestic violence injunction, and burglary with assault, all in connection with the killing of his estranged wife, Darla Trice. At his jury trial, it was undisputed that Trice shot and killed Darla with his .357 revolver at their marital residence. At trial, Trice testified, however, that he shot Darla in self-defense after she unexpectedly stabbed him in the chest with a knife and to prevent her from stabbing him again. The state’s evidence showed instead that Trice shot Darla because she wanted a divorce 2 Case: 17-14476 Date Filed: 03/13/2019 Page: 3 of 26 and then stabbed himself to lay the ground work for a self-defense claim in order to get away with the murder. As background, four months before the shooting, the couple separated, and Trice moved out of their marital home. Trice continued to have access to an office that was attached to the back of the home, which is where he kept his tools, weapons, and other supplies for work. The office had its own exterior door, so Trice could access the room without going through the main house. A domestic violence injunction prohibited Trice from entering the rest of the home but allowed him to access the office through the exterior door.1 An interior door connected the office to the main house and could be locked from either side. A week before the shooting, Trice was getting supplies at the Lakewood Florida Highway Patrol office when he made a remark about getting divorced and his wife trying to get everything. After using his co-worker Mary Roundtree’s telephone, Trice looked Roundtree in the eye and said, “I ought to just go and kill her.” Roundtree thought Trice was serious when he said that and discussed his statement with her family that night. Roundtree, however, did not otherwise report it until after the shooting. 1 According to Darla’s petition for a temporary injunction, on December 8, 1993, Trice grabbed her hair, pulled her arm behind her, and threw her against the wall in their home. Trice told Darla to leave the house and not take their daughter or else she would leave in a body bag. Trice then got his service revolver and the .357 revolver and went into the bedroom. Darla called a neighbor for help and fled the house. This incident led to the domestic violence injunction. 3 Case: 17-14476 Date Filed: 03/13/2019 Page: 4 of 26 On the day of the shooting, April 24, 1994, Trice visited their marital house twice. On the first visit, he dropped off the couple’s three-year-old daughter, which was customary. Trice returned to the home a second time 30 or 45 minutes later. At trial, it was disputed whether Trice entered the home through the garage door, in violation of the domestic violence injunction, or whether he entered through the exterior office door. Either way, while in his office, Trice and Darla began arguing about the couple’s Corvette, which had been a source of several altercations between the two. At some point during the argument, Trice shot Darla. The evidence showed that Trice’s gun was three to 18 inches from Darla’s chest when Trice fired it. The bullet traveled through Darla’s body on a slightly downward path of about five degrees and, assuming she was standing when shot, Trice held the gun at a slightly downward angle when he fired. Thereafter, two phone calls were made to 911 from the Trice home, four minutes apart. During the first call, the 911 dispatcher asked about the nature of the emergency but hung up when no one responded. The issue of who made the first call was disputed at trial, whether it was Trice or Darla. Trice made the second call, reporting to the 911 dispatcher that he shot Darla after she stabbed him with a knife. 4 Case: 17-14476 Date Filed: 03/13/2019 Page: 5 of 26 According to Trice’s version of the events, after he told Darla that he was not going to give her back the Corvette, she walked away. Trice then went into the office closet to get some supplies for work. While looking in the closet, Trice heard something behind him, turned around, and Darla stabbed him with a knife in the chest. His legs got weak and he dropped to his knees on the closet floor. Darla was standing at the edge of the doorway, yelling and screaming at him. Darla said that she should have killed him a long time ago. Trice turned to stand up and saw his handgun on the closet shelf. He grabbed the gun to scare Darla, but she came at him again, and he had no choice but to shoot her. When the first officer arrived on the scene, Trice told him that Darla had stabbed him and that he had to shoot her. The officer noticed a small blood stain on Trice’s t-shirt near his left shoulder. Trice led the officer to his office where Darla was lying face up near the closet, bleeding from the gunshot wound. Darla’s left arm was extended towards a telephone