Arthur Scott, also known as Dan Scott, was tried before a jury and found guilty of two counts of aggravated battery and three counts of aggravated assault, for acts directed at his common law wife. At sentencing, two counts of aggravated assault Counts 4 and 6 were merged with related counts for aggravated battery. He appeals from the denial of his amended motion for new trial, enumerating 1 the admission of hearsay testimony, 2 the admission of evidence of an extrinsic act for which he had been tried and acquitted, and 3 the sufficiency of the evidence. Finding no harmful error, we affirm. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdicts, the evidence revealed that, on February 9, 1997, at 2:34 p.m., Scott telephoned 911 and reported that, on the night before, an armed robber had hit Scott’s wife, Susan Ann Sims, with a gun. When an officer arrived at Scott’s residence, he noticed Ms. Sims’ face was severely swollen, with dried blood. Scott claimed that he had been robbed of $2,000 around 4:00 a.m. and that during this robbery, Ms. Sims had been severely beaten. Although the victim did not initially dispute this account, once out of Scott’s presence, she confided to the officer that her injuries had been administered by Scott. In addition to Sims’ swollen left eye, and the lacerations and indentations to her forehead and scalp, the officer observed burn marks, scalding and blistering on her thigh, abdomen and breast areas. The victim’s oldest child, then six-year-old Mercedes, volunteered to the officer that it was Scott who struck her mother with a gun.
Scott had lived with Sims for seven years and was the father of her children. On the evening in question, she and Scott had been to a wake from 8:00 p.m. until midnight. Each had been drinking, and on the way home, they got into an argument, with Scott cursing Sims and wrongly accusing her of taking money from him. When they got home, the argument turned violent: Scott started beating Sims with his fists and hands, actually striking her about ten or fifteen times. Scott then picked up his pistol and struck Sims on the top of her head seven or eight times. When the beating stopped, Sims walked toward the bathroom and Scott put the pistol to her head and told her to get in the shower. When she got in, Scott turned on scalding hot water. Steaming hot water splashed on her thigh, her stomach, and her breast. Sims required stitches for her head wounds and skin grafts for her third-degree burns. She sustained nerve damage and lost feeling in the top of her head, and has permanent scars and memory lapses.
