Following a jury trial, Samuel Jennings was convicted of malice murder and concealing the death of another person in connection with the shooting death of Sean Craven.1 On appeal Jennings contends, among other things, that the trial court erred in charging the jury on parties to a crime; that the trial court erred with respect to certain evidentiary matters; and that his trial counsel was ineffective. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. 1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, the record reveals that, after Craven and Jennings, a convicted felon, exchanged several phone calls on February 12, 2003, Craven went to Covington Walk Apartments to record some music. Jennings was a rap music producer, and Craven had gone to Jennings’ apartment in the past to record music. Craven did not return home on the night of February 12, 2003, and his mother filed a missing persons report. On February 23, 2003, Craven’s girlfriend and Craven’s mother found Craven’s car at Covington Walk Apartments. On April 22, 2003, two apartment maintenance workers found Craven’s badly decomposed body —with a gunshot wound to the head and wrapped in duct tape and a comforter —in the patio storage closet of the apartment that had been rented by Jennings. There was no evidence of a break-in at the apartment, and the level of decomposition of Craven’s body was consistent with his death having occurred around February 12, 2003.
David Nixon, a mutual friend of Jennings and Craven, testified that Jennings told him around mid-February 2003 that Jennings had to move out of his apartment immediately. Nixon further testified that he heard another person, and a loud “thump,” in Jennings’ apartment at the time that Craven would have been there. Nixon also testified that he saw another person, not Craven, at Jennings’ apartment who was telling Jennings to “hurry up” a few days after Craven had disappeared. Shortly after that day, Nixon spoke with Jennings by telephone, and Jennings informed Nixon that he was in New York. Nixon told Jennings at that time that he had been approached by the police and that the police were looking for Jennings. Jennings did not speak with Nixon after that day. Evidence was also introduced at trial that Jennings pawned certain music equipment that had been owned by Craven.
