State v. Hunter, 208 N.C. App. 506 (Dec. 21, 2010)

There was sufficient evidence of malice in a first-degree murder case. The intentional use of a deadly weapon which proximately results in death gives rise to the presumption of malice. Here, the victim was stabbed in the torso with a golf club shaft, which entered the body from the back near the base of her neck downward and forward toward the center of her chest to a depth of eight inches, where it perforated her aorta just above her heart; she was stabbed with a knife to a depth of three inches; her face sustained blunt force trauma consistent with being struck with a clothes iron; and there was evidence she was strangled. The perforation by the golf club shaft was fatal.