Melvin Tyrone Mearidy was convicted of malice murder, aggravated battery, burglary, aggravated assault and cruelty to children arising out of the knifing death of Teleasia Tucker and the stabbing of Kydran Antwand Jenkins in the presence of Mearidy’s seven-year-old daughter. He appeals from the denial of his motion for new trial1 challenging only the sufficiency of the evidence to support the malice murder verdict. Construed to support the verdicts, the evidence established that Tucker, who had two children with Mearidy, had recently ended their relationship and become involved with Jenkins. On the day of the crimes, Mearidy went to Tucker’s home, entered it by climbing through a window and went into the kitchen where he armed himself with a butcher knife. Mearidy then allowed Diamond, his seven-year-old daughter, to go with him into the back bedroom where Tucker and Jenkins were in bed together. According to Jenkins’s testimony, Mearidy would not allow anyone to leave and, when Tucker stood up from the bed, Mearidy stabbed Jenkins in the shoulder. Although Jenkins had difficulty remembering what occurred after that injury and the following stab wound he received in the side, which left Jenkins’s intestines “hanging out,” Jenkins recalled that he was able to jump backwards out of the window and that, as he was escaping, Mearidy took Diamond, who was holding onto her mother, “threw her by the door and grabbed Tucker and stabbed her in the stomach.” Expert testimony established that Tucker was fatally stabbed in the chest near the base of her neck.
Mearidy gave a statement to police officers in which he claimed that “his mind went blank” after seeing Jenkins’s car behind Tucker’s home; he entered the bedroom and allowed Jenkins to leave but, when Jenkins voluntarily returned, Mearidy’s mind went “blank again” after he noticed a ring on Tucker’s finger; that, “before he knew what happened, he had cut” Jenkins; and he then stabbed Tucker after making the decision to commit suicide, which he was subsequently unable to do.
