Full Opinion

Fourth Court of Appeals San Antonio, Texas MEMORANDUM OPINION No. 04-25-00837-CR Shandi Ann BROWN, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee From the 81st Judicial District Court, Karnes County, Texas Trial Court No. 25-10-00119-CRK Honorable Russell Wilson, Judge Presiding Opinion by: Lori I. Valenzuela, Justice Sitting: Rebeca C. Martinez, Chief Justice Lori I. Valenzuela, Justice Lori Massey Brissette, Justice Delivered and Filed: October 14, 2026 AFFIRMED In two issues, appellant Shandi Ann Brown appeals her convictions for tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse without legal authority. We affirm the judgments of conviction. BACKGROUND In June of 2022, Menerva “Mickey” Rodriguez was reported missing. Before Mickey disappeared, she briefly lived with Brown, Brown’s then-boyfriend Ferman Chavez, and Chavez’s 04-25-00837-CR uncle. During the investigation into Mickey’s disappearance, police contacted her cousin, Eddie Rivas, and Eddie’s wife, Sarah, to ask if they had heard from her. An officer from the Floresville Police Department, Sergeant George Ortiz, gave Sarah and Eddie his business card “and said if [they] had any information about her to let him know.” Sarah did not receive any response to her attempts to contact Mickey, but she “heard rumors that [Brown] was getting stopped by police . . . and that [Brown] was the last known person with Mickey.” Sarah also heard rumors that Brown “was getting interrogated for where Mickey was[.]” Sarah and Eddie decided to call Brown and ask her “to meet up with [them] so [they] could question her about where Mickey was.” Brown agreed to meet them at a gas station, but she “was too nervous” to talk there, so the trio went to Sarah and Eddie’s home. Although Sarah told Brown she would turn off the couple’s security cameras while they talked, she surreptitiously allowed the indoor cameras to continue recording audio. That recording (“the recorded conversation”) was eventually admitted at trial. Sarah testified that the recorded conversation “happened way before” she contacted the police or told them anything. During the recorded conversation, Sarah and Eddie pretended that they were “on [Brown’s] side” and “played the part to get her to trust us, to tell us where Mickey was.” In response to their questions, Brown disclosed “a lot of details.” She told them, for example, that: • detectives had interrogated her for five hours and had tested her car “for any kind of DNA or anything of Mickey”; • she saw Chavez shoot Mickey in the back of the head; • Chavez took Mickey’s body to Brown’s friend, Tereso Camarillo, at the ranch where Camarillo worked; • Mickey’s body had been buried and then burned at the ranch; • Mickey’s body came “up out of the ground after they buried her” and “they had to dig her up twice”; -2- 04-25-00837-CR • Mickey’s body was “burnt to a crisp in a burn barrel” and was “already ash.” During the recorded conversation, Sarah and Eddie told Brown “that teeth don’t burn,” that Brown should “make sure that they picked up her teeth so that way they wouldn’t be able to identify her body,” and “that [Chavez] would pretty much try to pin [the murder] on her” if Mickey’s body were found. However, they also told her, “[I]f you don’t want to go down for this charge and be the only person charged for it, then you have to do something, you have to tell the cops[.]” Sarah and Eddie agreed to accompany Brown to the ranch where Mickey’s remains had been buried and burned. Sarah testified that they did not know where the ranch was and they intended to “get [Brown and Camarillo] to get Mickey’s ashes and come off of the property with them so the cops can, you know, take over from there.” After Brown left Sarah and Eddie’s home, they called Ortiz to “let him know what [they] had just found out” and to alert him to their plan. At that time, he told them that if they could “bring him anything that puts her there, Mickey at the ranch” then the police could obtain a search warrant. Sarah agreed that Ortiz asked her to “go out there and see what [she could] do.” Later on that day, Sarah and Eddie met Brown and Camarillo at Shorty’s Café in Falls City. Sarah and Eddie then followed Camarillo—who was driving his truck with Brown as his passenger—to the ranch. At the ranch, Sarah could see “freshly dug dirt” and “could smell a dead body or something dead.” The group “drove around for a little bit until [they] went to the back of the house where there was the burn barrels there.” Camarillo put some trash into a barrel, and Brown told him “in Spanish, like, well, bring her out. . . . Get her out.” Sarah testified that at that point: [Camarillo] proceeds to go to a burn barrel, he pulls it over and he takes a metal rake and he rakes out the trash first. And then after he rakes out the trash, we see bones and Mickey’s remains coming out of the burn barrel. And [Camarillo] takes -3- 04-25-00837-CR a bag, a black trash bag, and he proceeds to pick up her remains and put them in the black trash bag, and it burns through. And [Eddie] tells him, why don’t you use a metal bucket. . . . Put it in there so it won’t burn through. And so that’s what he does. He then proceeds to pick up the pieces of her remains and put them in the barrel, and then he even made a joke about her teeth as he picked them up off the ground. Camarillo then put the metal bucket containing Mickey’s remains in the bed of his truck, and the group left the ranch in three vehicles. Although Brown had been in Camarillo’s truck when the group met at Shorty’s and traveled to the ranch, she drove off the ranch in her own vehicle. Their intended destination was “the Bud,” which Sarah identified as “a County road that has the San Antonio River through it[.]” She testified that the plan was “to dispose of [Mickey’s remains] in the river.” Sarah also testified that Camarillo “did not do anything that day unless [Brown] told him to do it.” During the drive toward the Bud, Sarah and Eddie called law enforcement and described the relevant vehicles “so that they could have officers ready to stop them and find Mickey.” Officers stopped and arrested Brown and Camarillo, and they found the bucket containing Mickey’s remains in Camarillo’s truck. 