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David Camm trial: After 3rd murder trial, former Ind. state trooper not guilty in slayings of wife, kids - Crimesider - CBS News
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October 24, 2013 1:02 PM
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David Camm trial: After 3rd murder trial, former Ind.
state trooper not guilty in slayings of wife, kids
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By Shoshanah Wolfson, Erin Donaghue
Topics Daily Blotter
(CBS) - David Camm, a former Indiana State trooper, was
found not guilty on three counts Thursday in the slayings
of his wife and two children.
The case marked the third murder trial for Camm, who has
twice previously been convicted in the killings.
WATCH: "48 Hours -- Murder on Lockhart Road" Both of the previous convictions were overturned on
appeal and a new trial was ordered for Camm, accused in
the shooting death his wife Kimberly and their children
David Camm was accused in the 2000 murders
Bradley, 7, and Jill, 5, in the garage of their Georgetown,
of his wife and two children./ CBS
Ind. home in September of 2000. Camm had been a state
trooper for more than a decade and left the force about four months before the murders.
There was applause and weeping in the courtroom as the
verdict was read. Camm rocked back and forth, holding
his head in hands and crying.
After the verdict, according to Camm's sister Julie
Blakenbaker, Camm leaned against the wall and said it
was "good," but that he still didn't have "them," referring to
his family. Kitty Liell, Camm's attorney at his second trial,
said that "prayers have been answered."
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Don Camm. Sr. and Julie Blankenbaker, the
Camm has always maintained his innocence, saying he
was playing basketball with 10 other people.
father and sister of David Camm, at the
The jury began deliberating Tuesday at the courthouse in
courthouse following David Camm's acquittal in
Lebanon, Ind. after getting the case Monday evening. the murder of his wife and children.
Camm's third trial was held in Boone County northwest of
Indianapolis because of pretrial publicity in southern Indiana, where the Camms lived in the
Louisville, Ky., suburb of Georgetown.
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Costumed Criminals
Camm's defense argued another man - Charles Boney was the killer, and acted alone. Boney has already been
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57609131-504083/david-camm-trial-after-3rd-murder-trial-former-ind-state-trooper-not-guilty-in-slayings-of-wife-kids/[11/2/2013 8:20:07 AM]
convicted of murder in the case, reports CBS affiliate WISHTV.
A judge allowed evidence to be admitted at trial that DNA
linked Boney to the scene, reports the station.
Prosecutors had argued that the evidence wasn't reliable.
Bradley and Jill Camm, photographed with their
mother, Kim. They were murdered on Sept. 29,
On Wednesday, jurors asked to see 20 pieces of evidence
including the police interview with Camm and the T-shirt
that he wore the night his wife and children were shot to
death, reports the station.
1
2000. (CBS/48 Hours)/ CBS/48 Hours
2
3
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The jury in Camm's first trial took 30 hours to reach a guilty
verdict. The jury at the second trial deliberated for 45 hours.
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David Camm | Stop Wrongful Convictions
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Tag Archives: David Camm
David Camm Trial: Critical Testimony The Jury
Won’t Hear
Search
I was really hoping that Camm would finally receive a fair trial the 3rd time
Search
around but I’m becoming increasingly concerned about Judge Dartt’s
rulings as the trial progresses. There are two very critical defense
objectives that are being barred from the jury.
1) Indications of prosecutorial misconduct
2) Evidence of Charles Boney’s modus operandi left at the crime scene
Why is this important? The prosecutorial misconduct in this case is critical for the jurors to hear because had it not occurred, the
Blogroll
Charles Smith blog
William L. Anderson
Case Blogs/websites
David Camm
investigation would have progressed in an entirely different direction and it would have progressed toward
Charles Boney from the very beginning.
David Thorne website
Edwin Ehlers II (USMC)
It all comes down to the sweatshirt found at the scene. Consider this scenario -
The sweatshirt is tested for DNA → The profile is identified → The profile is run through
the DNA database (CODIS) → The profile matches Charles Boney → Boney is questioned
about the murders.
Free Jamie Snow
Jason Payne case
Justice for Brad Cooper
blog
Justice for Brad website
The modus operandi was there.
It was typical for Boney to leave a sweatshirt at the crime scenes as he would remove it after the crime so
that people wouldn’t identify him wearing the sweatshirt.
He had a history of assaulting women and stealing their shoes – Kim Camm’s shoes were removed and
placed carefully on the Bronco, her socks/stockings were removed and never found.
Boney arrived home that evening sweating, panting and carrying a gun.
He had no verifiable alibi for that evening.
We now know that his DNA was recently found on the victims’ clothing.
Nyki Kish
Paul Cortez website
Facebook links
A4WC Facebook
David Thorne
It would have been an easy case to prosecute. The evidence was very convincing and we know that David
Free Brad Cooper
Camm was playing basketball at the time of the murders. David could have mourned the loss of his family with
Free Nyki (Nicole Kish)
the help of his caring family. Instead he was locked up in a jail cell three days after the most unimaginable
nightmare occurred.
What actually happened:
Sweatshirt from the scene was stuffed in a body bag → Investigators considered it “an
artifact”, no significance to the case → Defense attorney and family members pleaded
with the prosecution to test the item for DNA → The defense was told by Stan Faith that
it was run through CODIS and there was NO match → Camm was prosecuted based on 48 tiny blood drops on his t-shirt and a lot of character assassination → 5 years later the
new defense team again pushed for the DNA testing → Boney was identified in 2005 →
the State takes credit for testing and identifying Charles Boney
http://stopwrongfulconvictions.wordpress.com/tag/david-camm/[10/31/2013 9:17:41 PM]
Paul Cortez
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Instead of dropping charges against Dave they instead opted to concoct a conspiracy story for Boney – one that
would place him there as a witness. Boney’s distant cousin, Myron Wilkerson coerced him to put together a
story that would implicate Camm and keep Boney off death row. Wilkerson was not part of the investigative
team, yet he was given access to Boney. There is no doubt. Coercion of a suspect occurred. Obstruction of
justice occurred.
Had the above scenario played out, had the sweatshirt been tested at the beginning, a dangerous felon and
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now murderer would have been off the street in 2000. Instead, the public officials of Floyd County opted to
keep him free so that they could save face. No one would want to be accused of releasing a violent criminal
into the community – one who would murder three innocent people three months after his release. Boney was
Archives
released in 2000 after serving only 7 years of a 20 year sentence for armed robbery and kidnapping. Three
months later the Camm murders occurred and everyone knows how this case has evolved. The miscarriage of
October 2013
justice against David Camm is clear.
August 2013
Judge Dartt is making a mistake. These two factors are critical to David Camm’s defense and if he doesn’t
allow the jury to hear this and David is convicted the appeals court can easily overturn it again. Please, Judge
Dartt – if you are reading this, do the right thing. The jury has every right to know about everything that
transpired in this investigation, including the previous prosecutions. The mishandling of evidence that
July 2013
March 2013
February 2013
occurred early on affected everything about this case. There is no denying that fact. Stan Faith was
November 2012
responsible for that.
October 2012
September 2012
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March 2012
February 2012
Posted by lynne0312 on October 8, 2013 in wrongful conviction
3 Comments
Tags: Charles Boney, David Camm, Judge Dartt
David Camm Trial #3 – Summary of Testimony From
Each Witness
The following summaries were obtained from Travis
Kircher’s blog. He has been attending the trial and
blogging about key testimony. I haven’t included
everything here, only brief summaries.
Prosecution Witness #1: Andrew Lee
“Get everybody out there to my house now!” Camm
shouted on the recording when Lee eventually
picked up. “My wife and my kids are dead!” After
the recording was played, Lee was questioned on
the witness stand by the prosecution. He was asked
if it was strange that Camm demanded to speak to
the post command, rather than simply calling 911. “I
think the dispatcher could have handled the situation without having to transfer the call to me,” he said.
Later on cross examination by defense attorney Stacy Uliana, he would admit that, “as a trooper, you dial the
numbers instinctively for post a whole lot.”
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness #2: Patricia Brown
January 2012
Next, jurors were read testimony by Patricia Brown, the post dispatcher who took the call (Brown is currently
hospitalized and unable to give testimony in person). Through the written word, Brown testified that she had
trouble finding David Camm’s address because he had called the ISP post command instead of regular
dispatchers. “At the time, we just needed to get him help,” she said. “But we needed an address. I didn’t know
his address.” She said she lost five minutes of time before she was able to nail down a location for Camm’s
Georgetown home.
Defense countered by trying to show that Camm was in emotional distress. “Dave was very upset in the phone
call, wasn’t he?” Uliana asked. “I suppose he was upset,” Brown replied, before adding later, “there’s different
types of upset.”
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness #3: James Niemeyer – crime scene investigator
He told the jury that he shot video of the crime scene – and that graphic video was played for the jurors. There
was no sound, but it showed the interior of the garage where the murders took place.
Under cross examination, Niemeyer told the jury that then Prosecutor Stan Faith hired blood stain pattern expert
Rod Englert, who dispatched his protégé, Rob Stites, to the scene. Niemeyer said he resented Stites, but
added that, “I don’t think he really hurt anything.” “I had a problem with Mr. Stites,” he said. “I didn’t appreciate
him being there.” He said Stites came all the way from Oregon but failed to bring a kit to test blood, and later
seized part of a garage door that he believed contained blood stains, despite the fact that a phenolphthalein
test eliminated blood as a possibility.
Uliana then had Niemeyer recall taking a palm print approximately 1′-9″ from the top of Kim Camm’s Ford
Bronco, which was found in the garage at the murder scene. That palm print was later traced to Charles Boney,
who would eventually be convicted for the three murders. “You hit a home run, didn’t you?” Uliana said.
Uliana pointed out that, contrary to procedure, the rolls of film containing pictures of the crime scene were not
sent to an Indiana State Police lab, but instead to a commercial 24-hour film developing facility. As a result, she
said the “identifiers” – the tags used to mark each picture with the time, date and location it was taken – were
lost.
Uliana then challenged Niemeyer’s ability to keep an open mind about the investigation. She took him back to
when he first arrived at the crime scene and was standing outside the garage.
“And you made the determination at this point that this was a David Camm crime scene,” she said. “That is
incorrect.” He was then presented with a statement from a prior proceeding in which he said he knew, “this
was David Camm’s crime.” “And you thought it even before you went inside David Camm’s home,” Uliana said.
Before he took pictures, or videos, or fingerprints.
“That’s correct,” Niemeyer replied. Later, when questioned by Special Prosecutor Stan Levco, he would explain
himself: “When I walked up and looked through the garage door, things went through my mind,” he added. He
said he didn’t think the suspect was a burglar.
“Does a burglar shoot a woman and two children?” he asked. “You’ve got two exits.” He added that he believed
Kim’s attacker was known to her, because if it was a complete stranger, “all she would have to do was put the
vehicle in reverse and blow it.” “She knew him and she wasn’t afraid of him,” he said. “I was convinced David
was involved.” Uliana would later mock these hunches as, “great theories that you came up with in five
minutes” and point out that people do get shot during robberies.
