Court Opinion

ID: 9965855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-05-03 16:10:04.169134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:47.431605
License: Public Domain

05/03/2024
        IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE
                          AT JACKSON
                          Assigned on Briefs March 5, 2024

           STATE OF TENNESSEE v. BENJAMIN L. BRADFORD

                  Appeal from the Circuit Court for Gibson County
                        No. 20038 Clayburn Peeples, Judge

                            No. W2022-01632-CCA-R3-CD

The Defendant, Benjamin L. Bradford, was convicted by a Gibson County Circuit Court
jury of first degree premeditated murder, first degree murder in the perpetration of theft,
and destroying, tampering, or fabricating evidence. See T.C.A. §§ 39-13-202(a)(1)-(2)
(first degree murder) (2018) (subsequently amended), 39-16-503 (2018) (destroying,
tampering with, or fabricating evidence). The jury imposed a sentence of life without
parole for each of the first degree murder convictions and merged the judgments. The trial
court imposed a fifteen-year sentence for destroying, tampering, or fabricating evidence,
to be served consecutively to the life-without-parole sentence. On appeal, the Defendant
contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions. We affirm the
judgments of the trial court.

  Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgments of the Circuit Court Affirmed

ROBERT H. MONTGOMERY, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which ROBERT L.
HOLLOWAY, JR., and JILL BARTEE AYERS, JJ., joined.

Alexander D. Camp (on appeal), and J. Noble Grant, III (at trial), Jackson, Tennessee, for
the appellant, Benjamin L. Bradford.

Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; G. Kirby May, Assistant Attorney
General; Frederick H. Agee, District Attorney General; and Nina Seiler and Scott Kirk,
Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

                                       OPINION

       The Defendant’s convictions relate to his July 20, 2018 bludgeoning of his sixty-
seven-year-old mother, Gwendolyn Hall, in her home. The Defendant initially claimed at
the scene that someone “did this and ran off,” but he later gave inculpatory statements in
which he admitted he had argued with the victim and had physically assaulted her, but he
denied that he had intended to kill her and suggested someone else had inflicted the gash
on her head. He denied that their altercation had been about money and that he tried to
clean up the scene after he assaulted her, but he admitted that he broke her car window
with a baseball bat to search for money in her car.

        At the trial, the State’s evidence showed that, in the early morning hours of July 20,
2018, Milan Police and emergency personnel responded to the victim’s home in response
to a 9-1-1 call from the Defendant. The responding officers found the badly injured victim
slouched on a couch. Her face was badly swollen, and she had a deep gash over one eye.
She was breathing and moaning but was unable to speak. She was not wearing a shirt. The
Defendant, who had blood on his hands and was shirtless with a bloody shirt rolled around
his neck, was present. The Defendant stated, “Some coward n----- did this and ran off.”
Officers detained the Defendant. One of the responding officers described the Defendant
as “nonchalant” and as not exhibiting remorse. Another responding officer described the
Defendant as neither upset nor crying but “talking out of his head.” This officer said the
Defendant stated he would not talk to any West Tennessee law enforcement officers.

        Responding officers testified that a large amount of blood was seen in the living
room, hall, and a bedroom of the home. Blood was on the carpet and a bedroom closet
door, and a large amount of blood was on the bedroom floor. Dentures were found on the
floor and later identified by a family member as belonging to the victim. Other evidence
showed that the bedroom was the Defendant’s bedroom. A bloody comforter was found
in the laundry room. The victim was found shirtless, but her shirt was not found. Luminol
examinations were conducted and showed evidence of blood on a recliner in the living
room and on sink handles and a towel in the bathroom. No signs of forced entry into the
home were found. The passenger-side window of a car parked in the carport was shattered,
and a baseball bat lay nearby. The door and the bat both had a substance which appeared
to be blood on them. Police body camera video recordings show the interior of the home,
which included bloody areas in the living room and a bedroom. The bedding on the bed in
the bedroom was in disarray, and no comforter was on the bed.

