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Ganaway v. State

The defendant stabbed the unarmed victim to death with a 9-inch knife.

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In 2001, a Fulton County jury convicted Juahl Ganaway of felony murder and aggravated assault in connection with the stabbing death of Hugh G. Wells, III. Ganaway appeals, arguing that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support the verdict and that the indictment did not allege, nor was the jury instructed, that the predicate felony of aggravated assault required a finding of intent to commit a violent injury. Finding no merit in these arguments, we affirm.1 1. The evidence presented at trial would have enabled a rational trier of fact to find as follows. Ganaway and Wells met at work in December 1998 and dated for the next six months before breaking up. On June 26, 1999, following a failed attempt at reconciliation, Wells left Ganaway’s apartment in Atlanta and descended the stairs to the parking lot to retrieve his vehicle. Ganaway ran down the stairs after him into the parking lot brandishing a nine-inch knife in her hand. A neighbor saw Ganaway and shouted for Wells to run, but Wells instead turned to face Ganaway. Wells did not strike Ganaway, pull a weapon on her, or yell at her.

When Wells turned to face her, Ganaway shrieked, “I told you,” and stabbed at him several times with the knife. She made contact twice. The first blow sliced all the way through Wells’s forearm. The second slashed his throat and severed his aorta before piercing his esophagus and puncturing his right lung. Witnesses saw Wells fall to the ground with blood streaming from his neck. One witness chased Ganaway back upstairs to her apartment but desisted when she turned on him and threatened to stab him too with the bloody knife in her hand. When the police arrived, they found Wells lying dead on the ground in a large pool of blood. The only items nearby were his keychain and a small pocket knife that was closed.

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