Juror’s questions:
1) What was the caliber of the shell casings found at the scene? (.380)
2) Was it possible that what had been reported as a mixture of blood and serum found streaming from Kim
Camm’s head could be something else, such as blood and urine? (Niemeyer wasn’t able to answer.)
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness #4: James Bube
The prosecutors presented the jury with 2D renderings of a 3D image Bube created of the interior of the
Camm’s garage and home. He also created a diagram of the murder scene, showing the bodies of Kim and
Brad Camm on the ground outside the Bronco.
Upon cross examination, Uliana pointed out that the shooting happened in the garage, “but you still took the
time to document the inside of the house – and to do it right.” Bube agreed.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness #5: Charlie McDaniel
Charlie McDaniel is a 26-year veteran of the Indiana State Police, who serves in the area of crime scene
investigation. He told the court that he supervised the transportation of the Kim Camm’s Ford Bronco here to
Lebanon, Ind. specifically for this trial. Special Prosecutor Stan Levco asked him if the front passenger side
seat was working in the sense that it could be pushed forward and back. McDaniel said that, “sometimes I
could get it to work. Most of the time I could not.”
Levco then submitted into evidence numerous fiber samples he had taken from the carpet in various areas of
the Camm home. Defense attorney Stacy Uliana pointed out that those fibers had been collected in 2005, years
after the murders, with new residents living in the home. Videos taken by McDaniel of the interior and exterior
of the Georgetown Community Church gym were also submitted into evidence. In prior trials, 10 witnesses
testified that they were playing basketball with David Camm at the gym during the time of the murders. “Did you
count the number of exits there are from the building?” Levco asked. “There are nine exterior exits,” McDaniel
said.
“Were you ordered to take carpet samples from any other house?” she asked. “No I was not,” he replied. Upon
questioning, he told her he was never asked to take carpet samples from Charles Boney’s house.
He was also questioned about whether he had requested any surveillance video from a golf course that was
nearby the Georgetown Community Church gym. He testified that he had not, and was not aware that there
were any surveillance cameras at the golf course.
Juror’s questions –
Were there time locks on the gym doors – he wasn’t aware of any.
Were there cameras on the outside of the gym – he didn’t recall.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness #6: John Galloway (neighbor)
He said that on the night of the murders, he and his wife were driving to dinner when they passed Camm at an
intersection at roughly 5 p.m.
He also testified that at 7:30 that evening, he was back home watching Jeopardy, when he believed he saw Kim
Camm’s vehicle pull onto Lockhart Road to go home.
Juror’s questions –
Asked if he had seen David Camm’s vehicle pull onto the street shortly before Kim Camm’s vehicle did. He said
he did not, but he may have missed it.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness #7: Brandon W. Beaven (neighbor)
“Were you at school that day?” Meyer asked. “I did not go to school that day,” Beaven replied, to some laughter.
He explained that his car wasn’t working, and he convinced his mom into letting him stay home from school to
work on it. He said he spent most of the day on his back tucked under the rear fender, until roughly 4:30 or 5:00
p.m., and saw several cars go by.
“There was one vehicle that stood out that I did not recognize,” at 1 p.m. or 1:30 p.m., he said. He
described it as a “dark colored Cadillac” that didn’t have Indiana license plates. He said when it past him
the first time, it was driving normally, but when it came back, driving in the opposite direction, it was traveling “at
a high rate of speed.”
He said there may have been a passenger in the vehicle the second time it passed by, but he wasn’t sure.
Kammen showed him a photograph that police presented him with in 2005 – a photograph of a maroon colored
Cadillac with gold trim on the wheels. When asked whether it was the same car he saw on the afternoon of
Sept. 28, 2000, Beaven said that it was similar.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness #8: Deborah Aven – Kim Camm acquaintance
Aven was at swim lessons with her kids, talked to Kim. She said she left around 7:15 p.m.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness #9: Rob Steier – Schwann’s driver
Steier testified that on Sept. 28, 2000, he showed up at the Camm residence to take delivery orders. He arrived
at approximately 6:35 p.m. and David Camm answered the door. “As best as I can remember, he was wearing
gym shorts,” Steier said. Steier testified that Camm told him he was going to play basketball at “an
underground church” at 7 p.m. He also testified that Camm offered up this information spontaneously, and not
in response to any question.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness #10: Mark Slaughter – detective with Floyd County police
Slaughter said during the investigation that night, Detective Gary Gilbert gave him the responsibility of
transporting David Camm to the Indiana State Police Sellersburg Post – roughly 15 miles from Camm’s home –
for questioning. “Did you notice anything unusual about Mr. Camm?” Special Prosecutor Steve Levco asked. Slaughter said “he was visibly upset.” “I did notice a spot on his shoe,” he added. “It was a dark colored spot
on his right shoe…it could have been a blood stain.”
Prosecution Witness #11 – Lynn Scamahorn – former DNA analyst for ISP
DNA and blood from Kim and 7-year-old Brad Camm were found on a sweatshirt worn by Charles Boney, as
well as DNA from Boney’s ex-girlfriend Mala Mattingly.
DNA and blood from 5-year-old Jill and Brad were found on a t-shirt worn by David Camm on the night of the
murders. No DNA from Kim Camm was found on that shirt.
Kim’s DNA and blood were found on one of David Camm’s shoes and on a sock.
Camm’s DNA was found in sperm in Kim’s underwear.
fingernail was found in the right front floorboard of the Ford Bronco
Tests showed that the fingernail did not belong to David, Brad or Jill Camm, and was consistent with the
DNA of Kim Camm.
In Area 40 and Area 23 of the t-shirt – located on the back of the t-shirt, near the right-hand side –
Scamahorn found DNA consistent with Jill Camm. In total she found Jill’s blood in four areas of the t-shirt
Bradley Camm’s blood found in 4-5 areas of Camm’s t-shirt, specifically on the chest area
No blood was found on the gym shorts Camm was wearing that night
Scamahorn did two rounds of DNA testing on the sweatshirt. The first round took place in Sept. 2001, and
she found unidentified female DNA on the sweatshirt, near the hem of the shirt as well as near the upper left
shoulder. That DNA would later be traced to Mala Singh Mattingly.
Bradley’s DNA was discovered on the shirt
Kim’s was found on the left sleeve of Boney’s shirt.
Charles Boney’s DNA was discovered on the sweatshirt, near the collar.
David Camm’s DNA not on the sweatshirt.
Juror’s questions:
Was this a typical DNA investigation? “I would say it’s typical of a murder case with a lot of evidence. This is a
very large case.”
Was the fingernail found in the right front floorboard of the Bronco consistent with being torn, or clipped? “That’s
not something I can make a judgment call on,”
Was DNA from either Charles Boney or his girlfriend, Mala Singh Mattingly, found on the fingernail clippings
from Kim Camm? “No to both of those.”
Why was the DNA on the collar of the sweatshirt – DNA that was eventually traced to Charles Boney – not run
through the FBI Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) until after David Camm’s first trial. Scamahorn: said
she was unaware of DNA on the collar, and that she never tested the collar in 2001 because there was writing
on it (the word “Backbone”) and she didn’t want to destroy the writing.
Uliana pointed out that, had then-Prosecutor Stan Faith shown her the DNA, she would have tested it – and
found Boney years earlier.
Scamahorn was questioned outside the presence of the jury Uliana presented Scamahorn with a document and asked her to describe it.
“It’s a letter that I wrote regarding the first trial and the prosecutor,” she said.
Scamahorn said that the first prosecutor – Stan Faith – called her into a private meeting in his office during a
break from her testimony in the first trial. He then allegedly demanded that Scamahorn testify that she found
David Camm’s DNA on the mysterious gray sweatshirt that, years later, would be traced to Boney. Scamahorn
said she couldn’t do this because the facts didn’t back it up.
“He was not pleasant, I would say,” Scamahorn said.
“He cursed at you?” Uliana asked.
“Yes.”
“And he wanted you to say things that you felt were beyond science?” Uliana asked.
“Yes,” Scamahorn said, adding, “he was very much not happy with me.”
Scamahorn said Faith threatened to contact her superiors and that it was “definitely implied” that her job was
being threatened. She also said Faith threatened to charge her with obstruction of justice if she didn’t testify to
what he wanted.
Uliana asked if she thought Faith was trying to wrongfully influence her to testify to facts that were beyond
science.
“Possibly. Possibly. Yeah.”
“He did threaten your job,” Uliana said.
“That is true.”
“And he did threaten to charge you with a felony,” Uliana added.
“That is true,” Scamahorn replied.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution witness #12: Shelly Romero (Former K-9 Handler for Indiana State Police)
She then saw David Camm at the scene and hugged him. “He said, ‘Somebody’s killed my f—ing family!’”
Romero testified. “When I first arrived, he was real quiet, kind of withdrawn, like he didn’t want to be there,” she
said.
She said he also brought up the moment he gave CPR to his son Brad, after finding his body in the Bronco. “He
said that blood was just coming out of Bradley’s mouth, and he didn’t know whether to savor it or spit it out.”
Then, Romero said, his thoughts turned to himself. “At one point, he asked, ‘Who would be interested in me?’”
Romero said. She said Camm was concerned that a man whose wife and kids had been murdered would not
be datable. Camm would eventually be arrested, but Romero said he wouldn’t be the only person under
suspicion. She said about a week after he was arrested, the police executed a search warrant at her home, and
she spent the next year submitting blood and DNA samples for tests.
Kammen questioned her about her opinion of Camm’s arrest. “You questioned the quality of the investigation,”
Kammen said. “You thought things moved a little quickly.” “Yes,” she replied, adding that she became a “black
sheep” in the department for questioning the investigation. She said she was suspended a few days after going
to the funeral. The reason, according to Romero? She claims she was punished for making a modification to
her K-9′s cage. “You felt like they were making an example of you?” Kammen asked. “Yes sir.”
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness #13 Janice Renn (Kim Camm’s mother)
Meyer asked her to call the events of Sept. 28, 2000 – the day of the murders. Renn said it was the last day
she saw Kim, Brad and Jill alive. “I picked up Brad to take him to get his allergy shot,” Renn said, adding that
Kim was going to pick Jill up from dance class. “He [Brad] was hungry, as always, so I gave him a snack,” Renn
said. She said he did his homework, and then “he watched some TV.”
At about 5:40, Renn said Kim showed up with Jill, to pick Brad up. Renn said Jill was hungry, so she made her
a bag of cookies, while Kim munched on crackers.
Camm’s defense team had no questions for Renn.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution witness: James Biddle (Retired Lieutenant for Indiana State Police)
He later discovered that Camm and his uncle, Sam Lockhart, had arrived at the home and wanted to go inside
to get some property. Biddle said Camm was told that the home was still a crime scene.
“He said something to the effect of, ‘Jim, we just want to get into the house to get those things,’” Biddle
recalled. Biddle refused to let him in. That’s when, he said, Camm “chest bumped” him. Prosecutors asked if it
was an accident. “No sir, it was not an accident,” Biddle said.
The prosecution also played the audio of the phone call between David and Biddle. There was nothing
incriminating there, but here is the link to Kircher’s blog if you want to read the highlights.
