Stinski v. State

A jury convicted Darryl Scott Stinski of murdering Susan and Kimberly Pittman and related crimes.1 After finding multiple statutory aggravating circumstances, the jury recommended a death sentence for each of the murders. See OCGA § 17-10-30 b. For the reasons set forth below, we reverse the trial court’s sentencing order insofar as it imposed two sentences for the one crime of arson and direct the trial court to vacate the second of those duplicative sentences, and we affirm all of Stinski’s remaining convictions and sentences, including his death sentences for the murders. 1. The evidence at trial showed that Darryl Stinski and Dorian O’Kelley engaged in a crime spree that spanned April 10-12, 2002. On the night of April 10, two police officers observed two men dressed in black clothing in a convenience store. Later, the officers responded to two separate calls regarding the sounding of a burglar alarm at a nearby home and the officers returned to the store after responding to each call. Then, at approximately 5:00 a.m. on April 11, the officers noticed while leaving the store that “the sky was lit up.” The officers discovered the victims’ house fully engulfed in flames. As one of the officers moved the patrol vehicle to block traffic in preparation for the arrival of emergency vehicles, his headlights illuminated a wooded area where he observed the same two men that he and his partner had observed earlier in the convenience store. O’Kelley, as the neighbor living across the street from the burned house, gave an interview to a local television station. The officer saw the interview on television and identified O’Kelley as being one of the men he had seen in the convenience store and near the fire. The officer later identified both Stinski and O’Kelley in court.

Stinski and O’Kelley left items they had stolen with friends who lived nearby. The friends handed those items over to the police. Testimony showed that, before their arrest, O’Kelley had bragged about raping a girl and keeping one of her teeth as a memento and Stinski had laughed when he saw O’Kelley being interviewed on the news in front of the victims’ house.