       The victim was transported from the scene by ambulance and later taken by
helicopter to a Memphis hospital, where she died the next day. The forensic pathologist
who performed the victim’s autopsy testified that the victim’s cause of death was blunt
force head injuries and that the manner of death was homicide. The pathologist stated that
the victim had lacerations to the right eye, above the bridge of the nose, on the top of the
head, and behind the right ear. The pathologist also observed bruising, lacerations, a
contusion, a torn toenail, and bleeding. The pathologist acknowledged that he could not
determine the number of blows sustained by the victim, said he found six areas of impact,
and agreed it was “possible” the number of blows was as low as three. He said that of the
victim’s injuries, the brain bleeding was the most lethal. He said that despite the victim’s
preexisting renal failure, she would not have died in the absence of the blunt force injuries.

                                             -2-
        The Defendant gave a written statement on the day he was taken into custody. In
this statement, the Defendant said the following: He came home drunk and argued with
the victim about the Defendant’s relationship with his ex-wife, with whom he had recently
reunited. He said he had “snapped” and had hit the victim on both sides of her head. The
Defendant left the home but returned and found the victim in the floor with a gash in her
forehead. He told her to tell him where her car keys were in order for him to drive her to
the emergency room, but she was unable to speak in a manner he could understand. He
called 9-1-1. He had not meant to hurt the victim and had snapped.

        The Defendant gave a recorded statement three days after the incident. He stated
the following: He was at his mother’s home, where he stayed and had his own room, on
the evening of July 19, 2018. He called his ex-wife and tried to get her to come to the
home, and the victim said “crazy s---,” in response to which the Defendant “snapped” and
hit the victim. The victim tried to grab the Defendant, who grabbed her shirt. The shirt
tore and came off. The victim fell into a table in the living room. The Defendant picked
her up and hit her again. He grabbed her foot and pulled her into his bedroom. The victim
threatened to call the police, and he challenged her to call them. The Defendant left his
bedroom and wiped blood from the floor near the refrigerator1 because he did not want
anyone to slip. He placed a comforter in an unspecified location. He washed his hands,
went outside, picked up a baseball bat, smashed a car window in an effort to locate money,
put down the bat, and went to a store to buy “another drink.” He returned fifteen to twenty
minutes later and found the victim lying on the floor of his room, the location where she
had been when he left. He moved the victim to the living room couch and asked where she
kept her keys because he was going to take her to the emergency room. The victim was
“talking crazy,” and he called 9-1-1. The Defendant repeatedly insisted that he had snapped
and had not meant to kill the victim. He acknowledged that he hit her too hard. He said
the gash on the victim’s face had to have occurred when she fell into the living room table
or have been inflicted by an unknown assailant while he was gone. He said that the victim
had inserted herself into his business and that he had just wanted to see his ex-wife. He
denied that he disposed of any evidence, including the victim’s shirt. He repeatedly denied
that he had taken the victim’s purse, which other evidence showed was unaccounted for at
the time of the statement but was later discovered by the Defendant’s sister in a laundry
basket in the home. He acknowledged that he had looked for money. The Defendant
denied that he had taken the bat inside the home and that he had assaulted the victim with
the bat. The Defendant acknowledged that he had been using drugs at the time of the
incident but declined to identify the person from whom he obtained the drugs.

1
  The video evidence shows that the refrigerator was near an open doorway between the living room and
the kitchen.
                                                -3-
       A person who had visited the victim on July 19, 2018, testified that the victim had
been upset and had trembled. The person said the victim had stated that she and the
Defendant had just fought over his wanting money from her purse, which the victim had
refused. The person said the victim stated that the victim had taken her purse from the
Defendant and that the Defendant had said he would be back and had left the home.

