After a jury convicted him of attempted premeditated murder
in violation of California Penal Code §§ 164 & 189, and he was sentenced to
“an indeterminate life term with the possibility of parole, plus a 13–year
determinate term”, Lawrence Hoagland appealed.
People v. Hoagland, 2013 WL
5636474 (California Court of Appeals 2013).
On appeal, he argued that the jury’s
verdict “was based on speculation.” People v. Hoagland, supra.
As to how the charge arose, the opinion says that, at
“[a]round 4:30 p.m.” on
September 23, 2010, Connie Hoagland was
severely injured when a pipe bomb inside her truck exploded as she turned on
the ignition. . . . At the time . . . [Lawrence] and Connie had been married
for 25 years. They were living in the family home with their two adult
daughters, their high-school-age son, and their three-year-old grandson.
In the months before the crime, [Lawrence]
and Connie were experiencing serious financial problems, and in early 2010 they
filed for bankruptcy. During this
time period, their relationship was `distant.’ Connie suspected [he] was having
an affair, but when she confronted him about this he assured her he was
committed to their relationship.
On the morning of September 8, 2010, Connie
drove [him] to the airport for a flight to Pennsylvania for a purported
business trip. That evening, as she was driving home in her truck from an
errand, she had to take a detour because the street she had driven on en route
to her errand was blocked off, and there were police and fire personnel there.
The police had evacuated the area after several individuals observed a pipe
bomb in the street. The bomb consisted of a pipe affixed to a piece of
cardboard in a Federal Express envelope with a cell phone attached. Before the
police arrived, bystanders on the street saw cars drive over the bomb.
When the police viewed the bomb, the
envelope was `roughed up,’ and an alligator clip apparently used in the bomb
was lying in the street. The police rendered the bomb safe with a robot, and
determined [it] was designed to explode when a person called the cell phone
attached to the bomb.
There were pieces of duct tape with loose ends on the
bomb. After the September 23 bomb explosion in Connie's truck, authorities
examined the exterior underside of her truck and found what appeared to be a
duct tape residue mark in the area of the driver's side floorboard.
People v. Hoagland,
supra.
under the steering column of her truck.
She meant to tell [Lawrence] about it, but the wire was later gone and she
forgot about it. On the morning of the [23rd], Connie again noticed
a wire hanging from the steering column when she got in the truck with her son,
and asked her son to remind her to tell [Lawrence] about it.
When she arrived
at work that morning, she locked the truck with the remote `chirper’ device. At
the end of her day shortly after 4:00 p.m., [Lawrence] called her and said he
would be home at 5:30 p.m. Connie perceived this call as odd because she
usually had to call him to ask if she should eat dinner without him.
When Connie went out to her truck, she
pressed the remote device to unlock it. She noticed the truck appeared to be
unlocked already because the device did not make the sound it typically makes
at unlocking. Connie was the primary driver of the truck, but [Lawrence] had
access to an extra truck key and he occasionally drove [it].
When Connie started the ignition, the pipe bomb
in her vehicle exploded. Connie felt `excruciating pain’ in her feet and legs.
A bystander helped her out of the truck and called 911.
People v. Hoagland,
supra.
Police investigated and concluded that “someone built a pipe
bomb and wired the truck for the bomb, at some point placed the bomb in the
driver's side dashboard area of the truck” and, on September 23rd, “connected
the wire to a fuse.” People v. Hoagland,
supra. When Connie turned on the ignition, “the circuit was complete and the
bomb exploded.” People v. Hoagland, supra.
As a result of the explosion, Connie suffered
extensive injuries to her feet and
lower legs, including serious lacerations, tissue avulsions, and exposed bones.
She underwent numerous surgeries and was unable to walk for a substantial
period of time.
At the time of trial about one and one-half years later, she
had extensive scarring; a rod in her foot and one in her tibia; permanent nerve
damage to her foot; and toes that did not bend. Also, her hearing was affected.
. . .
People v. Hoagland,
supra.
Police investigated and concluded that Lawrence was
responsible both for the
September 8 pipe bomb found in his
neighborhood and the September 23 pipe bomb that exploded in his wife's truck.
