Humphries v. State

The defendant's act of dragging his victim down a steep hill, to a darker and more isolated place, established the element of asportation under the Georgia kidnapping statute.

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Willie Humphries was found guilty by a jury of kidnapping with bodily injury, rape, aggravated sodomy, and aggravated assault. Following a hearing, the trial court denied Humphries’s motion for new trial. Humphries appeals, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence as to his kidnapping conviction and the admissibility of the detective’s testimony as to the victim’s injuries. Finding no error, we affirm. On appellate review of a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, and the defendant no longer enjoys the presumption of innocence.1 We do not weigh the evidence or judge the credibility of witnesses, but determine only if the evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find the defendant guilty of the offenses charged beyond a reasonable doubt.2

So viewed, the record reflects that on the evening of July 23, 2005, Melissa Costello went jogging with friends in Candler Park. After her friends returned to their house, Costello walked to the top of an open hill on the golf course near the club house, a lighted area. When she reached the top of the hill, she saw Humphries, who caught up with her, “grabbed both her arms,” and dragged her down the open, “pretty steep” hillside of the golf course and into a wooded area with a small creek. Costello testified that it was lighter toward the top of the hill where Humphries first grabbed her, but that “the light didn’t really make it” down to the wooded area, which was “pretty dark.” Humphries told her to take her pants and shoes off; when she resisted, he became angry and punched her “really hard” in the head. Humphries forced her to engage in oral sodomy; then he raped her. Thereafter he choked her repeatedly, so that eventually she blacked out. When she regained consciousness, Humphries still had her in a choke hold. She reached up and punched the side of his head, which so enraged him that he slammed her to the ground, breaking her collar bone.

Humphries v. State

The defendant's act of dragging his victim down a steep hill, to a darker and more isolated place, established the element of asportation under the Georgia kidnapping statute.

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