Cross: Kammen questioned the role of Sean Clemons, the lead investigator of the case. Kammen asked if
Biddle kept Clemons as lead investigator, because he had a “good relationship” with Stan Faith, who was then
the Floyd County Prosecutor. Biddle replied that “that’s part” of the reason, but when asked if the investigation
deferred to the wishes of Faith throughout the case, he replied, “that’s not true.”
Kammen then asked Biddle about “the infamous gray sweatshirt that was found at the scene” – the sweatshirt
that bore the name “Backbone” in the collar and, years later, was tied to Charles Boney, Camm’s alleged
accomplice in the murders. Biddle said Camm’s family was told about the sweatshirt but, “I don’t recall if they
were given the name.” He also testified that no one ran the nickname “Backbone” through a database of
nicknames maintained by the Department of Corrections.
Biddle said, Stites identified what he believed to be “high velocity impact spatter” on Camm’s t-shirt. (High
velocity impact spatter is a technical term. Experts say it consists of microscopic blood droplets that only
appear when a person is standing less than four feet away from a victim when they are shot by a gun.) It was
discovery that led to Camm’s arrest, according to Biddle. “The prosecutor made the decision to arrest
Camm, is that true?” Kammen asked. Biddle said that it was.
Biddle lied to Dave during their phone conversation: “Yes, I was lying,” Biddle admitted, referring to the fact that
he knew Camm was about to be arrested the whole time. Was he lying all throughout the call? “Several times
during that conversation, yes,” Biddle said.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness: Frank Loop – Member of the Floyd County Sheriff’s Department
Loop testified briefly about a conversation he allegedly had around April or May of 2000, months before the
murders. Loop said Camm told him he had a .380, but he wanted to get his money together to purchase a
Beretta.
Kammen rose to cross examine Loop. He noted that Loop, like Stan Faith, had “also been involved in politics.”
“I’m currently the elected township trustee,” Loop said. Kammen also pointed out that Loop ran for sheriff in
2005, and in 1999, was on the town board. “By December [2000], you heard through the law enforcement
grapevine that a .380 might have been used in the murders,” Kammen said. “That is true,” Loop replied.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness: Susan Block (Semonin Realtors Broker – New Albany, Indiana)
She testified about a phone call she allegedly received from David Camm the day before the murders about a
listing at 1010 Woodfield Drive in New Albany. She said the 4-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom single residence home
was listed for $189,900. “Basically, he was just asking about the property, so I gave him the information on it,”
she said. She said she never got any indication that Camm had discussed it with his wife Kim.
Upon cross examination, she said Camm told her he would possibly look at the home that upcoming weekend,
and that he’d discussed with her that the home was five minutes from Graceland Schools. She said he was
hoping to move his children closer to the school, and there were several families in the neighborhood.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prosecution Witness: Robert M. Neal Indiana State Police Trooper
Robert M. Neal, an Indiana State Police trooper had previously served as a crime scene investigator. He
testified that in Sept. 2000, he was a detective squad leader in the Sellersburg district and he knew David
Camm. He said he was called at home on Sept. 28, 2000 after the bodies of Kim, Brad and Jill were
discovered. He then drove to the scene. Neal said the decision was made that Camm should be taken to the
Indiana State Police Sellersburg post to be interviewed – not because he was a suspect, but for the purpose of
tracking down leads. They arrived at the ISP post shortly after midnight, Neal said, and an audio recording of
the interview was made. That audio – with some redactions – was played for the jury. Partial transcript can be
found here.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
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Posted by lynne0312 on October 7, 2013 in wrongful conviction
1 Comment
Tags: Charles Boney, David Camm, Levco, Stan Faith, wrongful conviction
Standing behind accused son, brother takes toll on
Camm family members
It’s great to see an article about what the family of the accused has to deal with. It’s easy for people to forget
how much they suffer as they fight to free their loved one from a wrongful conviction.
By AMANDA BEAM [email protected]
NEW ALBANY —
Every day, Donald Camm sits in a house of memories. Recollecting allows him
to relax and smile. At times though, it can choke up the 82-year-old. Yet, as
evidenced by the photos that surround his favorite living room chair, he wants
to be reminded of them all the same. Several snapshots in particular
summarize the life of the New Albany resident these past 13 years. On the
wall, a young boy and small blonde-haired girl smile at the camera. Donald’s
grandchildren Jill and Bradley remain frozen in time. Nothing in the photo
foreshadowed the tragic fate that would befall the children and their mother
Kim Camm. On the night of Sept. 28, 2000, all three were murdered in the
garage of their Georgetown home. “When I look at those pictures, that’s how
I’ll remember them until the day that I die,” Donald said, referring to a photo of
Jill and Bradley that he keeps on his nightstand. “That’s the last way I’d seen
them and that’s how I’ll always remember them.”
Close by the chair, placed carefully atop a statue of an angel, a picture of a man in a police uniform rests.
Donald’s son David Camm looks to be in his 20s in the photo. This was before the arrests, convictions and
reversals all began, in a time when David was known for more than just being an accused killer. Since the initial
charges were levied in 2000, his father, sister and other family members have maintained David’s innocence.
Two convictions later, one in 2002 and the other in 2006, their support has never wavered. After higher courts
reversed both of these earlier decisions on appeal, the family now waits and watches as jury selection
continues in David Camm’s third trial, set in Lebanon, 25 miles northwest of Indianapolis.
“I sat behind Dave through every day of the first trial. I did not miss,” Donald said. “I did the same thing in the
second trial. I don’t know how this is going to work this time,” he added of the current trial, for which opening
statements are set for this week.”
Defending a man accused of murder, even if it is his son, hasn’t always been easy on Donald. With chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease and neuropathy in his legs and arms, the stress of the last decade has taken a
toll on his physical health. His son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren are always on his mind. They are the
last thing he thinks about before his goes to sleep and the first thing that he remembers when he wakes.
“I can’t express losing them,” he said.
‘UNFINISHED BUSINESS’
People sometimes forget that the Camm family also
loved those who were killed. Talking about Kim, Jill
and Bradley helps Donald grieve. He remembered
how finding the moon with Bradley would always
calm the infant he and his wife used to babysit. Jill,
he said, tore through the room when she entered
and grabbed his legs for a quick hug before she flew
off “like a bumblebee.” And Kim, with her calm,
sweet demeanor, could always surprise him with a
funny reply and a twinkle in her eye.
Life has changed for all of the family since the
murders. David’s sister, Julie Blankenbaker, spends
her days mindfully editing what she says. Even though she no longer bears the Camm last name, she still
remains aware of what others think of it. Now a Louisville resident, there’s no longer a pride felt for her name,
her history or even her hometown. The trials, she said, took this away as well as other normal facets of
everyday life.
“When we gather together, there’s this glaring elephant in the room that Dave and Kim and Brad and Jill aren’t
there and Dave is in prison unjustly. You can’t have the whole group together and not feel that,” Blankenbaker
said. “For us there’s this unfinished business. There’s not closure. We’re still fighting.”
Blankenbaker and her uncle, Sam Lockhart, try to protect their children and grandchildren from the negative
fallout associated with their support of David. But with the media attention, even the youngest kids know
something is different.
Comments made in passing in front of the children complicate the issue even more. Lockhart said people yell
things at him from passing cars or make negative assertions behind his back, and his business has lost some
clients from his association.
“I learned a long time ago I can’t control that, so I quit fighting that battle. I’ve got a more important battle to
fight,” Lockhart said. “All I can do is control my efforts … I’ve committed to seeing justice done for those kids
and Kim and David.”
Public reaction still makes the lives of Donald, Lockhart and Blankenbaker harder. Donald said some people
glare when they learn his identity, or cringe when they hear his name. Through time, he’s acclimated himself to
the animosity, but he still has a hard time understanding it.
Once, during a prison visit, Donald was speaking with another man in the visitor’s waiting room about a
magazine article. The men conversed effortlessly until someone called out “Camm.”
“And [the man] looked at me just like the devil was shooting out of his eyes. He didn’t know me and, at that time,
Dave hadn’t been to trial. He knew nothing of evidence. But that quick, he developed hate,” Donald said. “This
hate, I don’t understand this hate.”
But the Camms can comprehend the emotional toll the trials have taken on all of those involved, including Kim’s
family, the Renns. No one wants to cause this turmoil, Blankenbaker said. Still, it’s her belief that her brother is
innocent, and she must help rectify this wrong.
“We’re not without sympathy for them because they lost the same people we lost and so we understand the
value of those people and we understand the pain of that loss,” she said. “It just so happens that in addition to
that loss, we feel the burden for the fight for justice for Dave and the justice for Kim and Brad and Jill.”
Even with their unwavering backing of David, hope for a different verdict is sometimes difficult to find for his
father and Blankenbaker. Two previous trials have tempered their faith that David will ever be found not guilty
and freed. The defense’s ability to present new evidence at this trial has helped to restore it some.
“I know they’re doing everything that they can and with the new evidence, I feel a confidence that Dave’s going
to win,” Donald said. “Yet, we have felt confident before and so going at it a third time even knowing what we
do, I can’t inside of me build up this little bit of hope. My hope is so thin”
Although his hope at times wavers, Donald continues to maintain his son’s innocence no matter what the cost.
“We as the Camm family and the Lockharts, we know Dave is innocent and we’re with him come hell and high
water, bankruptcy, the whole works,” he said. “Whatever comes.”
http://newsandtribune.com/local/x865756902/Standing-behind-accused-son-brother-takes-toll-on-Camm-familymembers
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Posted by lynne0312 on August 19, 2013 in wrongful conviction
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Tags: David Camm
The Corrupt Investigation Of The Camm Murders
I’ve been researching questionable convictions for the past couple of years and most of them are filled with
some level of official misconduct, but the Camm case ….. this is by far the worst I have ever seen and believe
me, there are many tragic cases out there with innocent people suffering in prison. As I write this, his 3rd trial is
set to begin. The State of Indiana is trying this man again despite an overwhelming amount of evidence that
Charles Boney committed the murders on his own, or with help from his girlfriend, Mala Singh Mattingly. I
understand that prosecutors hate to be wrong for various reasons – political, financial, ego, etc., but typically
when confronted with an overwhelming amount of evidence that they prosecuted the wrong person, most
accept it and deal with it. Not in this case – and the way they mishandled everything is shocking and appalling
and should be embarrassing. They should be ashamed!
I would like to describe as simply as possible some of the evidence and the way the investigators handled the
investigation. This will one day be an example of “what not to do”.
The facts about the sweatshirt:
The sweatshirt was found at the crime scene, on
the garage floor
Unidentified DNA was on the item
Prosecutor Stan Faith told the defense that the
DNA was run through CODIS but there was no
match – this was a lie. It was never tested at all.
Boney’s DNA was entered into CODIS in 1997. The Camm murders occurred in 2000, so
therefore Boney should have been identified and investigated shortly after the crime!
David Camm was tried and convicted in 2002 with the sweatshirt having not been tested. The prosecutors
referenced it as “just an artifact”.
