## Facts

- Lillian M. Keller, manager of the Holly Court Motel in Ashland, Virginia, was found partially clothed on her bed on December 2, 1975, and died from multiple stab wounds.
- Keller lived in an apartment adjoining the motel office; her apartment connected by a door to the adjacent living quarters of Howard Franklin Bittorf.
- John Paul Stevenson, Bittorf’s brother-in-law, entered Bittorf’s apartment through an unlocked door early on December 2, 1975, and stayed there that night.
- Stevenson, Bittorf, and Jeffrey A. Taylor spent the morning and early afternoon drinking and riding around in Stevenson’s car.
- Taylor last saw Stevenson in the early afternoon wearing a long-sleeve buttoned shirt with rolled-up sleeves.
- Police found Stevenson’s wallet near the bed where Keller’s body lay; it contained Stevenson’s Maryland operator’s license.
- Police found a bloodstained knife and towel in Bittorf’s apartment; no identifiable fingerprints were recovered.
- During the investigation, an officer asked Stevenson’s wife what Stevenson had been wearing; she provided a shirt later found to have blood matching Keller’s blood type.
- Stevenson was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment; appellate review was limited to the admissibility of the shirt and related scientific-test testimony.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by admitting a bloodstained shirt allegedly worn by Stevenson on the day of the homicide when the shirt was obtained from his wife after police questioned her about his clothing.
2. Whether testimony about scientific testing of the shirt (including blood-typing evidence) was inadmissible as dependent on an out-of-court, implied assertion by the wife constituting hearsay.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the conviction.
- The court held the shirt was properly admitted as physical evidence and was not barred by the hearsay rule.
- The court held testimony regarding scientific tests performed on the shirt was admissible because it was based on properly admitted physical evidence.

## Legal Principles

- Hearsay excludes out-of-court “statements” offered for their truth; a physical object’s evidentiary value may rest on its objective characteristics rather than any out-of-court assertion.
- Nonverbal conduct constitutes hearsay only when the actor intends the conduct as an assertion.
- A third party’s act of producing an item in response to police inquiry does not, without more, render the item inadmissible as hearsay when the prosecution relies on the item’s physical properties and other circumstantial proof linking it to the defendant.
- When physical evidence is properly admitted, expert or scientific testimony derived from testing that evidence is likewise admissible, absent an independent evidentiary bar.

## Conclusion

The court upheld admission of a bloodstained shirt obtained from the defendant’s wife and the related blood-typing testimony, reasoning that the evidence functioned as real evidence whose probative force came from its physical condition and circumstantial linkage, not from an implied hearsay assertion by the wife.


Stevenson v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 462, 237 S.E.2d 779 (Va. 1977)