       The victim’s daughter testified that the Defendant stayed at the victim’s home “off
and on.” The victim’s daughter said she had lived at the home until June 2018 but had
moved out because the Defendant was “on drugs” and caused problems for the victim. The
victim’s daughter said the Defendant took money from the victim for drugs. She described
an incident in which she heard screaming and went into the victim’s bedroom, where she
found the Defendant dumping the victim’s purse contents onto a bed and taking money.
The victim’s daughter said the victim tried to get her purse from the Defendant, but he
pushed the victim onto the floor. The victim’s daughter said her daughter had to help the
victim stand. The victim’s daughter said she had gone at the victim’s request to the victim’s
home a few hours before the fatal assault, at which time the victim wore a pajama top. The
victim’s daughter said she went to the victim’s home about a week after the fatal incident.
She found the victim’s purse underneath clothing in a hamper. She did not find the pajama
top the victim had been wearing when she had last seen the victim, despite an extensive
search of the home.

       An expert witness in DNA analysis and serology testified that the bat collected from
the carport contained a DNA mixture of two individuals, with the respective profiles being
consistent with the Defendant and the victim.

        The Defendant elected not to testify, but he offered an expert in forensic pathology,
who testified that he had reviewed the report of and photographs from the victim’s autopsy,
the victim’s medical records, the 9-1-1 report, and the Defendant’s statement. He said that
the autopsy report did not make clear whether some of the victim’s head injuries were due
to medical intervention, rather than the assault. He noted the victim’s medical history of
hypertension and chronic renal disease. He opined that the victim’s renal disease would
have made her more susceptible to bleeding, although he agreed that the victim’s bleeding
resulted from blunt force trauma and had not been spontaneous. He said that because the
victim was an elderly woman, she likely had some osteoporosis, which would have meant
her bones were more susceptible to breakage from trauma. The expert agreed with the
State’s expert regarding the cause of death being blunt force trauma. He said that, with
regard to homicide as the manner of death, the term “homicide” as used in pathology meant
the killing of a human by another and did not connote the existence of criminal activity. In
his opinion, the victim had three or four blunt force injuries.

      The jury found the Defendant guilty of first degree premeditated murder, first degree
murder in the perpetration of theft, and tampering with evidence. In a bifurcated

                                            -4-
proceeding, the jury found that the Defendant should be sentenced to life without parole.
The trial court merged the first degree murder convictions into a single judgment of
conviction, and it imposed a fifteen-year sentence for the tampering with evidence
conviction to be served consecutively to the life-without-parole sentence. This appeal
followed.

      The Defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions.
The State responds that the evidence is sufficient. We agree with the State as to the murder
convictions but agree with the Defendant as to the tampering with evidence conviction.

        In determining the sufficiency of the evidence, the standard of review is “whether,
after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier
of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979); see State v. Vasques, 221 S.W.3d 514, 521
(Tenn. 2007). The State is “afforded the strongest legitimate view of the evidence and all
reasonable inferences” from that evidence. Vasques, 221 S.W.3d at 521. The appellate
courts do not “reweigh or reevaluate the evidence,” and questions regarding “the credibility
of witnesses [and] the weight and value to be given the evidence . . . are resolved by the
trier of fact.” State v. Bland, 958 S.W.2d 651, 659 (Tenn. 1997); see State v. Sheffield, 676
S.W.2d 542, 547 (Tenn. 1984).

       “A crime may be established by direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, or a
combination of the two.” State v. Hall, 976 S.W.2d 121, 140 (Tenn. 1998); see State v.
Sutton, 166 S.W.3d 686, 691 (Tenn. 2005). “The standard of review ‘is the same whether
the conviction is based upon direct or circumstantial evidence.’” State v. Dorantes, 331
S.W.3d 370, 379 (Tenn. 2011) (quoting State v. Hanson, 279 S.W.3d 265, 275 (Tenn.
2009)).