Defense prepares for Second Trial:
The defense requested that the State test the unidentified DNA on the
sweatshirt. They were finally compelled to do so and the DNA was
found to be Charles Boney’s – February, 2005.
Investigators brought Boney in for questioning and informed him that
his sweatshirt was found at the crime scene.
Boney agreed to take a stipulated polygraph – agreeing that the results
could be used in court.
Boney failed the polygraph when asked questions about the shootings
in Indiana – “Did you shoot them?” “Did you see who shot them” ”
Were you there when the shooting occurred”.
What did investigators do then? They let him go! They simply told
him to call and check in every day.
Boney’s criminal background:
He attacked 5 female college students on a campus. He would
wear a mask or make-up and a sweatshirt and gloves. He
would then tackle them and steal one of their shoes.
He finally got caught and said it was a fraternity prank (but he
wasn’t in a fraternity).
This is what he shared with police after admitting to the assaults.
During his post-arrest interview with an officer and detective of the
Bloomington Police Department he also made some startling
admissions, including the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
“This may seem strange, but I have a thing for ladies legs and feet.”
“I never thought I would be caught…”
He never assaulted a woman with a dress.
He didn’t know any of his victims.
He chose his victims by attacking those with nice legs.
All of his victims who wore pants had nice legs…he could tell they had nice legs even if he couldn’t see
their legs.
He acknowledged that he “creeped around and scared” some of his victims before he attacked them.
The intent of all five attacks was to steal a shoe.
He always wore sweats during his attacks.
He had an “escape plan”: he was going to take off his sweatshirt and sweatpants and put them into his
backpack in order to not match the description of the assailant which would be given by the victim.
He served only a few months for these attacks
Boney’s crimes escalated:
Boney wrote some bad checks and violated his probation so he had to serve 2 years in prison.
When he got out he committed armed robbery of two employees at an apartment complex.
Then he held 3 college students at gunpoint at an apartment complex, forced them into their rooms, rifled
through their belongings and demanded money.
He became particularly incensed after he saw the photograph of the uniformed Indiana State Trooper
father of one of the victim’s roommates which was sitting on an entertainment center in the living room,
telling the three that he hated cops as he slammed the photograph onto the top of the structure.
Then he took them at gunpoint to one of the victim’s car and demanded they get in and they were told
they would be taken to an ATM machine and then released. Luckily the police arrived then.
From the website: Boney’s three violent crimes, all committed within five weeks after his release from
prison, also had two striking commonalities. They all involved the use of a loaded handgun and the
commandeered use of a vehicle.Additionally, for the period October, 1988 through October, 1992,
Boney exhibited a distinctive pattern of behavior when committing his crimes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
His crime sprees began in early Fall.
He committed his crimes in or adjacent to vehicles and/or parking lots.
Boney walked to the crime scene.
His victims were white females, close in age to Boney.
He tackled some of his victims and drove them to the ground, injuring their ankles, knees, wrists, and/or
hands.
6. His victims were often assaulted in the face or head.
7. Only one victim was ever interviewed by investigators involved in the Camm case.
8. In total, Boney had assaulted 13 women.
Of greater concern, however, was the fact that Boney’s violence had escalated and his concern for anonymity
had declined during the same four-year period:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
After initially wearing disguises, he later failed to try and hide his identity.
He no longer wore a mask or facial makeup to disguise himself.
Witnesses were present during Boney’s last crimes.
He did not wear gloves after losing one glove at the scene of his first crime.
He touched items during the robberies with his bare hands, apparently not caring if he left fingerprints.
He progressed from physical assaults to using a loaded gun.
His threats grew more and more violent during the crimes and he became more and more agitated the
longer the crimes took.
8. He threatened to shoot his victims in the head.
9. He tried to abduct five women.
10. The number of victims during each crime grew from one during his initial shoe theft to three during his last
armed robbery.
Boney was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1993, wrote an apologetic letter to a judge and he was
released in 2000.
Just months later, the Camm murders took place.
Investigators “cleared” Boney Boney supplied investigators with a list of alibis for the day in question –
they failed to verify them.
Boney told them that the sweatshirt found at the crime scene had been
placed in a Goodwill bin – this was impossible to verify as there were no
surveillance cameras present.
He failed a polygraph – this was not publicly reported
There is no police report of an interview with his fiancee, though there is
mention of a brief meeting.
They failed to thoroughly interview all of the people closest to him.
THIS IS HOW THE PROSECUTION CLEARED BONEY
Four days later The palm print on Kim’s Bronco was identified as
Boney’s.
Investigators brought Boney in for questioning
again and worded their questions in such a way
that it gave him an out – gave him the ability to
blame Camm to clear himself.
Example – Investigators said “What did Boney
see?”
Prior to this in previous “interrogations” they
supplied him with tidbits that would later be used – they suggested that a “dirty” or “untraceable” gun was
obtained and that possibly it was “wrapped” in the sweatshirt – investigators words, not Boneys.
At one point, Boney said he wanted to speak to a lawyer – he asked to see Faith.
The recording device was shut off for 90 minutes
After that, it was turned back on and Boney had agreed to write a statement about what happened.
Conveniently, his statement covered all the loose ends for investigators – such as how the palm print got on the
Bronco, how the sweatshirt made it to the crime scene, etc.
This is what Boney told the defense investigator 4 days prior to writing the statement:
This is what he included in his statement just after the palm print match was identified:
He also had this to say in his defense interview, but the prosecutors didn’t think it was significant.
It is inconceivable how all of this was able to play out this way over the course of the past 13 years. No one
stepped in and investigated them. No one put a stop to it. David Camm has been stuck in the system, going
through lengthy appeal after appeal to try to prove his innocence. All the while the information is there for all to
see, staring us right in the face. Yet the prosecution continues to obstruct justice by attempting to bar new DNA
evidence placing Boney in physical contact now with the victims? It’s time for them to stop this insanity and let
David Camm go. Save the taxpayers money, admit that they made many costly mistakes and be done with it.
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Tags: Charles Boney, David Camm, Keith Kenderson, Mala Singh Mattingly, Stan Faith
New DNA Evidence Proves Camm’s Innocence As 3rd
Trial Is Set To Begin
For those unfamiliar with the specifics of this case, it’s a complex
case filled with the most egregious prosecutorial misconduct one
could imagine. The actions of public officials in the state of Indiana
have impacted David Camm, his family, Kim’s family, supporters,
friends and the entire community in ways that could never be
quantified. It’s been going on for 13 long years with much needless
suffering, and it’s not over. Camm’s 3rd trial is set to begin with
jury selection currently underway. Many have written articles about
the case, including myself. Here is a summary I put together last
year that highlights most of the key points.
Though new evidence recently surfaced that further implicates the
real killer, Charles Boney, I’m dismayed to see that so many people
have their minds made up about Camm, believing that he is guilty. People reason that since he was after all convicted twice for
murder, surely he must be guilty. Could two juries get it wrong? The answer is yes but had it been an honest and thorough investigation from the start, Camm would have
never even been indicted for the murders. Once a corrupt investigation begins, it snowballs and becomes very
difficult for the truth to be revealed. They have the press on their side and whatever is reported is imprinted in
people’s minds. They remember the information and it doesn’t matter that it’s not factual. The innuendo put
out there by the State is all that people remember.
Do people know?
That there was evidence placing Boney at the crime scene from the beginning – the sweatshirt with is DNA
on it, and his palm print – but that the State said they ran the DNA through CODIS but didn’t get a match
when in fact they had never even tested it at all?
That it was the defense who finally pushed to have the sweatshirt tested 5 long years later and that their
insistence to do so is what finally revealed the killer’s identity – Charles Boney?
That Prosecutor Stan Faith had a close friendship with Boney’s mother and that he also assisted Boney with
his legal issues from his many arrests?
That Faith likely would have known that “Backbone” written on the sweatshirt would have belonged to Boney
and that is quite likely the reason he chose not to test it and instead to pin this on Camm?
That Boney could be Faith’s son? It would explain why someone would go to such lengths to protect this
man. I have no evidence but it certainly would make sense.
That Faith attempted to coerce a chemist into testifying at the first trial that Camm could not be ruled out as
the owner of prints left at the scene – but that she was honest and refused to go along with it?
That evidence from the Camm’s home was “lost” – a shower curtain with blood on it and a condom from the
septic tank – never to be tested because they vanished?
That there is no evidence whatsoever linking Camm to Boney in any way – no phone calls, no emails, no
witnesses ever seeing them together?
That Boney had a long history of assaulting women?
That Boney had a foot fetish and that Kim’s shoes were placed on the hood of the Bronco?
That in every other known murder case in history, when DNA shows up that places a person at the scene
they become a suspect and are fully investigated?
That the prosecutor’s preferred to concoct a story that the sweatshirt must have appeared at the scene
because Boney sold Camm a gun – rather than admit they were wrong from the beginning to ever
prosecute Camm?
That prosecutors spent long hours grilling Boney and finally the story was created that kept Boney off of
death row and kept Camm on the hook?
That the “story” has no backing? That it isn’t substantiated with one piece of evidence?
That the only evidence the prosecutors continue to hold onto – alleged high velocity blood spatter – 8 tiny
droplets of blood on his shirt has cost them $300K in experts but that it’s considered junk science?
That Camm was playing basketball with 10 other people at the alleged time of death and that their
statements have never wavered?
That according to the State’s theory, Camm would have had only about 15 minutes to drive home, commit
the murders and drive back to the church for the second game?
That none of the other players reported that he was sweating or panting or stressed in any way? (Because
he never in fact left the gym).
That this alibi could not have possibly been planned in advance because it was unknown if they would even
have enough players to get a game going that evening?
That there is new DNA evidence – Boney’s DNA on the victims’ clothing – he touched the victims…there is
no doubt now.
Knowing that a 3rd trial was approaching and having thoroughly studied this case, I was puzzled about how they
were going to approach this since we know that they can’t go after his character by bringing up past affairs or
alleged sexual assault. The appeals court overturned both convictions due to this as it likely had a direct
influence on the verdicts. This is the only case I’m aware of where the killer (Boney) has already been
convicted and is serving time for the murders – yet they continue to go after the husband … because of what?
Because of 8 tiny drops of blood that he likely got on his shirt as he lifted his son out of the vehicle upon finding
his family murdered in his garage? It’s criminal that they continue to pursue Camm because they are afraid of
the backlash of admitting that they screwed up and wasted millions of tax dollars prosecuting the wrong man.
But in the past several weeks there’s been a huge break in the case, something that I believe is so big that I am
quite honestly shocked that the State hasn’t dropped all charges against Camm once and for all. His amazing
defense team sent some other clothing items from the scene for more sensitive DNA testing known as “touch”
or mitochondrial DNA – which is basically just very sensitive testing from skin cells that were in contact with the
items. It turns out that Boney’s DNA was found on Jill’s shirt and on Kim’s panties and I believe her shirt as
well. Remember that the State’s theory was that Boney’s role in this was simply that he sold Dave the murder
weapon and happened to be there when the shootings occurred, and that he only got away because the gun
jammed when Dave allegedly turned it on him?
