Black v. Commonwealth

Where, as here, the Commonwealth seeks to prove the corpus delicti and the criminal agency of the accused by circumstantial evidence, “all necessary circumstances proved must be consistent with guilt and inconsistent with innocence.” LaPrade v. Commonwealth, 191 Va. 410, 418, 61 S.E.2d 313, 316 (1950). Moreover, “the evidence as a whole must satisfy the guarded judgment that both . . . have been proved to the exclusion of any other rational hypothesis and to a moral certainty.” Id.; see also Stover v. Commonwealth, 222 Va. 618, 283 S.E.2d 194 (1981). When measured by these time-honored…