Carlos Price and his vehicle were reported as missing. A few days later, the police discovered his body near the complex where he rented an apartment. At about that same time, authorities in Ohio arrested Quin Doctor because he was in possession of Price’s car. Doctor, who lived in an apartment across the hall from the victim, gave inconsistent statements about how he obtained the vehicle. However, he eventually admitted that he was in Price’s apartment when Price died. Appellant claimed that, after Price accidently choked to death, he removed the body and took the car. The grand jury indicted him on alternative counts of malice and felony murder, robbery by force of the vehicle, theft by taking of the automobile and concealing the death. He pled guilty to the charges of concealing the death and stealing the automobile. Thereafter, a jury found him guilty of the malice murder of Price and the robbery by force of Price’s vehicle. The trial court sentenced Doctor to life imprisonment for murder and to a consecutive 10-year term for concealing the death. Because the theft of the vehicle merged into the robbery as a matter of fact, the trial court imposed a 20-year sentence only for the latter offense. The trial court denied a motion for new trial, and Appellant brings this appeal.1
1. Doctor contends that the State failed to prove that a murder occurred. Although a defense expert testified that the death was accidental, the medical examiner expressed the contrary opinion that Price was a homicide victim. The jury was authorized to believe the State’s expert rather than Appellant’s. A conclusion that Price’s death resulted from an act of violence, and was not an accident, was consistent with the circumstantial evidence that a struggle took place in his apartment. The jury was authorized to find that Appellant was the other participant in the fight. He admitted being in the apartment at the time Price died and that he removed the body. He stole the victim’s car and gave conflicting accounts about how he obtained it. Construing the evidence most strongly in support of the verdict, it was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find proof beyond a reasonable doubt of Doctor’s guilt of the malice murder of Price. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979.
