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Final Copy 290 Ga. 401 S11A1709. ROGERS v. THE STATE.

CARLEY, Presiding Justice. Appellant Eric Rogers was indicted for the malice and felony murders of Mark Birmingham and Darnell Patterson. The trial court denied a motion for discharge and acquittal which alleged violations of Appellant's constitutional and statutory rights to a speedy trial, and this Court affirmed. Rogers v. State, 286 Ga. 387 (688 SE2d 344) (2010). After a jury trial, Appellant was found guilty of all counts. The felony murder verdicts were vacated by operation of law. The trial court entered judgments of conviction on the malice murder verdicts and imposed two consecutive sentences of life imprisonment. A motion for new trial was denied, and Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal.*

The crimes occurred on August 17, 1991 and on January 27, 1995, and the grand jury returned an indictment on August 23, 2007. The jury found Appellant guilty on March 31, 2010, and, on the following day, the trial court entered the judgments of conviction and sentences. The motion for new trial was filed on April 29, 2010, amended on December 9 and 22, 2010 and on February 3, 2011, and denied on June 2, 2011. Appellant filed the notice of appeal on June 14, 2011. The case was docketed in this Court for the September 2011 term and submitted for decision on the briefs.
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1. Construed most strongly in support of the verdicts, the evidence shows that, when Appellant was approximately 19 years old, he befriended his sixyear-old nephew Chris Probst and then began engaging in homosexual acts with Probst which continued until he was age 12, resumed at age 15, and ceased at age 18. In 1991, when Appellant was 30 years old, he also befriended 15-yearold Mark Birmingham and began engaging in homosexual acts with him. Probst testified that he witnessed some of Appellant's homosexual acts with Birmingham, that Appellant took Probst into the woods near their DeKalb County home where Birmingham lay after being shot to death, and that Probst helped Appellant dig a grave. In 1994, Appellant befriended 18-year-old Darnell Patterson and began engaging in homosexual acts with him. After Patterson disappeared in 1995, Appellant moved to Mississippi and admitted to Richard Husband that, after attending the Super Bowl with Patterson and taking him back to Atlanta, Appellant murdered Patterson by shooting him in the back of the head. While in Mississippi in 2000, Appellant befriended 18-year-old Benjie Keyes, hit him in the head with a hammer, broke two of his teeth with a gun, handcuffed him to a pipe, forced him to perform homosexual acts, and took him into the woods
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to kill him. Keyes managed to talk Appellant out of killing him. Appellant was arrested, convicted of aggravated assault, and imprisoned in Mississippi. Probst led police officers to the wooded spot where Birmingham's body was buried. Patterson's body was never found. With respect to the murder of Patterson, Appellant asserts that his confession to Husband was not corroborated by sufficient supporting evidence and was not sufficient proof that venue was proper in DeKalb County. As to venue, OCGA

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