       “The identity of the perpetrator is an essential element of any crime.” State v. Rice,
184 S.W.3d 646, 662 (Tenn. 2006). Circumstantial evidence alone may be sufficient to
establish the perpetrator’s identity. State v. Reid, 91 S.W.3d 247, 277 (Tenn. 2002). The
identity of the perpetrator is a question of fact for the jury to determine. State v. Thomas,
158 S.W.3d 361, 388 (Tenn. 2005). “The jury decides the weight to be given to
circumstantial evidence, and ‘[t]he inferences to be drawn from such evidence, and the
extent to which the circumstances are consistent with guilt[.]’” Rice, 184 S.W.3d at 662
(quoting Marable v. State, 313 S.W.2d 451, 457 (Tenn. 1958)).

                                            -5-
                                               I

                                    First Degree Murder

   A. First Degree Premeditated Murder

       The Defendant argues that the State failed to present sufficient evidence to support
the jury’s finding of premeditation. He argues that the State did not offer evidence that he
procured or used a deadly weapon, that he planned or declared an intent to kill the victim,
that he made efforts to conceal the crime after committing it, or that he destroyed or
concealed evidence after the killing.

       As relevant here, [f]irst degree murder is . . . [a] premeditated and intentional killing
of another[.]” T.C.A. § 39-13-202(a)(1) (2018) (subsequently amended).

       In the context of first degree murder, intent is shown if the defendant has the
conscious objective or desire to cause the victim’s death. State v. Page, 81 S.W.3d 781,
790-91 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2002); T.C.A. § 39-11-106(a)(18) (2018) (defining intentional
as the “conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result”). “[A]
defendant’s conscious objective need not be to kill a specific victim.” Millen v. State, 988
S.W.2d 164, 168 (Tenn. 1999). However, the evidence must establish that a defendant had
the “conscious objective to kill a person,” meaning that a “defendant intended to cause . . .
the death of a person.” Id. A premeditated act is one which is

       done after the exercise of reflection and judgment. “Premeditation” means
       that the intent to kill must have been formed prior to the act itself. It is not
       necessary that the purpose to kill preexist in the mind of the accused for any
       definite period of time. The mental state of the accused at the time the
       accused allegedly decided to kill must be carefully considered in order to
       determine whether the accused was sufficiently free from excitement and
       passion as to be capable of premeditation.

Id. § 39-13-202(d). The question of whether a defendant acted with premeditation is a
question of fact for the jury to be determined from all of the circumstances surrounding the
killing. State v. Davidson, 121 S.W.3d 600, 614 (Tenn. 2003). Proof of premeditation
may be shown by direct or circumstantial evidence. State v. Brown, 836 S.W.2d 530, 541
(Tenn. 1992). As a result, the jury “may infer premeditation from the manner and
circumstances of the killing.” State v. Jackson, 173 S.W.3d 401, 408 (Tenn. 2005); see
State v. Vaughn, 279 S.W.3d 584, 595 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2008). Factors from which a
jury may infer premeditation include:

                                              -6-
       [D]eclarations by the defendant of an intent to kill, evidence of procurement
       of a weapon, the use of a deadly weapon upon an unarmed victim, the
       particular cruelty of the killing, infliction of multiple wounds, preparation
       before the killing for concealment of the crime, destruction or secretion of
       evidence of the murder, and calmness immediately after the killing.

State v. Nichols, 24 S.W.3d 297, 302 (Tenn. 2000).

        Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence shows that the victim
told a visitor to her home that she and the Defendant fought over the victim’s purse on June
19, 2018, that she had recovered the purse from him, and that he had left the home and
stated he would return. Although the Defendant claimed that the disagreement he later had
with the victim was about her interference with his relationship with his ex-wife, the
circumstantial evidence of an earlier altercation over money and the Defendant’s statement
that he would return suggests otherwise. By his own admission, the Defendant assaulted
the victim, and the evidence at the scene established that a sustained, violent attack
occurred. No evidence suggested that the elderly victim was armed. The victim suffered
numerous injuries to her body, including three or more blows to the head and face. The
victim died from blunt force trauma, and the photographs of her injuries depict violent,
significant injuries. The Defendant admitted that he had broken the car window and had
looked for money in the car after assaulting the victim and before he left the home. The
victim was shirtless when the police arrived, and her shirt was not recovered. The
Defendant acknowledged washing his hands and cleaning unspecified areas of the home
after he assaulted the victim. Despite having badly injured the victim, he left the home for
some period of time before eventually returning and calling the authorities. He initially
blamed an unknown assailant for the gash on the victim’s face. The Defendant did not
appear upset and, instead, appeared nonchalant and unremorseful when the authorities
arrived. The Defendant admitted that he had hit the victim multiple times and had dragged
her by her foot from the living room to his bedroom. Although he denied that he intended
to kill the victim, he said he had snapped and acknowledged that he had hit her too hard.
Despite his denials of having hit the victim with the baseball bat, responding officers
observed a substance that appeared to be blood on the bat, and forensic testing showed that
the Defendant’s and the victim’s DNA were on the bat. No signs of forced entry, which
might suggest an unknown assailant, were observed. A large quantity of blood was found
in the victim’s home, and blood spatter appeared on the floor and the closet door of the
Defendant’s bedroom.

       From the foregoing evidence, a rational jury could conclude beyond a reasonable
doubt that the Defendant committed a premeditated killing of the victim. The killing was
particularly cruel, with the unarmed victim sustaining a prolonged attack involving
multiple blows before being left to suffer while the Defendant searched for money in the
victim’s car and left the home. The photographs of the scene and of the victim’s injuries

                                            -7-
demonstrate that a violent attack occurred. The Defendant did not exhibit distress in the
immediate aftermath of his crimes, despite the fact that he had just violently assaulted his
mother. The evidence is sufficient to support the Defendant’s conviction for first degree
premeditated murder. The Defendant is not entitled to relief on this basis.

   B. First Degree Murder in the Perpetration of a Theft

        The Defendant argues that his conviction for first degree murder in the perpetration
of a theft cannot stand because the theft or attempted theft of the victim’s purse was a
misdemeanor and cannot qualify as a predicate offense under the so-called felony murder
statute. He argues, as well, that no theft of the purse was shown. Further, he argues that
any attempt to take the victim’s purse was not connected “in time, place and continuity of
action” with the killing, such that the theft or attempted theft was “in perpetration” of the
killing.

       As relevant here, “[f]irst degree murder is . . . [a] killing of another committed in
the perpetration of or attempt to perpetrate any . . . theft[.] Id. at (a)(2). “A person commits
theft of property if, with intent to deprive the owner of property, the person knowingly
obtains or exercises control over the property without the owner’s effective consent.” Id.
§ 39-14-103(a) (2018).

       (a) A person commits criminal attempt who, acting with the kind of
           culpability otherwise required for the offense:

       (1) Intentionally engages in action or causes a result that would constitute an
           offense, if the circumstances surrounding the conduct were as the person
           believes them to be;

       (2) Acts with intent to cause a result that is an element of the offense, and
           believes the conduct will cause the result without further conduct on the
           person’s part; or

       (3) Acts with intent to complete a course of action or cause a result that would
           constitute the offense, under the circumstances surrounding the conduct
           as the person believes them to be, and the conduct constitutes a substantial
           step toward the commission of the offense.

       (b) Conduct does not constitute a substantial step under subdivision (a)(3),
       unless the person’s entire course of action is corroborative of the intent to
       commit the offense.

Id. § 39-12-101(a), (b) (2018).

