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North Carolina v. Thomas11/19/1992
MEYER, Justice.
On 12 March 1990, defendant was indicted for the first-degree sexual offense and first-degree murder of Talana Quay Kreeger. Defendant was tried capitally in Superior Court, New Hanover County, in February and March 1991 and was found guilty of all charges. The jury returned verdicts finding defendant guilty of first-degree sexual offense, as well as first-degree murder based on the theories of premeditated and deliberated murder and felony murder. Following a sentencing proceeding conducted pursuant to N.C.G.S. ยง 15A-2000, the jury determined that the fourteen mitigating circumstances found were sufficient to outweigh the two aggravating circumstances found and accordingly recommended a sentence of life imprisonment. In accordance with the jury's recommendation, the trial court sentenced defendant to life imprisonment for murder, as well as a consecutive life sentence for the first-degree sexual offense conviction.
On appeal, defendant brings forward numerous assignments of error. After a thorough review of the transcript of the proceedings, record on appeal, briefs, and oral arguments, we conclude
that defendant received a fair trial, free of prejudicial error, and we therefore affirm his convictions and sentences.
The evidence presented by the State tended to show the following facts and circumstances. On the evening of 21 February 1990 at approximately 11:00 or 11:30 p.m., defendant, a long-distance truck driver, stopped at the park View Grill, a bar in Wilmington. Wanda Whitley, the owner of the Park View Grill, and Talana Kreeger, the victim, were sitting at the bar discussing plans for the next day to remodel the back room of the bar. Kreeger was a carpenter who worked for Laney Builders and worked odd jobs on the side. Heidi Crossley, Whitley's roommate, was also at the bar. Defendant was seated two seats away from Crossley, and during the evening, they began to converse. At some point, defendant and Crossley went into the back room to shoot pool. Later in the evening, Whitley and the victim went to the back room, and Whitley commented on defendant's truck. Defendant offered Whitley and the victim his keys to go look at his truck. After looking at the truck, Whitley and the victim returned to the bar.
When the bar closed that evening, the victim, Whitley, Crossley, and defendant discussed going to get something to eat. Whitley suggested they go to Hardee's on Carolina Beach Road, which was roughly one and a half to two miles away. At approximately 1:30 a.m., the victim and defendant left in his truck. The victim went with defendant because she had never ridden in a tractor-trailer truck before. Crossley left immediately after defendant and the victim and stopped at her house briefly before going to Hardee's. When she did not see anyone at Hardee's, she went home and went to sleep.
Whitley left Park View Grill approximately ten or fifteen minutes after the victim and defendant. When Whitley got to Hardee's, she found no one there. Whitley immediately began looking for the truck defendant was driving. After searching during the early morning hours of 22 February 1990, without success, she called Hoggard High School because she recalled that defendant had said he had a fruit delivery to make to the school. While on the phone, Whitley spoke to a man who was identified to her as a trucker making a delivery at Hoggard High School and who said his name was Ron. Ron denied knowing her friend Talana Kreeger or having been in the Park View Grill the previous night. Whitley eventually went to Hoggard High School and spoke with Jerry Cribbs,
who showed her a bill of lading that had
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