Opinion ID: 1136073
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The death of Carolyn Grayson

Text: On December 22, 1981, Sauda was present in the apartment she shared with her mother. Defendant arrived that morning, bearing a television set that Sauda recognized as having belonged to Janet Benner, and which Sauda had seen at the residence of a friend of Grayson. Grayson departed with defendant and, according to Marlow's testimony, went with defendant to a pawnshop. Marlow testified that defendant told him: `I took her to a pawnshop. And we was saw together' or seen, `and that is a good alibi.' (Later in the trial, defendant corroborated Marlow's testimony, testifying that he (i.e., defendant) and Grayson went to a pawnshop in the late afternoon of December 22, and that he then took Carolyn back home.) Marlow acknowledged that, in an earlier interview with a Fresno detective investigating the case, he had said that defendant told Marlow he had wanted to be seen with Grayson at certain places in order to establish an alibi. Over defendant's hearsay objection, Grayson's daughter Sauda testified that, after her mother's return to their apartment in the early evening of December 22, 1981, Grayson informed her that she was leaving that night to go to Oakland with Troy. Over defendant's further objection (that the prosecutor was leading the witness), Sauda testified that her mother told her if she didn't come [back] I [was] to call my Aunty Bobbi. [4] On December 23, 1981, at approximately 4 a.m., Tommie Garcia heard the drunken laughter of defendant, Emanuel Corners (defendant's brother-in-law), and defendant's wife Tanya, as they ascended the apartment stairs near Garcia's residence. Garcia testified that she had seen defendant and Corners leave the apartment complex at approximately 7:00 the previous evening. Garcia was expecting Tanya to visit her later that day, but Tanya did not arrive, and thereafter Garcia's relationship with Tanya changed. According to Garcia, Tanya was always crying after that or  she changed. She wouldn't visit me no more, she wouldn't talk, she would just come over and use the phone, and that's it. Later on December 23, at approximately 8:30 a.m., Grayson's supine body was found 62 miles from her Fresno residence, in an alfalfa field near Los Banos, in Merced County. Grayson's sweater was pushed up to mid-chest level, and her pants and underwear were pulled down, exposing her genital area, although there was no evidence of sexual assault. She had been shot six times in the upper body area. Dr. George Mansur, a Merced County pathologist who conducted an autopsy on Grayson's body the day it was found, testified that she died from massive internal bleeding caused by gunshot wounds that penetrated her heart and right lung. He estimated that death occurred between 2 p.m., December 22, 1981, and 6 a.m. the following morning. Physical evidence identified at the murder scene indicated that Grayson had been shot on Cozzi Road and that her body thereafter had been dragged more than 50 feet into the alfalfa field. Law enforcement officials investigating her death discovered bloody drag marks leading from the road, three spent .38-caliber bullets, and gouges in the blacktop pavement that appeared to have been made by bullets. Grayson's keys  which included keys that fit defendant's vehicle  were found in this area, and her purse was retrieved approximately 25 feet from her body. Subsequently, inside the trunk of defendant's vehicle, law enforcement officials found woman's clothing and a purse containing papers bearing Grayson's name.