                                              -8-
        We begin with the Defendant’s argument that he cannot be convicted of first degree
murder in the perpetration of theft because the predicate offense of theft would not
constitute a felony on these facts. We acknowledge that this statute is often referred to
colloquially as the “felony murder” statute. The relevant statute criminalizes “the killing
of another committed in the perpetration of or attempt to perpetrate any . . . theft.” See
T.C.A. § 39-13-202(a)(2) (emphasis added). As other panels of this court have explained,
the statute’s predicate offenses include theft, an offense which can be a felony or a
misdemeanor. See State v. Roger Eugene Daly, No. M2010-00535-CCA-R3-CD, 2011
WL 2418829, at *13-14 (Tenn. Crim. App. June 10, 2011); see also State v. Leon Flannel,
No. W2007-00678-CCA-R3-CD, 2008 WL 4613829, at *7-8 (Tenn. Crim. App. Oct. 13,
2008), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Mar. 23, 2009). “When the text of a statute is clear and
unambiguous, we need not look beyond the plain language of the statute to ascertain its
meaning.” State v. Welch, 595 S.W.3d 615, 623 (Tenn. 2020). The statute clearly states
that “any . . . theft” is a qualifying predicate offense for first degree murder. See T.C.A. §
39-13-202(a)(2). We will apply the plain meaning of the statute in evaluating the
sufficiency of the evidence to support the Defendant’s conviction of first degree murder in
the perpetration of theft.

        Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence shows that on the day
before the Defendant’s 9-1-1 call about the victim’s injuries, the victim told a visitor that
she and the Defendant had fought over her purse and that he had left the home after she
took the purse from him and had promised that he would return. The Defendant’s sister
testified that she had lived with the victim until the month before the incident but that she
had moved out because of the Defendant’s drug use. She said the Defendant fought with
the victim about money for drugs, and the Defendant’s sister had witnessed an incident in
which the Defendant had shaken contents from the victim’s purse and had pushed the
victim to the floor when the victim tried to get her purse. The Defendant admitted in his
pretrial statement that he had been using drugs when he snapped, fatally assaulting the
victim. The victim’s purse was later recovered from a location that suggests from
circumstantial evidence that it had been hidden after the earlier incident the victim reported
to the visitor. After savagely assaulting the victim, the Defendant smashed the victim’s car
window with a baseball bat and searched for money in the car before leaving the home.
From this evidence, a rational jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the
Defendant was attempting to commit a theft of money from the victim when he committed
the assault which cause her death. The evidence is sufficient to support the Defendant’s
conviction for first degree murder in the perpetration of theft.

        In reaching this conclusion, we have considered the Defendant’s argument that any
theft or attempted theft was too attenuated in time from the assault to form the predicate
offense for first degree murder in the perpetration of theft. The Defendant’s argument
relies on the earlier incident reported by the victim to a visitor as the predicate offense and

                                             -9-
overlooks the Defendant’s admission that he snapped and assaulted the victim, after which
he smashed the victim’s car window and searched for money. The circumstantial evidence
supports an inference, as well, that the altercation occurred not because of a purported
conflict about the Defendant’s marital relationship, but because of the Defendant’s desire
to take money from the victim after she thwarted his earlier efforts. The evidence
demonstrates that the Defendant’s intent to commit a theft “exist[ed] prior to or concurrent
with the commission of the act causing the death of the victim.” See State v. Buggs, 995
S.W.2d 102, 106 (Tenn. 1999). The Defendant is not entitled to relief on this basis.

                                             II

                     Altering, Destroying, or Fabricating Evidence

       The Defendant argues that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction for
altering, destroying, or fabricating evidence. The relevant statute provides: “It is unlawful
for any person, knowing that an investigation or official proceeding is pending or in
progress, to . . . [a]lter, destroy, or conceal any record, document or thing with intent to
impair its verity, legibility, or availability as evidence in the investigation or official
proceeding[.] T.C.A. § 39-16-503(a)(1) (2018).

       Our supreme court has said the proscriptive statute requires proof of three things:
timing, action, and intent. See State v. Hawkins, 406 S.W.3d 121, 132 (Tenn. 2013).
Relative to timing, the evidence must establish that the defendant acted with regard to the
evidence with knowledge “that investigation or official proceeding is pending or in
progress.” See T.C.A. § 39-16-503(a)(1); Hawkins, 406 S.W.3d at 132. A “pending”
investigation means one which is “impending.” State v. Smith, 436 S.W.3d 751, 763 (Tenn.
2014). “Action” is shown by a defendant’s altering, destroying, or concealing evidence.
Hawkins, 406 S.W.3d at 132. “Intent” requires that the defendant’s action relative to the
evidence in question was undertaken “‘with the intent to impair its verity, legibility, or
availability as evidence.’” Id. (quoting T.C.A. § 39-16-503(a)(1)).

       Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence shows that the victim
wore a pajama shirt when her daughter visited her home in the hours before the fatal
incident. The Defendant said in his recorded statement that the victim’s shirt had torn and
come off during their altercation. The shirt was not recovered by the authorities, and the
victim’s daughter thoroughly searched the home after the crimes but did not find the shirt.
In addition, the Defendant admitted that he had washed his hands after assaulting the
victim, and Luminol examination showed the presence of blood on a living room chair and
the sink knobs and a towel in the bathroom. The Defendant also admitted that he had wiped
up blood from the floor inside the home. He said, as well, that he moved the victim from
his bedroom to the living room couch and that he placed a comforter in the laundry room.
The evidence shows that the Defendant’s efforts to clean his hands and bloody surfaces in

                                            -10-
the home occurred after he violently assaulted the victim and before he eventually
summoned help for the victim. When the authorities arrived, he claimed an unidentified
third person had assaulted the victim while he had been elsewhere.

        Regarding the timing element, the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to
the State shows that the Defendant cleaned his hands and surfaces in the home when the
Defendant would have known that, as a result of his assault of the victim, an investigation
was impending. See Smith, 436 S.W.3d at 763. “Impend” means “to hover threateningly”
and “to be about to occur.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.). That the
Defendant undertook the actions before calling 9-1-1 is not determinative of whether an
investigation is impending. See Smith, 436 S.W.3d at 765 (evidence was sufficient to
support a conviction for fabricating evidence where the defendant knew an investigation
was “impending” when he moved the victim’s car to a remote location before calling 9-1-
1); State v. Sadegh Babanzadeh, No. M2017-02235-CCA-R3-CD, 2019 WL 102108, at *5
(Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 4, 2019) (evidence was sufficient to support tampering with
evidence conviction where the defendant conducted internet research about how to treat
the victim’s heroin overdose, told another person not to call 9-1-1 for medical help for the
victim, and cleaning up the apartment before he eventually called 9-1-1). Likewise, the
evidence showed that the Defendant took action. See Smith, 436 S.W.3d at 763. By the
Defendant’s own account, he washed his hands and cleaned surfaces in the home after
assaulting the victim. He also removed a comforter from the bedroom where the assault
occurred and moved the victim from a bedroom and placed her on the living room couch.
The evidence also showed circumstantially that the Defendant intended to impair the
integrity of the scene before he called 9-1-1 to get help for the victim. See id.

       The evidence is sufficient to support the Defendant’s conviction for altering,
destroying, or fabricating evidence. Cf. Clark v. Commonweath, 567 S.W.3d 565, 569-70
(Ky. 2019) (holding that the evidence of tampering with evidence was sufficient under a
statute similar to Tennessee’s where the defendant moved the victim’s body after the
shooting, the scene showed evidence that blood had been wiped from surfaces, and the
defendant asked to wash his hands when the homeowner arrived at the scene). In reaching
this conclusion, we assign no weight to the victim’s missing shirt. Although the victim
was found shirtless and the shirt was not found in the searches conducted by law
enforcement and the victim’s daughter, no evidence showed that the Defendant took any
action to destroy it or conceal it in order to frustrate the investigation. Cf. State v. Duran,
140 P.3d 515, 521 (N.M. 2006) (holding that the evidence was insufficient to support the
defendant’s tampering with evidence conviction where “no evidence of an overt act to
destroy or hide” evidence of the crime was offered).

                                             -11-
       In consideration of the foregoing and the record as a whole, the judgments are
affirmed.

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                                          ROBERT H. MONTGOMERY, JR., JUDGE

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