Keep your mouth shut until you get your story straight!

2015-M-292       Michael Wayne, petitioner, Appellant, vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent.

THE CRIME:  On July 29, 1986, Michael Wayne broke into the Waseca mobile home of Mora Armendariz, where he sexually assaulted her and stabbed her to death, finally slitting her throat.  He had tortured her by inserting a heated curling iron in her body.

Wayne, who had been known as Michael Fennelly at the time of the murder, was travelling south to look for work when he stopped for a day to visit a friend in Janesville who lived in the trailer next to Armendariz.  Wayne met Armendariz and they drank beer throughout the afternoon and evening.  Wayne left before midnight to get more beer and returned to the Armendariz trailer.  He left the friend's trailer at dawn and headed south.  A deputy entered the trailer that morning in response to a request for a "welfare check" and found the body of Armendariz.  Wayne's friend told police that Wayne had spent the day and night with Armendariz and was likely hitching south.  An Iowa state trooper picked Wayne up and said he was wanted for an investigation into a murder.  Wayne asked what time of night the murder had occurred, even though the trooper had not said the murder had occurred at night.

Every time Wayne learned a new fact, he changed his story, right up through his trial testimony.

In 1987, following a jury trial, the district court convicted appellant Michael Wayne1 of first-degree murder for the stabbing death of Mona Armendariz and sentenced him to life in prison.  We affirmed Wayne’s conviction in 1989.  Wayne subsequently filed four petitions for post-conviction relief, as well as a motion for post-conviction DNA testing.  The post-conviction petitions or motions were all denied, and this court affirmed each denial in 1993, 1999, 2008, 2013, and 2015.

HELD:  Appellant’s seventh request for post-conviction relief from his 1987 conviction is

barred by the time bar in Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(a) (2014).    Affirmed.

Lillehaug (Gildea, Anderson, Dietzen, Stras, and Wright)

[MURDER] [SEX OFFENDER]

A14-1730,