1 Officer Gilbert Rodriguez, who participated in the search of Camarillo’s truck, testified that the bucket was warm to the touch and that its contents—trash, ashes, human bones, and burnt and broken sawblades—were so hot that Rodriguez had to stop digging through them. Rodriguez also testified that the presence of the sawblades suggested that Mickey’s body had been dismembered. After Brown and Camarillo were arrested, police executed a search warrant at the ranch. With assistance from a forensic anthropology team from Texas State University, they excavated the grounds and found a “burial area” that contained more bones and decomposed remains. A 1 The officers also “fake arrested” Sarah and Eddie and took them to the police department, where they provided witness statements. -4- 04-25-00837-CR forensic anthropology professor, Daniel Wescott, testified that they found a skull that showed evidence of a bullet wound; that other bones had “cut marks” indicating “that the person was cut and the bones were deliberately cut” before they were burned; and that the coloration on the bones showed “they were burned for either different durations or at different temperatures throughout the process.” Wescott also testified that the cut marks his team examined on the bones were “all associated with a hacksaw blade” like the ones found in the metal bucket. Using DNA samples collected from Mickey’s sons and sister, the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas confirmed that the remains found at the ranch and in Camarillo’s truck showed “a strong genetic association with” Mickey. “[T]he profile obtained from the unidentified remain sample also hit to an arrestee sample” from Mickey. A Karnes County grand jury indicted Brown on one count of tampering with physical evidence and one count of abuse of a corpse without legal authority. At trial, Brown requested a jury instruction on entrapment, arguing that Sarah acted as a law enforcement agent and that she persuaded Brown to move Mickey’s remains. The trial court denied the request, noting, “I find that if there’s an offense, it’s an ongoing offense, and because it was ongoing prior to any involvement by the State or its agents or anybody working with the State, as a matter of law, that could not be entrapment.” The jury found Brown guilty of both counts as charged in the indictment. The trial court sentenced Brown to fifteen years’ incarceration on the evidence tampering charge and two years’ incarceration on the abuse of a corpse charge, with the sentences to run concurrently. Brown then timely filed this appeal. -5- 04-25-00837-CR ANALYSIS Sufficiency of the Evidence In her first issue, Brown argues the evidence is insufficient to support her conviction for tampering with physical evidence. She does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support her conviction for abuse of a corpse. Standard of Review and Applicable Law We review a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence under the standard set forth in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979). See Matlock v. State, 392 S.W.3d 662, 667 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). We examine all the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and resolve all reasonable inferences in favor of the verdict to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Nowlin v. State, 473 S.W.3d 312, 317 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). We do not ignore any evidence “because the standard requires a reviewing court to view all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict.” Cary v. State, 507 S.W.3d 750, 759 n.8 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016). “An appellate court cannot act as a thirteenth juror and make its own assessment of the evidence.” Nisbett v. State, 552 S.W.3d 244, 262 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018). Rather, “[a] court’s role on appeal is restricted to guarding against the rare occurrence when the factfinder does not act rationally.” Id. The indictment alleged that Brown, “knowing that an offense has been committed, namely murder, alter[ed], destroy[ed], and conceal[ed] a thing, namely a human corpse, with intent to impair its availability as evidence in any subsequent investigation or official proceeding related to the offense.” 2 See TEX. PENAL CODE § 37.09(d)(1). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held 2 In describing the evidence tampering charge, Brown’s appellate brief uses the language of section 37.09(a)(1), which provides that a person commits an offense if she alters, destroys, or conceals a thing “knowing that an investigation or official proceeding is pending or in progress[.]” TEX. PENAL CODE § 37.09(a)(1). However, the indictment used the “knowing that an offense has been committed” language of section 37.09(d)(1). Compare id., with TEX. PENAL CODE -6- 04-25-00837-CR that the evidence tampering statute “contains at least two different culpable mental states: an actor must know his action would impair the item as evidence and he must act with the intent to impair its availability as evidence.” State v. Zuniga, 512 S.W.3d 902, 907 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017) (citing Stewart v. State, 240 S.W.3d 872, 873–74 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007)). Application 1. Knowledge that an offense was committed Brown does not dispute that she knew Mickey had been murdered. She concedes in her brief that she saw Chavez shoot Mickey, and the jury heard her admit this fact in the recorded conversation. Accordingly, the evidence is sufficient to satisfy the first element of evidence tampering as charged in the indictment. See TEX. PENAL CODE § 37.09(d)(1). 2. Alteration, destruction, or concealment of evidence Brown also does not dispute that she knew Mickey’s remains were evidence relevant to the murder. Cf. Williams v. State, 270 S.W.3d 140, 143–45 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008) (considering whether appellant knew item at issue was evidence in a criminal investigation). She argues, however, that the jury could not have rationally found that she altered, destroyed, or concealed Mickey’s remains. While Brown concedes that “the recording suggests a willingness to participate or facilitate the actual destruction or concealing of the corpse,” she argues the evidence is insufficient to support her conviction because there is no evidence that she “participated, directed, or otherwise engaged in the actual criminal acts.” We disagree. The court’s charge instructed the jury that “[a] person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if, acting with intent to promote § 37.09(d)(1). Because sufficiency of the evidence is measured against the hypothetically correct jury charge as authorized by the indictment, we apply section 37.09(d)(1) throughout this opinion. See, e.g., Ramjattansingh v. State, 548 S.W.3d 540, 546–47 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018). -7- 04-25-00837-CR or assist the commission of the offense, [s]he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid [another] person to commit the offense.” See TEX. PENAL CODE § 7.02(a)(2). To support a finding of guilt on this law of parties instruction, “the State must show that it was the defendant’s conscious objective or desire for the primary actor to commit the crime.” Jennings v. State, No. 03-22-00496- CR, 2025 WL 2176533, at *4 (Tex. App.—Austin Aug. 1, 2025, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (citing Metcalf v. State, 597 S.W.3d 847, 856 (Tex. Crim. App. 2020)). A thing is “destroyed” for purposes of the evidence tampering statute when it “has been ruined and rendered useless” such that it “has lost its identity and is no longer recognizable.” Williams, 270 S.W.3d at 146. A thing is “altered” if has been changed, made different, or modified. See id. Here, Sarah testified that Brown told Camarillo to “bring it [the remains] out. . . . As soon as she said that, that’s what he did.” She also testified that Camarillo “did not do anything that day unless [Brown] told him to do it.” Officer Rodriguez testified that the bucket containing Mickey’s remains was still hot when law enforcement found it in Camarillo’s truck, and Wescott testified that his analysis of Mickey’s bones indicated they had been burned to the extent that they had undergone textural and chemical changes. Wescott also testified that some of the bones showed “heat-related fractures.” See id.; see also Blanton v. State, Nos. 05-05-01060-CR & 05-05-01061- CR, 2006 WL 2036615, at *2 (Tex. App.—Dallas July 21, 2006, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (holding evidence that defendant ripped bag to let cocaine spill out was sufficient to establish he altered evidence). The cumulative force of Sarah’s, Rodriguez’s, and Wescott’s testimony would permit a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that it was Brown’s conscious objective or desire for Camarillo to destroy or alter Mickey’s remains by burning, even if the jury believed that Camarillo alone lit the flame. See TEX. PENAL CODE § 37.09(d)(1); id. § 7.02(a)(2); see also Jennings, 2025 WL 2176533, at *5. -8- 04-25-00837-CR During oral argument, Brown suggested for the first time that the court’s charge did not authorize the jury to find her guilty based on Camarillo’s actions because the law of parties instruction appeared only in the charge’s abstract paragraphs, not its application paragraphs. See Vasquez v. State, 389 S.W.3d 361, 366–67 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012) (“The application paragraph is that portion of the jury charge that applies the pertinent penal law, abstract definitions, and general legal principles to the particular facts and the indictment allegations. Because that paragraph specifies the factual circumstances under which the jury should convict or acquit, it is the ‘heart and soul’ of the jury charge.”). She also contended that she did not waive this argument by failing to raise it in her appellate brief. See Bolivar v. State, No. 13-14-00157-CR, 2016 WL 4939384, at *5–8 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg Sept. 15, 2016, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (reviewing