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McKenzie v. State

The defendant fatally stabbed her husband in the chest with a knife.

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Following her trial, a Houston County jury found Sherronica Vo-Shay McKenzie guilty of voluntary manslaughter.1 McKenzie appeals, claiming that the trial court erred i in denying her motion to suppress her in-custody statements to police, ii in allowing the admission of evidence of prior difficulties between McKenzie and the victim, iii in allowing the admission of similar transaction evidence, and iv in denying her challenge to the State’s peremptory strikes of several potential jurors. She also contends that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction. For reasons that follow, we find no merit in McKenzie’s claims of error and affirm. Viewed in a light most favorable to the jury’s verdict,2 the evidence shows that McKenzie and her husband became involved in a heated argument on the morning of March 5, 2005, at their Warner Robins home. McKenzie told him to “get his stuff and get out.” According to the eyewitness testimony of McKenzie’s twelve-year-old son, after his step-father called his mother a “bitch,” she went into the kitchen and got a knife. She then began slapping her husband with one hand while holding the knife in the other. He responded by hitting McKenzie in the face with his fist, causing her to fall down and drop the knife. McKenzie grabbed the knife, rose, and stabbed her husband in the chest. He died later that day. The medical examiner identified two stab wounds on the husband’s body, one of which was fatal.

1. McKenzie claims that the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress her in-custody statements to police. We disagree.

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