Opinion ID: 852371
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Sufficiency of Evidence to Prove Torture and Mutilation

Text: The defendant contends that insufficient evidence supports the torture and mutilation aggravated. While acknowledging that he pleaded guilty to raping and murdering the victim, the defendant argues that no evidence showed that he tortured the victim to coerce sexual intercourse, that he intentionally inflicted an appreciable period of pain or punishment on her, or that her injuries went beyond those attendant to the act of killing. We view the evidence differently and, indeed, find that the evidence of torture and mutilation was overwhelming. The victim's young sister, who called 911 during the attack, testified that she observed the defendant on top of the victim as the victim screamed and pleaded with the attacker to please stop, please stop, to which he responded, you better be quiet. Tr. at 1271. Law enforcement officers found the victim naked from the waist down, with her abdominal contents outside her body, flailing her arms and legs and trying to speak. The defendant had slashed the victim's throat, severing her windpipe and right internal jugular vein, and had cut open her abdomen with a twenty-four inch long slash around her waist. This wound exposed the victim's backbone. One doctor concluded from these injuries that the defendant had cut through the front of her abdomen and driven the knife all the way through her midsection and into her spine. The victim remained alive during this attack, during the on-the-scene EMT care, and during her transport to and care at the local hospital, where she squeezed the hand of an emergency room nurse when asked if she could understand. She was treated there for forty-six minutes and then air-lifted to the University of Louisville Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The autopsy also revealed that she had sustained eighteen blunt force injuries and ligature marks on her left shin and right forearm. In view of this evidence, a reasonable jury could find torture and mutilation beyond a reasonable doubt.