claim that law of parties instruction appeared in abstract paragraph but not application paragraph as charge error). We need not resolve this complaint, because the evidence supports a rational inference that Brown personally participated in the concealment of Mickey’s remains. See TEX. PENAL CODE § 37.09(d)(1). “Courts have held that ‘conceal’ as used in section 37.09 means to hide, to remove from sight or notice, or to keep from discovery or observation.” State v. Zuniga, 583 S.W.3d 209, 215 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg 2018, pet. ref’d). During the recorded conversation, Brown described the burial and initial burning of Mickey’s body in firsthand detail without disclaiming participation in those acts. She responded to the question, “Why the f--- [did] you have to dig it up twice?” with, “The first time, she f---ing came up out of the ground.” She did not say anything indicating that she had not participated in the burial or burning of Mickey’s remains. She did say, however, that when Mickey’s buried remains started to emerge from the ground, Camarillo told her, “We got a problem” and “We got a situation.” The jury could have rationally inferred that -9- 04-25-00837-CR Camarillo would not have reported those events to Brown if she had not participated in the initial burial and burning. Brown said she told Camarillo she could not deal with the “problem” at that time because she had her son with her. However, she also told Sarah and Eddie that she planned to “meet him [Camarillo] at 11, we gotta go fishing . . . find a piece of skull[.]” She later repeated, “I gotta meet him [Camarillo] at 11, about 11:30” because “[h]e’s gotta take the rest out. . . . Get this f---ing bitch, dig the whole shit out, and f---ing bag it and then let’s take it, for real, to the f-- -ing Bud. No lie. It’s already ash.” Sarah testified that Brown did meet Camarillo at the ranch; it was Brown’s idea to take Mickey’s remains to the Bud; and Brown was on her way to the Bud to help dispose of Mickey’s remains when law enforcement stopped her. Furthermore, Sarah’s testimony established that Brown’s vehicle was already at the ranch when she and Camarillo brought Sarah and Eddie there. Based on that testimony, the jury could have reasonably inferred that Brown and Camarillo met at the ranch before they collected Sarah and Eddie at Shorty’s Café and brought them back to the scene of the offense. When viewed in the light most favorable to the judgment, this evidence would permit a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Brown herself took actions to conceal Mickey’s remains both before and after the recorded conversation. See TEX. PENAL CODE § 37.09(d)(1); Sandoval v. State, No. 13-23-00467-CR, 2025 WL 923768, at *7 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi– Edinburg Mar. 27, 2025, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (evidence that appellant disposed of bloody items in trash bag near his home satisfied concealment element of evidence tampering statute). That evidence was legally sufficient to support the jury’s finding on the second required element of evidence tampering even if we refuse to consider a law of parties theory of guilt. - 10 - 04-25-00837-CR 3. Intent to impair availability as evidence Finally, the jury heard evidence to support a finding that Brown knew her actions “would impair [Mickey’s remains] as evidence” and that she acted “with the intent to impair its availability as evidence.” See Zuniga, 512 S.W.3d at 907; TEX. PENAL CODE § 37.09(d)(1). Sarah testified that Brown wanted to move or dispose of Mickey’s remains “[b]ecause she doesn’t want to get in trouble. She doesn’t want to get caught up and it to be all on her.” The jury also heard Brown tell Sarah, “I see myself going away on this shit.” And, as noted above, the jury heard Brown discuss going “fishing” with Camarillo to “find a piece of skull” and dispose of what they found in the Bud. This evidence, which would allow the jury to infer that Brown wanted to impede law enforcement’s ability to find Mickey’s remains so she would not be blamed for the murder, is sufficient to support the final element of evidence tampering. See TEX. PENAL CODE § 37.09(d)(1); Sandoval, 2025 WL 923768, at *7–8. Having concluded the evidence was sufficient to support each required element of the evidence tampering conviction, we overrule Brown’s first issue. Entrapment In her second issue, Brown argues the trial court erred by denying her request for a jury instruction on the defense of entrapment. Standard of Review and Applicable Law “[A] defendant is entitled to a jury instruction on a defensive issue if it is raised by the evidence, regardless of the strength or credibility of that evidence.” Farmer v. State, 411 S.W.3d 901, 906 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013); see also TEX. PENAL CODE § 2.03(c). “[A] defense is supported (or raised) by the evidence if there is some evidence, from any source, on each element of the defense that, if believed by the jury, would support a rational inference that that element is true.” - 11 - 04-25-00837-CR Shaw v. State, 243 S.W.3d 647, 657–58 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). In considering this question, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant. Farmer, 411 S.W.3d at 906. In criminal cases, we apply a two-step analysis to claims of charge error. See Cortez v. State, 469 S.W.3d 593, 598 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). We