Opinion ID: 1955198
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Evidence Adduced

Text: There were no eyewitnesses to the homicide. It took place in a bedroom of a mobile home trailer in which Landon resided. The trailer was in a trailer park in Princess Anne, Somerset County, Maryland. A Maryland State Trooper described the outside of the trailer and the floor plan. At the suggestion of the prosecutor, he drew, for the edification of the jury, a diagram of the exterior and interior of the trailer, showing the two doors providing ingress and egress to the trailer and the location of five rooms off a hallway which ran the length of the trailer. Landon's body was found in the master bedroom at the rear of the trailer, on the floor beside the bed. The jury was shown a color photograph depicting the body in the position and the condition in which it was found. The photograph also showed a part of the bedroom floor, cluttered ankle deep with discarded clothing, bags, shoes, coat hangers, and other articles between the door to the bedroom and the body. The Post Mortem Examination Report, to which were appended nine photographs of Landon's nude body showing the wounds in close-up, was received in evidence. The Trooper testified as to the events leading to the finding of the body, how the investigation became focused on Dykes, and the circumstances of Dykes's arrest and interrogation. The details of the commission of the homicide came from Dykes. The interrogation of him by the police was over a period of almost two hours, with a break for dinner. Without prodding, Dykes readily gave a statement which, when transcribed, covered nine and one-half pages. The statement was read verbatim to the jury. Dykes also testified at the trial. The result was that the jury had before it three versions of the events leading to the homicide and of the circumstances of the killing itself, all from the mouth of Dykes. We set out a compendium of each version. In the first version Dykes averred that Landon, who was not known to him previously, abducted him at gunpoint outside a bar and drove him to Landon's house trailer. By the time they arrived, Dykes believed, from Landon's remarks en route, that Landon was a homosexual. Landon forced him into the trailer, pressing the gun to his neck and telling him they would get some action. Dykes stalled by asking to use the bathroom. Dykes found a butter knife in the bathroom, which he picked up. He did not leave the trailer because he feared Landon would shoot him. Landon was in the master bedroom. He was sitting on the bed, naked from the waist down and masturbating. Landon saw the knife in Dykes's hand and grabbed a steak knife, which was on a table by the bed. Dykes punched Landon in the face; Landon punched him back. Dykes hit him again, and Landon fell. Dykes then stabbed Landon a couple times with the butter knife, which broke off inside Landon. Landon was still moving and trying to get Dykes; he kept coming at [him]. Landon stabbed Dykes in the hand. Dykes hit Landon in the face again whereupon Landon's grip on the steak knife relaxed. Dykes took the steak knife and stabbed Landon a couple times. Dykes left the room. Dykes told the police that he hated queers because it's sick, immoral. I don't think God put us on this earth to do that. In the second version, offered after the dinner break, Dykes recanted the abduction scenario. Dykes denied that Landon threatened him with a gun. Dykes said that he went with Landon because Landon offered to give him some cocaine. Dykes did not think that Landon was a homosexual en route to Landon's trailer. When they arrived, Landon went down the hallway of the trailer to get the cocaine. Dykes asked to use the bathroom where he found a knife and put it in his pocket, just in case I might need it.... He entered the back bedroom where he found Landon masturbating. Landon reached for a knife on a bedside table, and Dykes rushed him. Dykes was not sure who got who first. They struggled, each hitting the other. Landon was clawing Dykes. He was coming at [Dykes] and [Dykes] poked him a couple times with the butter knife. Even after the butter knife broke, Landon still kept coming at [Dykes]. Dykes hit him in the face, and Landon's hand opened up, so Dykes grabbed [Landon's] knife and got him with [it].... Landon fell back. Dykes left the room. The third version, as presented by Dykes in his testimony at trial, was substantially similar to the second version to the point when Dykes left the bathroom and stopped by the master bedroom where he found Landon sitting on the side of the bed masturbating. From there on, Dykes's telling of the events diverged somewhat from the second version and expanded on it in significant part. Dykes claimed that when he stood in the doorway of the bedroom, Landon made a lewd proposition. Dykes rushed the five or six feet across the cluttered floor to the bed to hit Landon with his fist because he was afraid Landon would try to hurt him or have sex with him. He said that he possibly could have escaped at that time but that [i]t was so quick. I did not think about it. I didn't have time. After Dykes hit him, Landon reached behind him, grabbed a steak knife, and cut Dykes on the hand. As Dykes was looking at his bleeding hand, Landon threw him on the bed and got on top of Dykes's chest, pinning one arm to his side. Landon hollered that he was going to kill Dykes and came down with both his hands on the knife, yelling and slamming at [him]. Dykes wrapped his legs around Landon's neck and pulled him down on the bed. Landon dropped the steak knife. Dykes took the butter knife he found in the bathroom out of his pocket and stabbed [Landon] a few times on the bed. The butter knife broke. Dykes claimed that all the while Landon was choking him, that Landon threw [him] against the wall and was choking [him] there. Dykes maintained that [t]he whole time this incident was happening [Landon] was choking and hitting me. When Dykes picked up the steak knife, he stuck [Landon] a few more times and [Landon] fell down. Dykes maintained that he could not get away from Landon after Landon dropped the steak knife because Landon was hanging on [to Dykes's] throat [with] his hands. Dykes avowed that he was unaware of the rear door in the trailer which led off the hallway near the master bedroom. He further asserted that he lied in his first version about the circumstances under which he went to the trailer because he did not want the police or his mother to know that he used cocaine.