Court of Appeals of North Carolina Finds Sister Properly Identified Brother’s Voice on Butt-Dial Voicemail Despite Dispute on Length of Voicemail

Similar to its federal counterpart, North Carolina Rule of Evidence 901(b)(5) allows for “[i]dentification of a voice, whether heard firsthand or through mechanical or electronic transmission or recording, by opinion based upon hearing the voice at any time under circumstances connecting it with the alleged speaker.” So, what if a witness identifies voices on a voicemail, but claims that the version proffered at trial was shorter than the version she initially heard? That was the question addressed by the Court of Appeals of North Carolina in its recent opinion in State v. Oakes, 2026 WL 40400 (N.C. App. 2026).

In Oakes, Jarred Robert Oakes “was charged with first-degree murder for the strangulation of his mother, Geraldine Oakes, which occurred on 24 May 2017.” On the morning of the murder, “a voicemail was sent from Geraldine’s phone to [her daughter] Kaitlin’s phone. Kaitlin was in her last class of the day at school, where she listened to the voicemail. It seemed to her to be an accidental dial, but she recognized her mother’s and Defendant’s voices arguing. The following dialogue can be heard on the voicemail recording:

At trial, Kaitlyn was called to identify her brother’s voice on the voicemail.

After Jarred was convicted, he appealed, claiming “that the recording was not properly authenticated under North Carolina Rule of Evidence 901 because Defendant’s sister, who originally received the voicemail, testified that she remembered the voicemail being longer than the twenty-second recording entered into evidence.”

As support, he cited State v. Lynch, 181 S.E.2d 561 (N.C. 1971), a Supreme Court of North Carolina opinion which held that “authentication of a recording requires the proponent to show ‘that the recording was complete and had not been altered.'”

The court set aside Jarred’s argument, concluding that Lynch had been superseded by the North Carolina Rules of Evidence and subsequent opinions, which have held that such a “conflict in the evidence goes to the weight and credibility of the evidence not its admissibility.”

The court also added that