A Cobb County jury found David Alvin Meeks guilty of burglary, OCGA § 16-7-1 a, and misdemeanor theft by taking, OCGA § § 16-8-2; 16-8-12 a 1. He appeals from the judgment of conviction,1 challenging the sufficiency of the evidence. We affirm. On appeal from a criminal conviction, the evidence must be construed in the light most favorable to the verdict, and the appellant no longer enjoys a presumption of innocence. An appellate court determines only the legal sufficiency of the evidence adduced below and does not weigh the evidence or assess the credibility of the witnesses. To sustain a conviction, the evidence must be sufficient to enable a rational trier of fact to find the appellant guilty of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt. Citations omitted. Railey v. State , 2005 Ga. App. Lexis 559 1 decided June 6, 2005. Viewed in this light, the evidence showed that on August 19, 2003, the victim resided in an apartment complex in Mableton, Georgia, and Meeks lived next door with his mother. That afternoon, the apartment complex owner saw Meeks squatting outside his mother’s apartment. Meeks had something wrapped around his hand. Shortly thereafter, the victim came home and discovered that his apartment had been burglarized and a 0.380 caliber pistol, valued at about $80, had been stolen from a drawer in his bedroom. The intruder had broken a kitchen window on the rear of the building to access the locked apartment, leaving blood on the window glass, the adjacent door, and throughout the house. The victim noticed blood inside the bedroom closet, on medicine bottles inside the closet, on furniture adjacent to the bed, on the bed, and in the drawer where the gun was stored.
A police officer arrived, inspected the victim’s apartment, and followed a trail of blood to Meeks’ apartment. The officer knocked on the apartment door and Meeks’ sister answered. She let the officer inside and told him Meeks was asleep in his bedroom. After waking Meeks for questioning, the officer observed lacerations to Meeks’ right hand and that he appeared “kind of groggy,” disoriented, and confused. According to the officer, Meeks did not appear to be intoxicated, and the officer did not smell any odor of alcohol coming from Meeks. The officer asked Meeks how he injured his hand and Meeks said that he had gotten mad and punched a wall. When asked about the burglary, Meeks denied knowing anything about it. The officer observed blood droplets in the hall, kitchen, and bedroom of Meeks’ apartment. The officer arrested Meeks. While in the patrol car, Meeks told his sister that he did not know if he took the gun, but if he did, he did not know what he did with it. According to Meeks’ sister, sometime within the two weeks after Meeks was arrested, he told her that if she found the gun, she should throw it away.
