DALLAS (1080 KRLD)- An appeals court in Dallas has upheld the love triangle murder of a Royce City woman whose case became a national television story
Chacey Tyler Poynter admitted to police that she helped set up her husband, Robert Poynter, for an ambush murder after learning that he was going to file for divorce. Poynter was in an affair at the time.
Robert Poynter, a University Park Fire Department Captain, died from a shotgun blast Sept. 9, 2016. Prosecutors said Robert Poynter had been lured to the rural Hunt County road by his wife and her lover Michael Glen Garza. Garza was also convicted of murder and sentenced to 99-years in prison.
Testimony during the trial, police said Poynter had intentionally driven her jeep into a ditch, then called her husband to help. When Robert Poynter arrived, the testimony said, he was killed.
National attention came to the case when the CBS show 48 Hours used in in a broadcast.
Prosecutors used a series of police videos to help build their case. As one officer arrived, Mrs. Poynter is seen, hyperventilating in the back of an ambulance as she tried to talk to the responding officer.
"I heard a shot and the jeep started rolling and I didn't anything and I saw a shadow," Poynter said in sentences that were run-on.
Investigators didn't buy the story, as there was little reason for Mrs. Poynter to be on the rural road, and because she had no explanation for where she had been just prior. Eventually, she gave a different story during a police department interview, blaming Garza.
Poynter was charged with capital murder, which would have locked her up for life without any chance for parole, if she had been convicted. Instead the jury found Poynter guilty of felony murder and assessed the life prison term, with a chance for parole after serving 30-years.
In her appeal to the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas, Poynter claimed the statements she made to police should have been suppressed.
But in the ruling, the court found that detectives had read Poynter her Miranda rights at the scene, and that a Royce City detective later confirmed that Poynter had been advised that she had a right to remain silent before he continued.
"For the foregoing reasons, we conclude the trial court did not err in denying appellant's motion to suppress." the ruling said.
Poynter's appellate attorneys also argued the jury should have been allowed to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter, after claiming during the trial that she never wanted her husband killed, rather she only wanted him scared.
"Assuming, without deciding, manslaughter is a lesser included offense in this case, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying appellant's request for a lesser-included instruction on manslaughter because there is not a scintilla of evidence to support a finding appellant merely acted recklessly in luring Poynter to a deserted location to have an encounter with Garza, a man appellant knew to have violent tendencies, had expressed a desire and willingness to kill Poynter, and whom she had accompanied, while armed, to the proximity of the murder scene." the court said.
Poynter can still appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
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