The People v. Whitehurst CA2/8

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On the morning of April 18, 2011, Camellia Whitehurst and three other persons broke into the Lancaster home where Deborah Whiting lived, threatened to beat her, and then ransacked the place. The incident arose from tension between Camellia Whitehurst’s mother – Cathy Whitehurst – and Whiting over Billy Ray Collins, who was Cathy Whitehurst’s live-in boyfriend. Cathy Whitehurst said she lived with Collins and claimed that Collins also had a romantic relationship with Whiting. Whiting claimed that she met Collins a few years earlier when he lived in a senior citizens apartment building and that they were only friends. However, Whiting said that Collins was a drunk and a liar who used her to make his girlfriends jealous. The break-in was triggered when Whiting phoned Collins and Cathy Whitehurst answered Collins’s phone. Unpleasant words were exchanged and the phone call ended. A few minutes later Camellia Whitehurst (the daughter) called Whiting, demanded to know why she kept calling Collins and taunting her mother (Cathy), and threatened to go to Whiting’s home and beat or “whip her ass.” Whiting told her to “come on,” and then phoned her niece, Kori…