Henry Sheffield, Jr. appeals his conviction for malice murder in connection with the strangulation of Janice Cunningham. He challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to corroborate his inculpatory statement to police and the sufficiency of the evidence to support the element of intent to kill the victim. Finding the challenges to be without merit, we affirm.1 On January 1, 2005, Janice Cunningham was found dead at an abandoned Clayton County gas station, where she often stayed. Her body was nude from the waist down. She had been raped and manually strangled. The prior evening, Cunningham was seen at the gas station drinking beer with a man whom witnesses were able to describe in detail. On January 7, 2005, police responded to a report that Sheffield had been acting suspiciously at a memorial vigil for Cunningham. Police approached him and a detective told Sheffield that he resembled the man seen with Cunningham. Sheffield became nervous and evasive, so police took him in for questioning. After being advised of his Miranda 2 rights, Sheffield admitted that he had been drinking beer with Cunningham on the night of December 31, 2004. He related that Cunningham became angry and attacked him with a piece of broken glass when he brought up the subject of sex. He stated that he grabbed her by the neck and that she was gasping for air. Although he maintained that Cunningham was still breathing, he admitted that he panicked and ran because “she wasn’t moving.” He also admitted that he ejaculated on Cunningham, but denied any vaginal penetration.
1. Sheffield contends that the State did not present any evidence to corroborate his “confession,” which he maintains was all that connected him to the crimes.3 However, such contention, fails to take into account the difference between an admission and a confession. In the former only one or more facts entering into the criminal act are admitted, while in the latter the entire criminal act is confessed. The reason confessions must be corroborated is to ameliorate the danger of a coerced confession or the confession of a mentally unbalanced person providing the entire proof used to convict a defendant. Admissions, on the other hand, do not admit every element of the offense, leaving on the State the burden of proving some elements of the offense by evidence other than the admissions. That evidence need not corroborate the admissions, but must provide proof of those elements of the offense not admitted. Lowe v. State , 267 Ga. 180, 181 4 476 SE2d 583 1996Internal citations and quotation marks omitted.. Inasmuch as Sheffield did not admit every element of the charged offenses, his statements to police are more accurately characterized as admissions, rather than confessions.4