Now the story will need to change again to keep Camm involved – how will they do it? I can’t even imagine a
scenario where Camm is present when this animal is attacking his family as we now know for certain that
Boney’s hands were on the victims. Enough is enough. More and more people will learn the truth about this
case – what the State of Indiana has done to David Camm. I am hopeful that he will be acquitted but I’m going
to continue to find ways to get the facts out there until this is over. I was worried because the prosecutor
actually tried to bar the DNA evidence from the trial but the judge ruled that the evidence is admissible and I
take that as a good indication that this is an honest Judge. Support for David Camm continues to grow. For all
the facts about this case, please visit justicefordavidcamm.com.
Summary video
Boney’s lies
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Tags: 3rd trial, Boney, David Camm, DNA
More Support For David Camm
I’m pleased to share this article about a Criminal Justice Student at Indiana University who has taken on a very
worthy cause of sharing the facts about this case with others. As you’re aware I’m absolutely convinced of
David’s innocence and I’m happy to see that others are seeing the same thing. This is clearly one of the worst
wrongful conviction cases that I’ve come across and we all must hope that justice will finally be served and that
he will be acquitted at his trial this Summer.
SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT: Clearing Camm
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Two juries convicted him, but there’s a new effort to free David Camm. Now the
former state trooper’s future could depend on a group of college students.
Jordan Hochgesang is a senior criminal justice major at Indiana University, and he is on a mission — not with a
class assignment or preparing for graduation. Instead, he’s passing out flyers he hopes will clear Camm’s name
and maybe even save his life. “This guy has been wrongfully convicted for the past 12 years,” he says, ”and
we’re just trying to get the word out.”
The case: former Indiana State Trooper David Camm. Hochgesang says, “I took a wrongful convictions class
and the David Camm case came about.” That’s when the case piqued his interest. “I don’t think David Camm is
guilty,” he says.
Since then, he and some of his classmates have been working with licensed private investigator Bill Clutter and
a non-profit organization called Investigating Innocence. It’s an extension of the Innocence Project, which has
played a part in overturning more than 300 wrongful convictions.
Hochgesang says, “A lot of people became interested because they realize how this guy is in jail and he is
innocent.”
Clutter, a Certified Criminal Defense says he’s been involved with investigating criminal cases since
1985. He has helped free several wrongly convicted inmates in the last 20 years, and he wants to do the same
for Camm.
“I started delving into the (Camm) case about a year ago,” Clutter said.
Camm has twice been convicted of killing his wife, Kim, and their two children, Brad and Jill, in the garage
of their home in Georgetown, Indiana in September of 2000.
“He is the ultimate victim,” Clutter says. ”I mean, he lost his wife and two children and then he lost his liberty. I
mean, it doesn’t get any worse than that.”
Clutter refutes the evidence that helped convict Camm. A bloodstain analysis expert determined Camm was
near his daughter when she was shot.
“It was actually in my training to be a bloodstain expert,” Clutter says.
The bloodstain evidence has been strongly disputed by defense expert witnesses. Ironically, it’s that argument
that got Clutter’s attention.
“And the discussion was that this had given, really, a black eye to the profession because of the controversy of
some of the opinions that it helped convict David Camm,” Clutter said.
Both of Camm’s convictions have been overturned by higher courts, and from the beginning, he has maintained
his innocence.
“David Camm has 11 alibis from playing basketball,” Hochgesang says.
All 11 of those men swore in court that Camm was playing basketball with them at the time his family was
murdered.
“It was persuasive that he was playing basketball,” Clutter says. “He had an absolute alibi for the time of death
that occurred.”
But that’s not the only thing that convinced Clutter and his students. After looking at all the evidence, they visited
Camm in person.
“We met for about two and a half hours, and he is a real humble guy,” Hochgesang says.
So if Camm didn’t kill his family, who did?
“Let me just say this about Charles Boney: he is a notorious liar,” Clutter says.
During Camm’s second trial, DNA evidence on a sweatshirt connected career criminal Charles Boney to the
case. Hochgesang points out, “His (Boney’s) sweatshirt was left at the crime scene. Along with it, the name tag
Backbone — that was his moniker when he was in jail.”
Boney’s arrest doesn’t clear Camm; it just makes the case more complicated. Boney tells authorities he met the
former trooper playing basketball and that both were at the crime scene.
Hochgesang says, “All the things left at the crime scene is what makes me believe that Charles Boney is
guilty.” Clutter adds, “You know, combined with, you know, Charles Boney’s M.O., it’s pretty compelling
evidence. And then you look at the physical evidence.”
That includes the sweatshirt, as well as Boney’s palm print on the family Bronco, and Kim’s shoes on top of the
car inside the garage where the family was killed. Clutter says, “When you look at the physical evidence tying
him to this crime, it’s very compelling.”
So far, two prosecutors and perhaps dozens of police have looked at the same evidence and see it differently.
‘Based upon the evidence that I know, I feel he is guilty,” says Stan Faith, Camm’s first prosecutor.
Faith got the first guilty verdict against David Camm and says not much has changed since. He even explains
the testimony of the 11 witnesses who swear Camm never left the gym.
Faith says, “I don’t think eyewitnesses lie. They just have a misperception. They think they see more or they
have a viewpoint that creates their testimony.”
Clutter says, “When you have police and prosecutors who get it wrong, they’re very reluctant to admit it, and
they’re resistant to any evidence that tends to prove them wrong.” (link)
Copyright 2013 WDRB News. All Rights Reserved.
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Posted by lynne0312 on February 28, 2013 in wrongful conviction
Tags: David Camm
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David Camm’s alibi
There is a lot to this case, but clearly the most important aspect of the case that can’t be dismissed is the fact
that David Camm had an airtight alibi. At the time of the murders, he was playing basketball with family and
friends at a nearby church. He arrived at the church at 6:59 PM and remained there until 9:22 PM and this was
verified. Eleven people saw him and interacted with him the entire time in question. Most of these people knew
him well and they were 100% certain that David was there the entire time. So how were jurors able to dismiss
this and how were prosecutors able to address this?
From the FAQ section of the website:
Q. Were the basketball players relatives of David and did they lie?
Several players were, in fact, relatives of David, including two cousins and his uncle. Others included the
husband of his cousin, as well as friends and players with whom he had played previously. One person
accompanied his brother to the game and it was his first ball game that he played with David. Their brother was
a local police officer.
During the initial telephone interviews of the players by the ISP, their words were accepted without question.
Not one player has ever stated or inferred that David Camm left the church gym that evening. The fact
that he sat out one game so his uncle, Sam Lockhart, could play is also without question. However, he sat
along the baseline with a church elder and they talked. He sat at the end of the court where the other ten
players saw him as they would run towards that basket. Near the end of that game, David got up and began
stretching in order to play again.
During the time of the prosecution’s first theory that David had murdered his family after he returned home, the
basketball players weren’t important to the prosecution. It was only after the forensic evidence indicated that it
was impossible for the murders to have occurred after 9:22PM (the time that the church alarm was set and
David left the gym) did the basketball players become critical.
Indeed, during David’s last interrogation before he was arrested on October 1, 2000, Detective Neal told David
that the basketball players are “not trying to hide anything.”
The prosecution’s subsequent theories that the family was killed after they returned home and before David
came home around 9:27PM meant that the basketball player’s credibility had to be attacked. Although the
players had never changed their stories, nonetheless they were painted as either lying or mistaken because
the prosecution had to “get David out of the gym” in order to kill his family.
All of the basketball players vehemently deny that they have lied or shaded the truth for David Camm. As one
said, “David was at the gym for the entire time I was there. He didn’t leave, nor did he come back. I
wouldn’t lie for him or anyone.” The other players expressed very similar comments and have told their
stories repeatedly and under oath several times.
The basketball players were honest and not mistaken on October 1, 2000 but were liars and mistaken
only after the prosecution changed their theory as to when the family was murdered. They have never
been inconsistent but rather any inconsistencies lie with the prosecution.
It is indeed ironic that ten basketball players (with one additional spectator) who were present with David
Camm during the entire evening of September 28, 2000 are considered liars or mistaken but yet the
eight other basketball players who supposedly played with Boney and David have never been identified
nor come forward. The police and prosecution chose to embrace Boney’s fictitious story without any
corroboration and cast aside the stories of eleven solid citizens but only after their theory changed.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
During the trials, the prosecution tried to discredit the eyewitnesses by picking apart their testimony about
details of the game. They had to. With the inability to discredit these people, their theory holds no weight and
the case falls apart.
A snippet from the 2nd trial:
Three of the 10 men who say they were playing basketball with Camm at the time of the murders testified
Wednesday that they don’t believe it was possible for him to leave the gym for more than a couple
minutes without being noticed.
Prosecutors allege Camm planned to commit the murders during the weekly game in order to establish an
alibi, believing he could sneak out, drive 5 minutes to his home, shoot his family and return without anyone
noticing his absence.
Steve Owen, Floyd County’s chief deputy prosecutor, grilled players about the specifics of that night —
who was on the teams during each game, who scored first, who guarded who, how many games were
played. (Seriously? Keep in mind, this was 6 years later. It is sad the jurors were influenced by
questions such as this.)
Their varying answers to those questions show how difficult it was for them to remember specifics of the
evening, including where Camm was during each game, Owen said.
The nature of pickup basketball games — unorganized games without time limits, referees and with few
rules — would make it impossible for Camm to plan an exact time to commit the murders, defense
attorney Katharine “Kitty” Liell said.
What happened in this case is that prosecutors convinced the jury that the blood spatter evidence was stronger
than the statements of 11 eyewitnesses. They presented the evidence in such a way that it appeared to be an
irrefutable fact, but that wasn’t accurate. Contrary to some claims, blood spatter analysis is not a real science. Studies have shown that it is not a reliable method of determining what happens at a crime scene. That is why
it’s common to see expert witnesses offering completely different opinions on this type of evidence. Please
watch the video at this link to see how much the opinions differed in this particular case. I believe when that is
the case, you have to look beyond this evidence.
In cases like this where stronger, more compelling evidence exists, it logically should take precedence over the
subjective, weaker evidence. There is no doubt that the 11 eyewitness accounts should have overridden the
blood evidence in this case. Blood spatter evidence is different than something like DNA evidence which can’t
be refuted… there won’t be opposing expert witnesses offering different opinions about DNA evidence. It’s
black and white. It either matches or it doesn’t. Period. That is just not the case with blood spatter evidence.
The chart below lists all the different types of scientific evidence currently being presented in trials. Please note
how blood pattern analysis is rated versus DNA.
For the reasons described, this case is more complicated than most realize and clearly some of the evidence
that convicted Camm is very questionable. What remains consistent is the testimony of the people who were
with David Camm the night of the tragic murders.
With a 3rd trial approaching, I hope that people will not simply assume that Camm must be guilty because he
was convicted twice. It is time for people to take a careful look at everything about this case. And remember
that both convictions were overturned with good reason and that Camm has yet to receive a fair trial. I hope
this one will be different and people will see the truth.
One final thought about the alibi. It is extremely unlikely that 11 people would carry a lie all these years on their
conscience. They had no reason to lie and we have no reason to doubt them.
