Appellant Darrell Crowder seeks review of his convictions for murder and related crimes for the shooting death of his estranged wife Catcilia Crowder.1 The trial record shows in a light most favorable to the verdict that in the pre-dawn hours of January 16, 2008, the 16 year-old daughter of appellant and the victim found the victim shot to death in a bathtub in her home. When police arrived at approximately 4:54 a.m. in response to the daughter’s 911 call, they discovered the back door of the residence had been kicked-in and they found multiple bullet holes and multiple shell casings from a .45 caliber weapon in multiple rooms of the house. The door to the bedroom and the door to the interior bathroom where the victim was found were also damaged by forced entry. A friend of the victim’s daughter, who had spent the night, slept through the incident; however, the daughter heard the door being kicked-in and hid in a bedroom. The daughter also heard three gunshots and footsteps as the perpetrator left the house, but she did not see the perpetrator or hear his voice. After she called police, the daughter attempted to call appellant, but he did not return her call which she testified was unusual. The police found .45 caliber shell casings at appellant’s mother’s house where appellant was residing at the time police went to interview him. A firearms identification expert testified that all of the shell casings and bullets recovered during the investigation, including those recovered at the scene and at the mother’s house, were fired from the same .45 caliber gun. Appellant’s stepson testified that appellant kept multiple guns, including a .45 caliber gun. The medical examiner recovered a .45 caliber bullet from the victim’s head and testified the victim was shot three times and died from two gunshot wounds to her head.
At the time of the shooting appellant was employed at a post office facility in Atlanta and worked an overnight shift from 11 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. On January 15, the night before the murder, appellant clocked in for his shift on time. A co-worker testified that appellant took his regular lunch break around 3 a.m. on January 16, but stated appellant did not return to his workstation within thirty minutes as normal. Appellant was not seen again in the workplace until close to 6 a.m. When he returned to his workstation, appellant asked his co-worker to hold onto his cell phone. The State introduced cell phone records placing appellant in Newton County on the morning of the shooting, rather than at his job in Atlanta, and showing exchanges of insulting text messages between appellant and the victim. The last text sent by appellant at 4:18 a.m. said “You are boo thru.” In her last text, sent at 4:24 a.m., the victim called appellant a “child molester.” Days before the murder, the victim had become aware of an allegation that appellant had molested a young cousin years ago while that cousin was living with appellant and the victim. When the victim went to confront appellant about the allegation, he was not home and she had a confrontation with appellant’s mother and one of his female cousins. One of the couple’s daughters testified that the allegation was a source of tension between her already estranged parents in the days before the victim’s death. In addition to this family dispute, the State introduced evidence of two incidents of prior difficulties between appellant and the victim: a witness testified to a prior difficulty during which appellant pointed a gun at the victim’s head and threatened her life; and in another incident witnessed by a police officer, appellant drove his car into the victim’s car and then, when he was being taken into custody, appellant made a threat on the victim’s life.