and the receiver was off the hook. An emergency medical personnel who arrived in the office hung up the telephone and started to treat Darla, but she died a few minutes later. Investigators also found a small paring knife within an inch of Darla’s left hand. While the knife had Darla’s blood on it, investigators found no fingerprints or any of Trice’s blood on it.2 2 The state presented evidence that the paring knife was part of a set of knives found in a knife block in the Trices’ kitchen. The paring knife was much smaller than all the other knives 5 Case: 17-14476 Date Filed: 03/13/2019 Page: 6 of 26 Trice was taken to the hospital and treated for his stab wound. He had a one centimeter wound in his upper left chest that was about four centimeters deep in a downward inward tract. The knife did not penetrate his chest cavity and medical personnel closed the wound with one stitch. The treating doctor could not tell if Trice’s wound was self-inflicted or inflicted by someone else. Sergeant Ken Lane, a Florida Highway Patrol Trooper, visited Trice in the hospital. Lane worked as a homicide investigator and investigated motor vehicle traffic homicides. He met Trice in 1986 and they were friends. At trial, Lane testified that, while in the hospital, Trice recounted the incident to him. Trice said that he had gone to the house to drop off his daughter and went into the office to look for some supplies. There, Trice and Darla had an argument and she stabbed him. Trice fell to his knees and Darla was standing over him. When she came at him again, he shot her with his firearm. Trice then dropped his gun and stayed against the wall trying to reorganize his thoughts until he heard his daughter running down the hallway. He met her at the office door and took her to the other side of the house. After that, Trice called 911. The next day, Lane drove Trice from the hospital to the residence. Lane was not investigating the shooting at the time but accompanied Trice through the house. in the set. During closing arguments, the state asked the jury why Darla would try to kill Trice with such a small paring knife, rather than with one of the bigger knives. 6 Case: 17-14476 Date Filed: 03/13/2019 Page: 7 of 26 The two went into the office where Darla’s blood was still on the floor. Trice was nonchalant and said, “Boy, she really made a mess in here, didn’t she?” Trice also asked Lane how to clean up the blood. At trial, Trice denied making that statement or asking about cleaning the blood. While in the office, Trice again detailed to Lane what had happened. After hearing Trice’s explanation, Lane told him his story was not supported by the blood splatter and the body tissue residue in the room or the bullet’s trajectory. For instance, if Trice shot Darla from the closet, why wasn’t there any body tissue or blood splatter near the closet? Lane also asked why the bullet did not go straight through Darla into the office wall behind her, instead of striking a window six feet to the left of her body. Trice answered that the bullet might have struck Darla’s spine and deflected to the left, but the autopsy showed the bullet went straight through her. Lane admitted, though, that he was not an expert in bloodstain analysis or ballistics. Lane told Trice again that he did not believe his story was lining up with the physical evidence and noted that, based on marks in the carpet, the office furniture appeared to have been moved. Later, as they were going through the house, Lane asked Trice if the knife wound was self-inflicted because the situation was starting to look consistent with something he had read about before. Trice responded that he did not have the pain tolerance to stab himself. Lane testified that, as the investigation progressed, two 7 Case: 17-14476 Date Filed: 03/13/2019 Page: 8 of 26 aspects of Trice’s story changed from the version he originally told—that he made two trips to the house on the day of the incident and that he made two calls to 911. At trial, the state’s firearm expert also testified that the physical evidence did not match up with Trice’s version of the events. Specifically, the firearm expert was asked hypothetically, based on (1) the entrance and exit wounds found on Darla, (2) the stippling pattern on Darla’s skin surrounding the wound, and (3) the fact that the bullet did not deflect while traveling through her body, whether it was possible for the shooter to have been on his knees and to have fired the shot into a person standing up. The expert responded that this was not possible. However, on cross-examination, the firearm expert agreed that the stippling pattern found on Darla’s skin could be consistent with the shooter being on his way up from his knees, if Darla was also bending over when shot.