The Arkansas Supreme Court has affirmed the conviction of a Texarkana, Ark., woman sentenced to life without parole in 2016 for the murder of a fellow square dancer.
Virginia Ann Hyatt, 69, was found guilty in February 2016 by a Miller County jury of capital murder in the Dec. 3, 2013, shooting death of Patricia "Patti" Wheelington. Witnesses testified at trial that both women were members of the Guys and Dolls Square Dancing Club and that Hyatt blamed Wheelington for the demise of her decades-long marriage.
A majority opinion penned by Arkansas Supreme Court Chief Justice John Dan Kemp and issued Thursday upholds Hyatt's conviction and sentence. Two of the court's seven members, Associate Justices Karen Baker and Josephine Hart, disagreed with the majority opinion in a dissenting opinion written by Baker and joined by Hart.
The majority opinion analyzed the evidence presented at Hyatt's trial in Miller County and concludes that it supports the jury's verdict.
"We further conclude that substantial evidence supports the jury's determination that Virginia acted with premeditation and deliberation. Specifically, it was possible for the jury to find that Virginia-who had four days to cool off after her husband left her-acted with premeditation and deliberation when, armed with a gun, she intentionally drove to Patricia's house and shot her five times," the opinion states. "Based on the testimony and evidence offered at trial, we hold that there was substantial evidence to support the jury's verdict that Virginia committed capital murder."
Witnesses at trial testified that Hyatt was intensely jealous of Wheelington and acted possessively anytime her husband danced with another woman. Hyatt had angrily confronted Wheelington at the Guys and Dolls club and at her home in the days before Wheelington was murdered.
The dissenting opinion laments that the evidence presented wasn't sufficient to prove Hyatt's guilt. The dissenting opinion takes issue with the quality of videos presented at trial, which showed Hyatt wasn't at a nursing home visiting her mother when Wheelington was killed as she claimed, for example.
The dissenting opinion also complains that a form submitted with Wheelington's body for autopsy shouldn't have been seen by the jury because it makes reference to a phone call with "a friend." The friend, Ken Caldwell, with whom Wheelington spoke moments before she was shot, died before the case was brought to trial and thus was not available to testify.
The form doesn't specifically identify the person as Caldwell and states only that Wheelington was on the phone at 8 a.m. the morning of her death. Wheelington's phone records were introduced as evidence during the trial and show that she had a conversation that lasted more than a minute at that time.
Hyatt's conviction stands, despite the dissenting opinion. She is being held in the McPherson Unit in Newport, Ark.