must first determine whether the charge contains error. Id.; Ngo v. State, 175 S.W.3d 738, 743 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). A charge is erroneous if it does not submit a properly requested defensive issue that is raised by the evidence. See Muniz v. State, 851 S.W.2d 238, 254 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993). “When the evidence fails, however, to raise a defensive issue, the trial court commits no error in refusing a requested instruction.” Id. If the charge does not contain error, “our analysis ends.” Johnson v. State, 676 S.W.3d 918, 925 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2023, no pet.). If we find error, we then turn to whether the appellant was harmed. Ngo, 175 S.W.3d at 743. Where, as here, the appellant objected to the purported error at trial, “we consider whether ‘some’ harm occurred from the charge error.” Yepez v. State, 696 S.W.3d 1, 5 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2022, no pet.). Application “It is a defense to prosecution that the actor engaged in the conduct charged because he was induced to do so by a law enforcement agent using persuasion or other means likely to cause persons to commit the offense.” TEX. PENAL CODE § 8.06(a). “Under Texas law, when a defendant raises the defense of entrapment at trial, he has the burden of producing evidence to establish every element of that defense.” Hernandez v. State, 161 S.W.3d 491, 497 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). To satisfy that burden, the defendant must present a prima facie case that she engaged in the charged conduct because she was induced to do so by a law enforcement agent who used persuasion or - 12 - 04-25-00837-CR other means that were likely to cause otherwise law-abiding persons of average resistance to commit the offense. See id. Brown argues the trial court erred by refusing to submit an entrapment instruction because she made a prima facie showing that Sarah, while acting as an agent of law enforcement, “persuaded [Brown] to go to the ranch and engage in the apparent collection of the remaining body parts” by using “threats of legal penalties and claim[ing] that [Brown] would end up serving life in prison.” Brown appears to contend that this alleged persuasion occurred during the recorded conversation. After reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Brown, we conclude the trial court did not err by concluding there was no evidence to support this argument. As used in the entrapment statute, the term “‘law enforcement agent’ includes personnel of the state and local law enforcement agencies as well as of the United States and any person acting in accordance with instructions from such agents.” TEX. PENAL CODE § 8.06(b). “A search must be made to determine if the officer specifically instructed his agent or informant to use an improper procedure to ‘make a case’ against a particular defendant.” Soto v. State, 681 S.W.2d 602, 604 (Tex. Crim. App. 1984) (internal quotation marks omitted). We agree with Brown that the record appears to show that Sarah wanted to help law enforcement find Mickey and that she initiated the recorded conversation for that reason. However, there is no evidence that she was instructed to do so by law enforcement. See id. The record shows that prior to the recorded conversation, Sarah’s only interaction with law enforcement was when Ortiz gave Sarah and Eddie his business card and told them to “let him know” if they had any information about Mickey’s whereabouts. There is no evidence that Ortiz gave Sarah and Eddie any additional or more specific instructions at that time. See id. To the contrary, Sarah testified that when she and Eddie asked Brown to meet with them, they “were helping [them]selves,” not - 13 - 04-25-00837-CR the police, and that they “took initiative to call [Brown] prior to any police officer saying anything.” She added that the recorded conversation “happened way before” she contacted the police or told them anything. Even when viewed in the light most favorable to Brown, this evidence would not permit a rational juror to find that Sarah was “personnel of” a federal, state, or local law enforcement agency or that she acted “in accordance with instructions from” federal, state, or local law enforcement personnel during the recorded conversation. See TEX. PENAL CODE § 8.06(b). If the non-specific “instructions” Ortiz gave Sarah and Eddie before the recorded conversation were sufficient to support an entrapment defense, then that issue would arise virtually every time an investigating officer speaks with a citizen and encourages her to report any new information. We decline to hold that the entrapment statute casts such a wide net. On this record, we hold there is no evidence to support a rational inference that Sarah acted as a law enforcement agent during the recorded conversation. The trial court therefore did not err by refusing to submit an entrapment instruction. See Shaw, 243 S.W.3d at 657–58; TEX. PENAL CODE § 8.06(b). Because we have concluded that there is no evidence that Sarah acted as a law enforcement agent, we need not address Brown’s remaining arguments on this issue or whether the trial court’s “ongoing offense” rationale would independently preclude an entrapment instruction. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.1. We overrule Brown’s second issue. CONCLUSION We affirm the judgments of conviction. Lori I. Valenzuela, Justice DO NOT PUBLISH - 14 -