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State v. Hyatt6/28/2002
PUBLISHED
Roy Cooper, Attorney General, by Ellen B. Scouten, Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State.
Michael E. Casterline for defendant-appellant.
Terry Alvin Hyatt (defendant) was indicted on 3 May 1999 for the first-degree kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, first-degree rape, and first-degree murder of Harriett Delaney Simmons occurring on or about 15 April 1979 and for the first-degree kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, first-degree rape, and first-degree murder of Betty Sue McConnell occurring on or about 25 August 1979. Defendant was tried capitally at the 10 January 2000 session of Superior Court, Buncombe County. The jury returned verdicts of guilty for each charge, with the first-degree murder verdicts based on malice, premeditation, and deliberation and under the felony murder rule. At the conclusion of the capital sentencing proceeding, the jury recommended a sentence of death for the murder of Simmons and a sentence of death for the murder of McConnell, and the trial court entered judgment in accordance with these recommendations. The trial court also sentenced defendant to six consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the non-capital felony convictions.
The state's evidence presented at trial, as relevant to defendant's assignments of error, tended to show the following: At 1:00 a.m. on 14 April 1979, Simmons left her job in Raleigh and started driving to Nashville, Tennessee, to visit a friend. Simmons told her family that she expected to arrive in Nashville by 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. When she had not called by 10:30 a.m. the next day, her family called the residence of Simmons' friend in Tennessee and discovered that she had never arrived. They then notified the police that Simmons was missing.
On 20 April 1979, Ronald Wayne Dement, a family friend, decided to drive along the route he believed Simmons would have driven to Nashville. Dement found Simmons' car at a rest stop on Interstate 40 west of Statesville and observed that her suitcase and thermos were inside the car but that her keys and purse were missing. Following a search, Simmons could not be located in the area around the rest stop.
Almost one year after Simmons disappeared, the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department received a report that a skull and skeleton were spotted in a wooded area at the edge of the Pisgah National Forest near Highway 151 in Candler, North Carolina. A search of the area produced bones, clothing, jewelry, a set of car keys, other personal effects, and a short segment of silver duct tape. The personal items found were identified as belonging to Simmons. Billy Matthews, State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) Special Agent, matched the keys recovered at the scene to the number on the sales order made out to Simmons at the Toyota dealership where she purchased her car. Using dental records, the remains were positively identified as those of Simmons. An autopsy and examination of the skeletal remains revealed that death was caused by multiple stab wounds to the left chest made with a knife or knife-like object that would have penetrated the heart, lungs, or other vital organs.
The state's evidence regarding the McConnell case tended to show that around 11:30 p.m. on 24 August 1979, McConnell telephoned her mother from work to let her know she was meeting a friend at a local bowling alley in Asheville. During the early morning hours of 25 August 1979, Don and Sue Helms looked out the window of their home along the French Broad River in Asheville and saw a woman later identified as McConnell lying in a driveway. The woman had multiple stab wounds to her chest, extending from below her neck to her stomach.
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