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5 Comments
Tags: alibi, basketball game, blood spatter evidence, David Camm, junk science
The wrongful conviction of David Camm
David Camm is currently in prison awaiting a 3rd trial for the
murder of his wife and two children. What he has been
subjected to throughout the investigation and trials is simply
incredible and has been an enormous injustice.
In September, 2000 David arrived home from a basketball
game, pulled into the driveway and noticed the garage door
was open. When he entered the garage he found his
family had been shot to death in the garage. Three days
later he was arrested for the murders. Despite having a
solid alibi and no evidence linking him to the murders, he
was tried and convicted twice largely due to prosecutorial
misconduct, junk science, inadmissible evidence presented and character assassination.
Both convictions were overturned on appeal, due to the judge’s rulings that inadmissible evidence was
presented. Yet the overzealous prosecutor continues to pursue a conviction against him. And the inadmissible
evidence caused the prosecutor to have to find a new “motive” for the murders in the second trial. I suppose
this time they will have to come up with a third motive.
The first trial occurred in early 2002. The evidence presented:
Life Insurance – Prosecutor Orth told the jury that Camm took out $500,000 worth of insurance policies on
his wife and two children, one policy only two months before the murders. Defense attorneys countered that
only $150,000 of the policy was for Kim Camm, $250,000 was for David Camm and the rest was for the
children. Kim, an accountant, was the one in charge of securing the life insurance, mostly on Dave, because
he had lost his group policy when he left the Indiana State Police.
A 7:19PM phone call that prosecutors state Camm placed from home near the time of the shootings. During
the trial the phone representative clarified that an error had been detected and the phone call was actually
placed at 6:19PM (the time that Camm claimed he made the call, before leaving for the game).
Although 11 people saw Camm at a basketball game either playing or watching the entire time in
question, prosecutors claim that he must have left the game, went home and killed his family and then
returned to the game! However, during the one game that he sat out, a church elder spoke with him the
entire time. Not one person has ever wavered in their statements that he was there, that they never saw
him leave, and never missed him at all.
Past affairs – the prosecutors made this part of the trial even though Camm wasn’t presently involved in an
affair and it had no relevance whatsoever. It was character assassination, nothing more. In fact, other
former co-workers also engaged in such adulterous behavior and were a part of the same State Police Post
which conducted the investigation. The first conviction would ultimately be overturned based on this.
Blood spatter – the blood spatter evidence seemed to contribute the most to his conviction, even though the
defense expert testified that the blood found on his clothing was contact, not high velocity spatter. It turns
out that the State’s so called expert had never even handled a homicide investigation and long after the trial
admitted he had fabricated his alleged expertise, education, and qualifications. In fact, he hadn’t
even attended the elementary 40 hour introductory bloodstain course which one evidence technican
claimed would only make a person “dangerous” when rendering a blood stain interpretation. He
admitted he was only sent to the scene in order to take photographs and make notes.
Prosecutors were involved in the crime scene evidence just after the murder. A lot of the evidence was lost
and nobody was ever held accountable for it, including a shower curtain in the house, away from the murder
scene, which had the appearance of a blood stain and two condoms in the septic tank; the Camms never
used condoms.
A sweatshirt was found at the scene, near the young boy. Foreign DNA was found on the shirt but
prosecutors did nothing to try to identify the origin of it and simply ignored this piece of evidence.
When the defense found unknown DNA on the collar of the sweatshirt, the defense attorney asked
the prosecutor to compare that DNA to the national CODIS database containing the DNA of
convicted violent felons. The prosecutor claimed there was no match when, in fact, no such search
was conducted.
Despite Camm’s alibi and offsetting blood spatter “experts”, the jury returned a guilty verdict after 4 days of
deliberations. The jury had this to say:
One of the jurors who initially wasn’t convinced of Camm’s guilt.”I’m not going to say there’s not any doubt
— there’s always going to be some doubt,” Kimbley said.Alcock reported that Kimbley was one of the last
two jurors to vote guilty. Another juror, who didn’t wish to be identified, told Alcock that the intitial jury poll,
right after they were given the case Friday, was 8-4 in favor of convicting Camm. By Sunday, the jurors
stood at 10-2 in favor of convicting Camm.That’s when jurors told Judge Richard Striegel that they could
not reach a decision.The jurors went on a dinner break, deliberated for several more hours, and then
came back with a guilty verdict.”There was a lot of high emotions and there were times when people were
very emphatic in their beliefs,” Kimbley (pictured, right) said. “The very most incriminating thing was
the blood stains.”
So Camm was basically convicted due to one inexperienced person’s opinion of blood stain patterns on the shirt
he was wearing that night. But the alternative and likely explanation for the blood found on his shirt was that he
got blood on his shirt through contact with his daughter’s hair when he retrieved his son from the back seat of
the vehicle in order to render CPR. His son, unlike his daughter and wife, wasn’t shot through the head.
Additionally, the defense expert’s opinion makes more sense because they were 8 tiny droplets and they were
not in a uniform pattern. To shoot a person at close range, one would expect a massive amount of blood
spatter to be present on the clothing.
How is anyone to believe that he left a basketball game, drove home, shot his family and then returned to the
game still wearing the bloody t-shirt, but nobody at the game noticed the blood? It doesn’t make any sense. Certainly the statements from the 11 people who saw him that night should have superseded any “opinion” on
the blood stains. To suggest that all 11 people are lying is unreasonable. These are 11 people from the
community and the prosecutor somehow dismisses all of their statements AND the jury somehow is convinced
to convict him. How can that be?
In fact, the first prosecution story was the murders occurred after Camm returned home but they were forced to
change that when the blood serum separation from the head wound of Kim Camm indicated the murders had to
occur during the basketball games. Thus, the players, who had told the truth during the first prosecution theory,
were now liars when the prosecution changed their theory the murders occurred during the games. In short,
the basketball players all had to lie in anticipation of the prosecutor changing his story.
This conviction was overturned on appeal a little over two years later, in August ’04. The judge stated
that the affairs had no place in the trial. The Indiana AG tried to get the conviction reinstated but the supreme
court ruled against it.
In November ’04 the new prosecutor, Henderson made the decision to retry the case with “a fresh set of eyes”. He claimed to have evidence from a jailhouse informant who stated that Camm admitted his guilt to him. He
also brought up allegations that Camm may have molested his daughter as a motive for the murders. Of
course, it didn’t matter that there was absolutely nothing to back up this claim.
The prosecutor claimed the “fresh eyes” would re-cover everything and be independent of the first investigation. The lead detective of the “fresh eyes” was also a State Police Detective who would but work part-time on the
case and never had any forensic evidence submitted for testing or matching prior to issuing his conclusion in
the form of a “new” affidavit.
The “fresh eyes” detective included the same refuted allegation that a 7:19 p.m. call was made from the Camm
residence; they were still using “evidence” which didn’t exist.
In preparation for a new trial, the defense team requested DNA testing on the sweatshirt that had the unknown
male DNA on it. In February, ’05 the DNA was found to match a man by the name of Charles Boney. I’m going
to copy portions of the Justice for David Camm website to describe the details about this newly identified
suspect.
Three days after his sweatshirt and DNA was identified, Boney was found to be living in Louisville, less than 25
minutes from the Camm residence. At the time of the murders, he was living with his mother, who later
admitted that she had sent him on errands to a nearby meat store which also happened to be owned by Kim’s
sister and brother-in-law and which Kim and the kids frequented on a routine basis.
Boney was soon interviewed by the police and claimed that he had numerous people who could alibi him for the
afternoon and evening of September 28, 2000. The police accepted his story even though the critical alibi
witnesses weren’t interviewed and even though Boney had failed a stipulated polygraph examination
as to his involvement in the murders. The polygraph examiner who administered the polygraph to Boney
acknowledged that the “Fresh Eyes” investigators were both surprised and shocked at the results.
What happened next will astonish many people. At a press conference on February 28, 2005, Boney was
defended by the prosecutors. They claimed that his story about giving the BACKBONE sweatshirt to
the Salvation Army after his release from prison had checked out. They insisted that David Camm was
still the one who was responsible for the murders of his family. As to an 11-time convicted felon who
assaulted women, robbed women, kidnapped women at gunpoint and who threatened to blow their brains out,
he was regarded by the prosecutors as simply having his sweatshirt show up at the crime scene through no
fault of his own. Nothing was said to the public about Boney’s failed polygraph or the failure to verify his false
alibi witnesses.
Deputy prosecutor Steve Owen asked this question at the same press conference, “What do you think? Mr.
Boney’s going to come out of jail, go to somebody’s house in Georgetown, brutally murder three people and
say, ‘Oh, I think I’ll take off my sweatshirt that I got from (the Department Of Corrections) and lay it down here
by the blood (boy). Does that make sense to anybody?” Owen said it didn’t make sense to him, but it sure
made sense to a lot of people that an enraged, violent person, engaged in a sexual assault of a woman, who
then shot and killed her and her two children, just might leave evidence at the scene of a crime. After all, Boney
had left his property and fingerprints at previous crime scenes.
The defense tried to get the prosecutors to act and filed a motion for Judge Aylsworth to authorize an arrest
warrant for Boney. That failed. Boney’s identity and the fact that his sweatshirt had been linked to the crime
scene (and prior to the defense being advised that his DNA had been identified) was leaked to the press,
presumably by someone in the prosecutor’s office, and Boney was in the process of giving an exclusive
interview to a Louisville television station.
Boney was found and then quickly interviewed by a retired FBI Agent who was working for the defense. During
the videotaped interview of Boney, he was caught in numerous lies and he claimed that nothing more of his
would be found at the crime scene, including other DNA or his fingerprints. In fact, he stated that if anything
else of his other than his sweatshirt was found at the scene it would be obvious that he murdered the family.
Weeks after Boney was first interviewed and when the police took his finger and palm prints, the unknown
palm print was finally compared to that of Boney. It was a match. It was therefore “obvious” that he was
the murderer. Only the police still thought that David Camm was involved, due to the “compelling” evidence of
blood spatter, according to Detective Gilbert. The prosecution and the investigators weren’t giving up on Camm
being involved.
The “Fresh Eyes,” however, were compelled to arrest Boney. After his arrest and initial interview, he was
allowed to be alone for several hours in order to compile a written statement. His assertions quickly changed,
however, and at the end of the post-arrest interviews, the investigators told Boney that his story was a “crock of
shit.”
After that first round of interviews, ISP Detective Myron Wilkerson, a distant relative of the Boney’s, found
Boney’s mother and sister and, according to them, told them that they needed Boney to sign a “conspiracy
note.” Boney’s sister was allowed to meet twice with her brother, including a contact visit, prior to his next
interview. It was obvious that the ISP and the prosecutor needed to link Boney and Camm together and they
were trying to get Boney to provide information of a “conspiracy” between he and Camm.
It took over 30 hours of interrogations and changing and contradictory stories for Boney to finally
provide a story that was the stuff of fairy tales, saying that he only sold a gun to David Camm which
was used in the murders. Nothing of what Boney said, including when and how he supposedly met
Dave, where he obtained the gun, and other aspects of his story have ever been corroborated. Nothing
of what he said could be construed as the two conspiring with one another. Boney put the murders all
on Camm.
