After a jury trial, Appellant Amy Elizabeth Walden was found guilty of the malice and felony murder of her husband Johnny Clint Walden, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, concealing the death of another, and two counts of cruelty to children in the second degree. The felony murder verdict was vacated by operation of law, and the trial court entered judgments of conviction on the remaining guilty verdicts. Appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment for the malice murder, consecutive terms of ten years for concealing the death of another and five years for the weapons charge, and ten-year terms for each count of cruelty to children to run concurrent with each other but consecutive to the other sentences. A motion for new trial was denied, and Appellant appeals. 1. Construed most strongly in support of the verdicts, the evidence shows that the victim had shown Appellant how to shoot a gun resembling the one which caused his death. Appellant lied to the victim about the extremely large debts which she had incurred. He threatened to divorce her, and she had once told a family member that she would kill him before going through another divorce. The victim was killed in his house by a single gunshot to his head. The State’s pathologist testified that the autopsy showed the absence of any contact wound and that he determined that the manner of death was homicide.
After the victim’s death, Appellant, who was the only adult in the house, moved and covered up the victim’s body, kept it in the house, and stayed there with her two young children for nearly three days, except for a few hours when they stayed with the victim’s father while Appellant cleaned house. During those three days, Appellant repeatedly lied to the victim’s relatives regarding his whereabouts and refused to let them enter the house. Eventually, the police were called, the stench from the decomposing body was overwhelming, and Appellant, appearing unconcerned, admitted that the victim was dead. Although Appellant told police and testified at trial that the victim had committed suicide, she made inconsistent and incriminating statements to one cellmate that the victim was accidentally shot during a fight over finances and to another cellmate that she purposely shot him after having sex with him.
