State v. Coones

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Biles, J.:

Olin L. Coones was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder for killing Kathleen Schroll, with whom he had an ongoing civil dispute over an inheritance. The key evidence was testimony that Kathleen called her mother in a panic about 10 minutes before police discovered her body to say that Coones was in the house to kill her and her husband.

Coones raises four challenges to his conviction; (1) ineffective assistance of trial counsel; (2) erroneous admission of hearsay testimony concerning a confrontation between Coones and Kathleen a few…