Parts of the interrogations of Boney are chilling, however. He was told by Wilkerson that he was an “opportunist”
whose “best scenario is to be a witness.” He was further told that David Camm had an alibi which was “gonna
be a problem.” Wilkerson told Boney that his goal was to keep Boney alive. Boney was given a stark choice. He
could be a witness or face the death penalty. Incriminate Camm or die were his options. He chose the
option that kept him alive. It was clear to many that the death penalty was spared in exchange for Boney
incriminating Camm.
Another astounding facet to the Boney interviews is the fact that critical parts of Boney’s written statement and
later his stories were first provided by the authorities. It was Wayne Kessinger, one of Henderson’s
investigators, who first suggested to Boney that the gun was “dirty” or “untraceable” and that he might have had
it wrapped in his sweatshirt. Boney later incorporated those two aspects with his story that after he bought the
untraceable gun, he wrapped it in his sweatshirt prior to giving it to Camm.
What else did Boney claim? He said that he first met Dave in July, 2000, at a local park where they were playing
full-court basketball. In addition to the ten players there were several others present as onlookers. How many
witnesses were found that saw the two together? None. There were no witnesses.
Boney also claimed that he and Dave never spoke on the telephone but met in front of a convenience store
immediately adjacent to Karem’s Meat Market owned by Kim’s sister. It was there that Dave spoke to him about
getting a gun and later where the gun was provided. That’s smart. Meet and talk with a convicted felon and
obtain a gun in a busy parking lot of a business owned by your sister-in-law where you’re well-known. As one
might guess, there were no witnesses.
Boney also said that he knew that Dave was a former ISP trooper but that Dave trusted him enough, after ten
minutes of conversation, to ask him to find him a gun. That contradicts Boney’s other statements to many
others, including the defense investigator, that he would never trust a cop.
Dave agreed to a price of $250, but there was no discussion as to what make, model, caliber or type of gun.
Boney claimed that he went to his long-time acquaintance, Larry Gerkin, who lived in Louisville, and purchased
a .380. Wayne Kessinger, who spent 30 years with the Louisville Metro Police, was unsuccessful in finding
Gerkin, much less identifying him. Gerkin was probably just a quick figment of Boney’s imagination. (One
should ask why he would lie about the identify of the real source of the gun, however.)
After claiming that he sold Dave one gun on the afternoon of the murders, which was delivered in the same
Karem’s parking lot, Boney claimed that he followed Dave to his house. For 15 or more minutes, he followed
Dave home, but he couldn’t remember the vehicle that Dave was driving, thinking that it was a LeSabre. Dave,
of course, drove a white pickup truck. Boney did recall, in the span only seeing Kim’s Bronco for mere
moments, that her car had an FOP sticker on the license. Boney then said that he was outside the garage next
to his car when Kim and the kids pulled into the driveway. He said he then heard three pops and Dave walked
outside the garage and confronted him.
Incredibly, Boney also claimed that Dave then tried to kill him but that the gun jammed. Boney said Dave then
ran into the house from the garage, presumably, according to Boney, to get another gun to kill him. Dave, a
former SWAT member, panicked when a gun jammed and ran away was Boney’s story. Ask any law
enforcement officer, or better yet, a SWAT member, how long it takes to remove a jam in a semi-automatic
handgun. Mere seconds will be the answer.
Rather than fleeing the scene after Camm tried to kill him, Boney then said he followed behind Camm and
walked into the garage. He said that he then tripped over Kim’s shoes and that he leaned down, picked them
up and placed them neatly on top of the car. He then leaned into the vehicle and looked to see what was inside
because of “curiosity.” That’s when his palm print was deposited on the door jamb, as he was looking in at Jill
and Brad.
It was only then that he decided that it was time to leave. As he was driving away, however, he saw in his rearview mirror a woman in a vehicle that looked like a state owned Crown Victoria. Boney was trying to incriminate
a female trooper associate of Dave’s. She had previously been eliminated as a suspect because when the
crimes had occurred, she was with friends eating a late dinner. (The new investigators suggested that she take
a polygraph as to her possible involvement. She passed the polygraph.)
Boney’s story is not supported by any witnesses, any records, any documents, or any other
corroboration at all. It is his unsupported story, fostered by the need to have him incriminate David
Camm, which he finally provided. The story is that of a person who knew he had to incriminate David
Camm in order to escape the death penalty, which he did. His stories were labeled by the police
investigators as a “crock of shit” and as a “story of convenience” but they finally had him incriminating Camm.
After several interviews the police finally had Boney incriminating Camm. What happened next? Prosecutor
Henderson dropped the charges against Dave which were pending in Warrick County. For a little over an hour
the Camm and Lockhart families thought that justice finally had been achieved. They didn’t know that
Henderson had already drafted another new probable cause affidavit, the third one, against Dave.
On March 9, 2005, David Camm was, for the third time, charged with the murder of his family. This was
the prosecution’s fourth theory. Lead “Fresh Eyes” investigator Gary Gilbert swore under oath that Dave not
only committed the murders but that he and Boney conspired with one another to commit murder. Boney didn’t
provide any “evidence” of such a conspiracy. There were no witnesses, no documents, no records, and no
connection whatsoever between the two.
Many wrongful convictions have been overturned based on new DNA evidence that was located at or near the
scene of the murder but for whatever reason was never tested. But in this case, prosecutors found a way to
manipulate this suspect into implicating Camm by giving him the choice of incriminating Camm or facing the
death penalty. It is astounding. David Camm had an airtight alibi at the time of the murder, confirmed by 11
witnesses who have never wavered in their statements. This combined with identification of the real killer, a
gunman who attacked women at night, and who had a sexual fetish for shoes, by all logic should have resulted
in an exoneration for Camm.
In January, 2006 Boney was tried and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and three counts of first
degree murder. The conspiracy “evidence” was based upon the deductions of one of the detectives who
interviewed Boney, even though no records, documents, or witnesses were produced putting Camm and Boney
together at any time. The only one who claimed that the two knew one another was Boney and his stories
changed each time he was interviewed.
Camm’s 2nd trial was taking place in a different town at the same time as Boney’s trial. The jury never got to
hear that Boney was convicted of the murders. And they never got to hear the details of his past criminal
actions that were entirely consistent with the attack of Kim Camm. The jury wasn’t allowed to hear any of
Boney’s many changing and contradictory statements, listen, or view any of his interrogations.
Interesting testimony at this second trial came from a forensic expert for the prosecution in the first trial. She
testified that the prosecutor tried to convince her to testify that Camm’s DNA was found on the sweatshirt but
she refused.
A forensic scientist was reduced to tears while recalling an encounter with the former prosecutor in the
case, WLKY NewsChannel 32′s Julia Harding reported. Lynn Scamahorn took the stand and recalled a
conversation with Stan Faith, who got a conviction of Camm the first time around in 2002.
Scamahorn told the jury that in 2002, Faith tried to get her to change her testimony about DNA evidence
on Boney’s sweatshirt found at the crime scene. She testified that DNA was found belonging to Boney, his
girlfriend — Mala Singh Mattingly — Kim Camm and Brad Camm, Harding reported.Scamahorn said
Tuesday that Faith wanted her to say that David Camm’s DNA also was on the sweatshirt. She refused,
and said her job was threatened when Faith told her that her refusal could be a Class D obstruction of
justice.Scamahorn went on to say that Faith yelled and swore at her. When asked if it upset her at the
time, Scamahorn started to cry on the stand.”Any attempt to influence her in any way to say something
that’s not the complete truth is relevant, and the jury needs to hear it,” Uliana said.But when he was
reached for comment Tuesday, Faith told WLKY that he didn’t swear at Scamahorn or threaten her job.
So first they continue to go after Camm, despite having successfully prosecuted Boney for the murders, and
now this coercion of an expert witness becomes known. This shows how far prosecutors were willing to go to
convict him. But that’s not all. Tom Bevel (blood spatter “expert”) also testifed at Camm’s second trial that the
blood on Camm’s shirt had to come from high velocity spatter and that he had to be present when the victims
were shot. This was countered by defense experts Paul Kish and Bart Epstein who asserted that the blood
was transferred to his clothing by contact when he found the bodies. Remember that prosecutors allege that
Camm left the basketball game to go home and do the shootings. Common sense tells you that he couldn’t
possibly have returned to the game in bloody clothing! Yet, there is no explanation offered about that.
Tom Bevel’s expertise is currently under scrutiny in the Horinek case and experts have shown that Bevel’s
findings are incorrect. It turns out that his findings are also questionable in a number of other cases. Many
believe that blood spatter evidence is junk science because it is so subjective. It’s disturbing that so many
people have been convicted soley on this, but the jury obviously believed Bevel and despite the conviction of
the real murderer (Boney), David Camm was again found guilty of the murders.
The trial judge at Camm’s trial was forced to dismiss the conspiracy charge when the prosecutors failed to
produce any linkage whatsoever between Camm and Boney.
During the trial, graphic photographs of all the victims were shown to the jury, including photographs of Jill’s
genitalia, which had non-specific, blunt force trauma to the exterior genitalia. It was impossible to determine
the source of the injuries but the likelihood they had been present prior to the night of her death was extremely
unlikely. The day of her death, Jill had been a very athletically active little girl at school, dance class, and at her
brother’s swim practice. One of the prosecutor’s medical examiners initially claimed that such an injury would
have “hurt like hell” and been impossible for Jill not to complain about. That examiner later changed her story
at trial.
(Also not told to the jury was the story from Boney’s first wife. She told of returning home one day to find Boney
slapping and hitting their one-year old son. Boney had a history of abusing a child and admitted, according to
another witness, that when he got angry he would fly into a rage and literally see white, not knowing what he
was doing.)
Regardless, the prosecutor claimed, without any evidence and without any linkage between those injuries and
her father, that Camm was responsible and was a molester. The stain stuck. When explaining their guilty
verdicts, the jury foreman stated the molestation was a “key factor” in reaching their verdicts.
Again the conviction was overturned on appeal. This time it was due to prosecutors making the unfounded
accusations that Camm molested his daughter. That was the alleged motive in trial number 2 since
prosecutors were forbidden from using the affairs again.
The Indiana Supreme Court has thrown out the murder convictions of a former state trooper in the deaths
of his wife and two children and ordered a new trial.
David Camm has twice been convicted for the killings, but the court in a 4-1 ruling released Friday said the
judge in the retrial improperly allowed prosecutors to raise the prospect that he had molested his daughter
despite not presenting evidence he had done so.
But Camm’s nightmare still wasn’t over. The AG requested a re-hearing of the appeal:
The Indiana Supreme Court won’t reconsider its ruling that overturned the murder convictions against a
former state trooper accused of killing his wife and two young children.The court voted 3-2 Monday to
deny the attorney general’s request for a rehearing of David Camm’s appeal.
In 2009 prosecutors made the decision to try Camm a 3rd time. But the prosecutor, Keith Henderson had
been working on a book deal which, according to Camm’s attorneys, violated Indiana rules and ethics.