An AT & T cell phone attached to the September 8 bomb (the `bomb phone’)
showed that on September 7 between 8:36 and 9:44 p.m. there were 18 incoming
missed calls from a Verizon cell phone (the `calling phone’).
Both the bomb phone and the calling
phone were prepaid phones for which there was no subscriber record. The calling
phone was activated on September 5 and the bomb phone was activated on
September 6. In [Lawrence’s] wallet, police found a paper from AT & T
setting forth the phone number for the bomb phone, and a paper from Verizon
setting forth the phone number for the calling phone.
The September 7 phone calls from the calling phone
to the bomb phone were transmitted via Verizon and AT & T cell phone towers
located about two to five blocks from [his] place of business. Also, at about 9:00 p.m. on September 7, [Lawrence]
made a call from his personal AT & T cell phone, and the call was
transmitted from the same AT & T cell phone tower near his work.
People v. Hoagland,
supra.
At trial, the prosecution presented evidence showing that
the bomb in Connie’s truck
included alligator clips among its
components. The authorities contacted numerous stores in San Diego County to
determine whether they carried the type of alligator clips found among the
exploded bomb debris, and the only store that sold them was Fry's Electronics. [Lawrence’s]
bank records showed that on September 21 . . . he purchased several items with
his debit card at Fry's Electronics.
Fry's Electronics records showed that
about one minute before [his] debit card purchase, a person paid cash for
alligator clips from the same cashier at the same cash register.
People v. Hoagland,
supra.
Lawrence and “his business partner Coit” owned a commercial
photography business and were the only ones who worked there. People
v. Hoagland, supra. Coit thought
Lawrence might “have been involved in” the explosion, so he “looked at” the
browser history on their business
computer and discovered that on the morning of September 3 there were 22
searches for YouTube videos related to building pipe bombs, including a cell
phone activated bomb. Coit and [Lawrence] were the only persons who used this
computer.
Coit contacted the authorities, and shortly thereafter [Lawrence] was
arrested. When the authorities examined [his] home computer, they found a
backup for his iPad showing searches on the night of September 3 entitled
`”cell phone detonator”’ and ‘”make mobile phone bomb.”’
People v. Hoagland,
supra.
Lawrence and Connie had an insurance policy that would pay
him $300,000 on her death. People v.
Hoagland, supra. At the time of
the bombing, they had “about $75,000 in credit card debt” plus “their mortgage
debt was about $100,000 higher than the value of the house.” People
v. Hoagland, supra. After the
bombing, Coit discovered that their business “owed about $40,000 in back
taxes.” People v. Hoagland, supra.
In a footnote, the court explains that Coit thought Lawrence
might be having an
affair with someone in Pennsylvania
because [he] made numerous trips there; started having long, private cell phone
conversations while at work; and Coit saw on the business's computer an e-mail
indicating [he] was looking for work in Pennsylvania and an e-mail with a
picture of Rupert and her children at the beach.
People v. Hoagland,
supra.
“Lee Ann Rupert,” the Pennsylvania woman with whom Lawrence
was having an affair, testified for the prosecution at his trial. People v. Hoagland, supra. She said they have
been having an affair “since 2007”, but there was “`a lot of stress’” in their
relationship in the summer of 2010 because another man was interested in her
and she doubted he was sincere about leaving his wife and marrying her. People
v. Hoagland, supra.
When he was with her in Pennsylvania
September 8-17, he had a job interview. People v. Hoagland, supra. He texted her after returning to California, and on
September 22 sent a message that said, in part, “’”Now things are moving faster
and picking up speed. . . . The start of the life I have wanted and needed and
waited for is very real.”’” People v.
Hoagland, supra.
When he testified at trial, Lawrence denied that he was the person
who accessed the
bomb-making websites on his and Coit's
business computer on the morning of September 3; denied he called the cell
phone numbers on the papers in his wallet; and denied he had anything to do
with the pipe bombs. He claimed the cell phone numbers were given to him by a transient
named Jerry who, with [Lawrence’s] permission, had parked his motor home behind
the photography studio in exchange for guarding the studio at night.
