Ingram v. State

Appellant Lonnie Ingram appeals his conviction for murder and related crimes.1 Finding that the evidence supports appellant’s convictions, and finding no merit to appellant’s claims of error regarding certain evidentiary matters, we affirm. In June 1986, the body of Dennis Guittar was found floating in the Etowah River. The victim’s body was identified from an acrylic plate that had been placed in his skull years earlier following an unrelated accident. An autopsy revealed that the acrylic plate had been fractured into several pieces, as had the area of skull located behind the plate. The cause of death was identified as blunt force trauma to the head and/or drowning.

Police interviewed three individuals who had seen appellant, appellant’s ex-wife, co-defendants Pilgram and Jones, and the victim at a tavern on the night the victim disappeared. Appellant and his co-defendants gave statements to police admitting they were at the tavern on that particular night, but they denied having socialized with the victim. A fourth individual, Duncan, told police he had ridden in a car with the victim, appellant and the co-defendants on the night the victim disappeared, and that the victim had been run over by a car. Finally, witness Ross contacted police and said that he had overheard appellant describe how he had helped to forcibly rob the victim and then dispose of the body after one of the co-defendants had beaten the victim to death.