Commonwealth v. Page

59 A.3d 1118

2013 PA Super 2

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania,

v.William PAGE, Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted Oct. 2, 2012.

Filed Jan. 7, 2013.

Suzanne M. Swan, Public Defender, and Victoria H. Vidt, Public Defender, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

Michael W. Streily, Deputy District Attorney, Rebecca Good McBride, Assistant District Attorney, Pittsburgh, for Commonwealth, appellee.

BEFORE: BENDER, DONOHUE, and STRASSBURGER,^* JJ.

OPINION BY STRASSBURGER, J.:

Appellant, William Page, appeals from the judgment of sentence of life in prison after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder, kidnapping, aggravated indecent assault of a child, and false reports to law enforcement. ¹ Appellant has also filed a motion to strike a document from the certified record. After careful review, we deny the motion and affirm Appellant's judgment of sentence.²

The trial court summarized the underlying facts as follows.

In February of 2007, [Appellant] was living with his girlfriend, [D.R.], and her six year old son, [X.H.] and their twenty-three month old daughter, [Victim], [in the Borough of Braddock]. Also living in this house was [Appellant's] mother, Mary Ann Page, her boyfriend, Shauntaz, and [Appellant's] brother, James Page. [Appellant] and [D.R.] shared a bedroom on the third floor and across the hall from them, [X.H.] and [Victim] shared a bedroom. On the second floor, [Appellant's] mother and her boyfriend shared one bedroom and [Appellant's] brother, James, used the other bedroom. The first floor consisted of the living room, kitchen and bathroom. One-half of the basement was used for a laundry room and the other half was used for [Appellant's] “dungeon.” [Appellant] had a chair, mattress, television and Play Station games set up in this area and that is where he would go to watch his pornographic movies.

On February 3, 2007, at approximately 7:00 a.m., [X.H.] went into his mother's bedroom and asked her where [Victim] was. [D.R.] told him that [Victim] was in their bedroom and that he should go back to his room. [X.H.] told his mother that [Victim] was not there and then [D.R.] and [Appellant] both got up and got dressed and went through the house looking for [Victim] but were unable to locate her. [Appellant] went outside, went around the premises and could not locate her and then came back in, dialed 911 on a portable phone and then gave the phone to [D.R.] so that she could tell the police that her twenty-three month old daughter was missing.

James Caterino, (hereafter referred to as “Caterino”), a part-time Braddock police officer, was the first police officer to arrive on the scene. Caterino was met by the residents of the house and he noticed that [D.R.] was hysterical about her missing daughter and, yet, [Appellant] seemed emotionless since he had no expression and he did not appear to be upset. Officer Latisha Cassidy, (hereinafter referred to as “Cassidy”), of the Rankin Police Department, arrived on the scene to assist the Braddock Police and she sat with [Appellant] for an extended period of time and she also noted that he appeared to be emotionless. The Braddock Police Department contacted the Allegheny County Police Department and asked for assistance since they did not have sufficient manpower to conduct an intensive search for this missing child. In addition to contacting the Allegheny County Police, the Braddock Police Department put out an Amber Alert for [Victim].

Detectives Dennis Kozlowski, (hereinafter referred to as “Kozlowski”), and Michael Caruso, (hereinafter referred to as “Caruso”), from the Allegheny County Police conducted the initial interviews with residents of [Appellant's] household. In light of the frantic atmosphere in the house, it was decided that it was best to remove all of these individuals from the house so that an extensive search of the house could be made and also to enable them to conduct more in-depth interviews with each of the residents. Before the residents were removed from the house, a cursory search of the house was made. In the dungeon area of the basement, the police found a Steelers' Terrible Towel soaked through with blood. They found a child's t-shirt also soaked with blood. In addition, they found women's underwear soaked with blood and a mattress cover and sheet that covered a mattress also having blood stains. While they were collecting this evidence, [Appellant] told the police that a non-functioning blue electric blanket was missing from the basement area.

