Appellant Nebula McNeely was convicted of two counts of felony murder and other offenses related to shoplifting and the deaths of two individuals arising from an automobile collision. The collision occurred when appellant and her accomplice were fleeing and attempting to elude a police officer after they had been confronted for shoplifting.1 For the reasons set forth below, we affirm in part with respect to the convictions, but we vacate in part, with respect to the separate sentence imposed for the conviction for felony fleeing and eluding, because we find, for purposes of sentencing, that conviction merged as a matter of law with the convictions for felony murder.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence shows appellant’s accomplice, Tiara Smith, drove her SUV into an intersection against a red light, causing a deadly automobile collision while speeding away from the scene where Smith and appellant had been involved in shoplifting. Smith was the girlfriend of appellant’s son. Appellant asked Smith to drive her to go shopping for a birthday gift. Three months earlier, appellant had been released from incarceration for shoplifting and other offenses, and Smith knew appellant intended to shoplift merchandise on the day in question. Without permission, appellant took along a friend’s six-year old daughter, who was used as a diversion during the shoplifting episode. At Marshall’s department store, a loss prevention detective observed the women place various items in a shopping cart. Leaving the cart inside, they then went outside to the parking lot where they reached into an SUV and dumped items out of a shopping bag. The women returned to the store with the empty bag, placed items previously collected in their cart into the shopping bag, and left the store without paying for them. The store detective had already alerted police, and she and the store manager followed the women out to the parking lot and confronted appellant about the merchandise. Appellant denied the items were stolen and started shoving the detective. Appellant refused the detective’s request to go back into the store. Instead, when she saw that Smith and the child had gotten into the SUV, appellant dropped the merchandise and jumped into the SUV, and the women drove away.
