Opinion ID: 1059489
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Evidence Adduced During Guilt Phase

Text: Applying familiar principles of appellate review, we will recite the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing party in the circuit court, and we will accord the Commonwealth the benefit of all inferences fairly deducible from that evidence. Dowden v. Commonwealth, 260 Va. 459, 461, 536 S.E.2d 437, 438 (2000). During the early evening of January 16, 2000, the defendant, Parker, Jeffrey Remington, and three other inmates attended a meeting of a group referred to as the Iron-wood Kindred. The meeting occurred in Building J-5, which is a part of the Augusta Correctional Center. Earl Jones, a correctional officer, was assigned to Building J-5 that evening. Jones permitted the six inmates to enter a room where the meeting occurred. He closed the door, which contained windows, and secured the room. As Jones sat down at his post outside the meeting room and began to sort through inmate passes that he had collected, he noticed a commotion. Jones got on his radio and requested help from other correctional officers because he observed a fight. As Jones walked toward the room where the inmates were meeting, three of the inmates ran out of the room, and one of the inmates said, [t]hey're stabbing him. Jones went to the door and saw Remington and Lenz stabbing Parker. Parker was lying on his back; on the floor, between Remington and Lenz. Parker was making a feeble attempt to defend himself . . He had his hands up. As Parker tried to use his hands to block the knives from piercing his body, the defendant and Remington took their free hand[s]; pushed [Parker's] hands aside and then stabbed him. Jones opened the meeting room door and ordered the defendant and Remington to stop stabbing Parker. Jones testified, [t]hey simply looked at me and went back to stabbing him. Jones used his radio again to request help and asked his fellow correctional officers to hurry because Remington and the defendant were trying to kill this guy. Jones did not go into the room because Remington and the defendant had knives, and Jones was unarmed. Edward V. Houching, a correctional officer, responded to Jones' request for assistance. When Houching arrived at the meeting room, he saw the defendant and Remington stab Parker between 10 to 15 times as Parker was lying on the floor in a fetal position. Like Jones, Houching ordered the defendant and Remington to stop, but they continued to stab Parker. Parker was not doing anything to defend himself, and the defendant was bent over, stabbing [Parker], over and over and over. Within a few seconds after Houching arrived at the meeting room, two sergeants and correctional officer John Edward Simmons also responded. Simmons saw the defendant stab Parker six or seven times in an area that extended from Parker's underarm to his waist as Parker was lying on his side on the floor. Simmons also saw Remington stab Parker in the shoulder and back. After a sufficient number of correctional officers arrived at the meeting room, the officers, some of whom were armed with mace, entered the room, and Simmons told the defendant and Remington to drop their knives. The defendant placed his knife on a table, and Remington eventually surrendered his knife. The officers placed handcuffs on the defendant and Remington and escorted them from the area. Rita K. Dietz, a registered nurse employed at the Augusta Correctional Center, rendered emergency assistance to Parker. When she walked into the meeting room to assist him, he was very pale and surrounded by blood. As she approached him, she noticed that his shirt was soaked in blood. She ripped his shirt off. She testified that [e]very time I encountered a couple of wounds, I encountered more wounds. She described Parker's medical condition as [v]ery critical. She placed bandages on his wounds until she ran out. She testified, at that point, the stretcher had arrived. So we took the sheet off the stretcher ... Parker was still alive, and he helped roll onto the sheet. And we lifted the sheet up, which the one wound, out of the left side, just poured like water; like somebody had turned a faucet on, when we lifted him. And we got him on the stretcher. Parker was transported by ambulance to the Augusta Medical Center, where he died. Gregory Price Wanger, the Assistant Chief Medical Examiner for the Western District of Virginia, performed an autopsy on Parker's body. Wanger testified that Parker had sustained 68 stab wounds and one cut wound, all of which were inflicted upon Parker when he was alive. Dr. Wanger explained that a stab wound is shorter on the surface than it is deep and implies a thrusting motion[,] whereas a cut wound is longer on the surface than it is deep and implies a slashing-like motion. The stab wounds penetrated Parker's chest, abdomen, back, left arm, and right forearm. Dr. Wanger identified 40 stab wounds, from the upper part of [Parker's] chest down through the middle and center part of the chest, and into the abdomen. These wounds all contributed to his death. Parker's left lung and liver were stabbed seven times each and the wounds produced serious internal bleeding. The wounds to Parker's lungs would have been fatal without the other wounds. Additionally, the wounds to the liver; by themselves, would have been fatal without the other wounds to [his] body.