From February 3, 2007 through February 7, 2007, the Braddock Police, the Allegheny County Police, and the FBI, which had been called in as a result of the disappearance of [Victim], repeatedly interviewed [Appellant]. The Braddock Police interviewed [Appellant] at his residence shortly after they arrived after receiving the call about [Victim's] disappearance. After all of the residents were removed from the house, [Appellant] was taken to the Braddock Police Department where Caruso initially interviewed him. [Appellant] was then transported to the Allegheny County Police Headquarters where he was interviewed by Detective Edward Adams, (hereinafter referred to as “Adams”), and later reinterviewed by Detective Edward Fischer, (hereinafter referred to as “Fischer”). All of the other residents of the house were repeatedly interviewed, including [X.H.]. [X.H.] was interviewed because he was the last person to have seen [Victim] alive and during the course of this forensic interview, [X.H.] told Dr. Silver that [Appellant] had touched him inappropriately shortly before [Victim] followed [Appellant] out of their bedroom. County Detectives Gregory Matthews, (hereinafter referred to as “Matthews”), and Fischer observed Dr. Silver's interview of [X.H.] through a two-way glass and as a result of this allegation, decided to reinterview [Appellant].

[Appellant] was brought to the Allegheny County Police headquarters and initially was interviewed by Adams. Prior to asking [Appellant] any questions, Adams advised him of his Miranda³ Rights and had [Appellant] sign the County Miranda Warnings Form. Matthews and Fischer then interviewed [Appellant] approximately two and one-half hours later and these Detectives advised him of the claim made by [X.H.], which claim [Appellant] denied. The Detectives conducted their interview and at the conclusion of that interview, [Appellant] then said to him that he would check the woods by the railroad track. [Appellant] was arrested and charged with the crime of indecent assault of a child and was transported to the Allegheny County Jail. While [Appellant] was being transported to the Allegheny County Jail, he was asked if he would be willing to speak to the FBI and [Appellant] said he would be.

On February 4, 2007, [Appellant] was interviewed by Agent John Kelly, (hereinafter referred to as “Kelly”), of the FBI at the FBI headquarters. Kelly did not Mirandize [Appellant] since he had been advised that [Appellant] had previously been Mirandized. In the course of that interview, [Appellant] told Kelly that he believed that the blue blanket had something to do with [Victim] and he did not believe that a stranger had something to do with this but, rather, he suggested that the FBI should look at friends of his brother or friends of his mother's boyfriend. At the conclusion of this interview [Appellant] put his head down and began to cry; however, Kelly noticed no tears and believed that this was an act put on for his benefit.

While the FBI was interviewing [Appellant], the more than one hundred police officers and volunteers were still canvassing the area in and around [Appellant's] residence in Braddock. From the command post that had been set up, search teams were dispatched to various areas and were told to work a grid in searching for [Victim]. Allegheny County Police Detective Timothy Stetzer, (hereinafter referred to as “Stetzer”), was working with five other FBI agents in a grid that had been assigned to him. On the morning of February 4, they found a diaper on the railroad tracks that traversed the grid. They took this diaper into evidence and when it was brought to the command site, it was determined that this diaper was similar to the diapers that [Appellant] and [D.R.] had purchased on February 2, 2007. At approximately 2:00 p.m. on February 4, Stetzer and his team continued their search and as they were walking the grid area, they came to a hollow or ravine and Stetzer discovered a broken, wooden step and staircase that led to a wooded area and overgrown basketball courts that were no longer used. Stetzer and his team began to walk this area when one of the FBI agents yelled out that he thought he saw a blue blanket. Because of Stetzer's location, he was the first individual to arrive at the blanket and they noticed that it was a blue blanket with electrical wires. Since they had been alerted that a blue blanket might be with [Victim], they continued to search this area, only to discover the body of [Victim] facedown, frozen to the ground. She was clad only in a maroon-striped sweater. The temperature during the period of February 2 through February 4, was in the single digits and the wind-chill factor reached minus nine degrees.

Following the discovery of [Victim's] body, Detective Andrew Sherman, (hereinafter referred to as “Sherman”), went to the FBI headquarters where [Appellant] was being interviewed for a second time. Sherman had been advised that [Appellant] had been Mirandized again and then told [Appellant] that they had found his daughter and that she was dead. [Appellant] reacted by trying to cry, however, he had no tears. This was noted by all of the individuals who were present in the room with him. [Appellant] then told Sherman what happened. [Appellant] said that in the early hours of February 3, he was down in his dungeon when he encountered [Victim] on the first floor. He told her to get back in bed and when she did not, ...