When [he]
spoke with Jerry and asked him to `watch out for the place,’ Jerry gave [Lawrence]
the two cell phone numbers, one belonging to Jerry and the other to Jerry's
wife.
[Lawrence] admitted that on September
21 he purchased alligator clips from Fry's Electronics using cash. He claimed
he was going to use [them] to construct a static electricity ground while
installing memory on a work computer, and used cash with the plan to reimburse
himself from his business's petty cash fund.
[He] also admitted that on the
night of September 3 he did Internet searches on his home iPad related to
making bombs. He claimed he did this after watching a television show called
“’Burn Notice’” because he wanted to look up if something on the show was
actually feasible.
People v. Hoagland, supra.
The Court of Appeals began its analysis of Lawrence’s
argument by noting that in “reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the
evidence, we examine the entire record in the light most favorable to the
judgment to determine whether there is substantial evidence from which a
reasonable trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” People v. Hoagland, supra.
The court applied this standard, and found the evidence “showed
beyond a reasonable doubt that [Lawrence] was the person responsible for the
pipe bombs.” People v. Hoagland, supra. Specifically, it found the evidence showed
that on September 8
[his]
business computer and his personal iPad were used to conduct numerous Internet
searches related to bomb making and denotation. [Lawrence’s] wallet contained
the phone numbers for both the calling phone and the bomb phone that were
associated with the September 8 bomb found in the street in [his] neighborhood.
There were repeated calls from the calling phone to the bomb phone on the
evening of September 7 from an area of town located near [his] business.
[Lawrence] used his personal phone to
make a call from this same area during the same one-hour period as the calls
from the calling phone. [He] left for Pennsylvania the following morning
(September 8), and the pipe bomb was found that night on a street that shortly
before had been traversed by the victim when driving in her neighborhood en
route to an errand.
On September 21, [Lawrence] went to Fry's Electronics and
used cash to purchase alligator clips. Alligator clips of the same type and
sold locally only by Fry's Electronics were found in the debris of the
September 23 bomb that exploded in Connie's truck.
People v. Hoagland,
supra.
The court also found that, with regard to Lawrence’s motive
for the crime, the evidence presented at trial showed he was
trying to arrange his financial and
personal affairs so he could leave his wife and move to Pennsylvania to be
with Rupert. Rupert was
pressuring him to complete this process; at one point she questioned whether he
could financially afford to make the change; and she had suggested they end
their relationship. [Lawrence] insisted to Rupert he could arrange his
affairs in California and move to Pennsylvania, and he had at his disposal a
$300,000 life insurance policy payable to him if his wife died.
People v. Hoagland,
supra.
The Court of Appeals further found that the jury could
“reasonably deduce” from this evidence that Lawrence was
desperate for money and freedom from
his marriage so he could be with Rupert; he was afraid of losing Rupert because
of the repeated delays in his efforts to extricate himself from his family
obligations; and in September 2010 he devised a plan to kill his wife, collect
the insurance money, and achieve his goal of moving to Pennsylvania. The
evidence tying [him] to the two bombs was strong.
Numerous Internet searches on bomb
making were found on his computers. Of particularly compelling significance, he
was found in possession of the cell phone numbers uniquely associated with the
September 8 bomb. The calls associated with these cell phones were made the
night before [he] left town to visit his girlfriend, from a location near [his]
place of business, and close in time and location to a call made from [Lawrence’s]
personal cell phone.
The jury could reasonably deduce that [he] attached the September
8 bomb to the underside of his wife's truck, arranged to detonate it with the
cell phones, and then left town with the intent of having an alibi upon its
explosion.
Further, after [he] failed in his
efforts with respect to the September 8 bomb, he continued with his plan by
planting the September 23 bomb. Buttressing this conclusion, two days before
the September 23 bomb exploded, [he] made a cash purchase of a component used
in this second bomb.
People v. Hoagland,
supra.
The court therefore affirmed Lawrence’s conviction and
sentence. People v. Hoagland, supra.
The news story you can find here provides more details about the case
and includes photos of Connie, Lawrence and Coit.
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