Camm attorney Stacy Uliana wants a special prosecutor appointed because Henderson struck a deal to
write a book about the case.”There’s no book deal,” Henderson said. “There was, and it would be my hope
in the future there will be.”
Henderson saw nothing standing in his way in pursuing a third conviction against Camm for the deaths of
his wife and their two children.”Once the conviction of David Camm occurred in March of 2006, my
representation ended with the state of Indiana in the Camm case,” Henderson said. He said he called off
the book deal when the Indiana Supreme Court overturned Camm’s conviction in June. But Uliana
contends Henderson never stopped representing the state of Indiana.
“The American Bar Association has set forth standards for prosecutors that they should follow, and they
exclusively state that a book deal that a prosecutor has during a case should be scrupulously avoided,
because it creates this inherent conflict between one’s interest in selling a book and the interest of
society,” she said.
More recently, Camm’s attorneys have successfully argued, through the Indiana Court of Appeals, and most
recently upheld by the Indiana Supreme court, that a special prosecutor be assigned. In a compelling
conclusion, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that Henderson had “a clear and convincing…conflict” and had
“permanently compromised his ability advocate on behalf of the people of Indiana.”
Prosecutor Henderson, in addition to being off the case permanently, is also facing a Disciplinary
Commission inquiry. He’s not paying for that alleged misconduct, however, since the county taxpayers
are on the hook for the $375 an hour attorney he retained.
So Camm is awaiting the 3rd trial and remains in prison at this time. Words can’t adequately describe the
injustice that has occurred throughout the investigation and trials relating to this case. It is my opinion, based
on all the evidence, Boney’s conviction, Camm’s solid alibi, unreliable blood spatter evidence combined with
the blatant prosecutorial and judicial misconduct that led to his first and second convictions that Camm has not
been given fair trials and it’s quite evident that he is innocent. It is beyond outrageous to subject him to another
trial and for the taxpayers to bear the burden of another trial that is estimated to cost $1 million dollars, but that
is what the State of Indiana is planning. David Camm deserves to be set free now.
I will continue to follow this case and will post updates.
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Justice for David Camm
Home
Background
Original Investigation
The First Trial
(Coming Soon)
The Appellate Decision
(Coming Soon)
The New "Fresh Eyes"
Investigation
(Coming Soon)
Charles Boney Background
Boney - The
Police/Defense
Investigation
Boney's Video Confession
David Camm's Second Trial
(Coming Soon)
Comments by Police &
Prosecution
(Coming Soon)
Effects on Society
(Coming Soon)
Overview
FAQ
Contact
Failed Polygraph
After breaking shortly after 6:00PM, or just after his first interview on February
17, 2005, Boney took a stipulated polygraph about him being involved in the
Camm murders. That polygraph was administered by a retired Louisville police
officer and experienced polygraph examiner.
In order to take the polygraph, however, it was necessary to secure Boney's
consent, which he provided. The police and prosecution also wanted him to
take a stipulated polygraph which is one that both the state and suspect agree
that the results can be used as evidence. Boney's stipulated polygraph stated
that the results could be "introduced into evidence...at any trial..."
Officer Doug Inghram of the Louisville Metro Police was the original polygrapher
who examined Boney on February 17, 2005. Detective Inghram, who was sick
when he began the examination, had to stop midway through it and called
retired Jefferson County Police polygrapher Robert Ennis for help in finishing
the test. Robert Ennis has an outstanding reputation amongst police officers,
prosecutors, and the defense bar.
Mr. Ennis spent a period of time with Boney prior to testing him during which he
went over all of the questions, relevant and otherwise. He posed the following
three relevant questions to Boney:
1. Did you shoot any of those people in Indiana?
2. Were you there when they were shot?
3. Did you see who shot them?
Developments
Comments
Mr. Ennis has noted on many different occasions that he is a "seeker of the
truth" and doesn't have a preconceived opinion of the involvement or noninvolvement of a suspect in a crime. As with most professional polygraphers, he
gave the examinee the benefit of the doubt. He did that with Boney and after
running three tests, came to the solid conclusion that Boney was deceptive
about being involved with the murders of Kim, Brad, and Jill when he answered
no to each of the three relevant questions.
(Note: Most polygraphers, although they score each question, nonetheless
weigh the exam as a whole and not the individual questions before coming to
any opinion as to whether the subject is deceptive or non-deceptive.)
Ennis also later talked about the reaction of the two investigators (Kessinger
and Gilbert) in a deposition in October, 2005:
Ennis: "They were surprised."
Liell: "Even shocked?"
http://www.justicefordavidcamm.com/pages/police_defense_invest/police_defense_fail_poly.shtml[10/31/2013 9:08:15 PM]
Ennis: "Yes, ma'am."
Ennis also gave Boney a peak of tension test, the goal of which was to
determine if he had knowledge of the type of weapon that was used to murder
the Camm family. Boney claimed he didn't have a clue, but yet responded to
the question involving a .380, indicating further deception. A .380 Lorcin semiautomatic handgun was the murder weapon.
A very big question quickly comes to mind: Why wasn't Boney given another
test with more specific questions, such as:
1. Did you personally shoot Kim Camm?
2. Did you personally shoot Brad Camm?
3. Did you personally shoot Jill Camm?
4. Were you responsible for the removal of Kim's shoes?
5. Were you attempting to steal Kim Camm's shoes?
6. Did you leave your "BACKBONE" sweatshirt at the scene?
The question must be asked as to why the investigators didn't request that
another polygraph be given to Boney which would have asked more specific
questions and then provided answers as to his role in the crimes. It wasn't the
responsibility of the polygrapher to do that on his own accord but rather for the
investigators to request another exam.
Remember that Boney was being cooperative at the time, giving multiple
interviews, and would be cooperative for over two more weeks prior to his
palm print being matched to the Bronco. There were numerous opportunities to
have him take another polygraph yet he wasn't asked to do so by the police.
One must ask the simple question as to why he wasn't given another
polygraph.
THIS WEBSITE IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND SOME SECTIONS ARE NOT FULLY COMPLETED. IT IS BEING DEVELOPED AND MAINTAINED BY THE
FAMILY, FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS OF KIMBERLY, BRADLEY, JILL, AND DAVID R. CAMM
© COPYRIGHT 2007-ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
NO PART OF THIS WEBSITE, INCLUDING PHOTOGRAPHS, DIAGRAMS, DEPICTIONS, TEXT OR ANY OTHER CONTENT MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT
EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION
http://www.justicefordavidcamm.com/pages/police_defense_invest/police_defense_fail_poly.shtml[10/31/2013 9:08:15 PM]
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Boney - The
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Effects on Society
(Coming Soon)
Overview
FAQ
Contact
Frequently Asked Questions
How many theories has the prosecution had about when and who
committed the murders of Kim, Brad and Jill?
What is the connection between Charles Boney and David Camm?
If there was no evidence that the two ever knew each other or
associated with each other then why was David Camm charged with
conspiring with Boney to kill his family? Don't you have to have two
or more people involved in the planning in order to have a
conspiracy?
What did Boney actually say about his involvement and the
involvement of David Camm in the murders?
Why would Boney leave his sweatshirt at the scene of the crime?
I'm confused about the DNA which was found on 'BACKBONE"
sweatshirt. Who found the DNA, when did they find it, and why
wasn't it important to try and match that DNA with the DNA
database?
Was CODIS ever queried in an attempt to identify the unknown male
DNA found on the "BACKBONE" sweatshirt?
Developments
Kim's blood was actually found on the ''BACKBONE"" sweatshirt? Was
there any other blood found on the sweatshirt?
Comments
Is it true that the prosecutors still believed Boney even after his DNA
was matched to the ''BACKBONE"" sweatshirt and he also failed a
polygraph examination about him killing the Camm family?
Boney took and failed a polygraph?
Why were the prosecutors and police so anxious to believe Charles
Boney?
What is the role of the prosecutor in the State of Indiana?
http://www.justicefordavidcamm.com/faq.shtml[10/31/2013 9:05:47 PM]
If the result of Boney's stipulated polygraph could be introduced into
evidence at any trial or hearing, why weren't they introduced at
Camm's trial?
Why didn't David Camm take a polygraph?
Boney claimed to have alibi witnesses for his whereabouts on
September 28, 2000. Did the police interview those alibi witnesses?
Were the basketball players relatives of David and did they lie?
Much has been made of the fact that two different prosecutors from
two different political parties and two different investigations were
conducted with the same conclusion that Camm killed his family.
How do you account for that?
Did the prosecutor use prison informants in his "fresh eyes"
investigation? How reliable are they?
How do you account for the fact that David Camm was convicted
twice of killing his wife and children?
What evidence existed that David molested Jill?
Did Boney actually admit to killing three people?
Is there also a video tape interview of Boney where he confessed to
killing Kim and the kids?
Did Charles Boney actually have a fetish for women's legs, shoes, or
feet?
Was Boney's sexual fetish a motive for killing the Camm family?
Was Charles Boney a devil worshipper?
Why did David Camm leave the Indiana State Police?
Did David Camm inquire about Kim's insurance the day after the
murders and why was the insurance coverage on the Camm family
raised just months before the murders?
I've heard that Danny Camm, the brother of Dave, forged the
signature of Kim Camm on the insurance policy. Is this true?
Were there lies told during any of Camm's interviews?
Was Kim Camm contemplating leaving David Camm at the time of
her death?
Did Kim know that David was molesting Jill but refused to leave him
as some people have claimed?
Is it possible that Kim only found out about Jill being molested the
same day of her murder?
Did David Camm act "funny" after the murders of his wife and kids?
Did he also ask questions of the police about the status of the
investigation and what they had found in the house?
What do you think really happened? Did Boney randomly pick Kim
and or the house? Why were Kim and the kids targeted?
Q. How many theories has the prosecution had about when and who
committed the murders of Kim, Brad and Jill?
At least four.
The first theory was that Dave left the gym around 9:00PM and that three
sounds interpreted (by Sgt. Clemons) as gunshots were heard by a neighbor
between 9:15-9:30PM, indicating that he committed the murders during that
15 minute window. He was the sole perpetrator. After a myriad of evidence
(time needed for blood/serum separation; children still in the Bronco; Brad still
in swim trunks; etc.) was finally weighed, including conclusive evidence that
Dave didn't even leave the gym until the alarm was set at 9:22PM that theory
changed.
The second theory was based upon telephone records obtained by the State
regarding a call that occurred from the Camm residence at 7:19PM. That
telephone call was to a prospective client of Camm's. That's one pretty cool
guy…he sneaks out of basketball after only a few minutes (not to mention
there's only 10 players, meaning that he leaves a 5 on 5 game in progress in
which he is playing), is not missed, drives home, waits at home to murder his
family (again, by himself), places an unanswered call to a client, (the Bronco
driven by Kim according to a neighbor/eyewitness doesn't even enter the road
to the house until around 7:35PM), and he then murders the family, drives
back to the gym, returns to the game (from which he had to have been gone
for at least 20-25 minutes) without anyone noticing the blood on his shirt or
shoes, and has the same demeanor throughout the night. The only problem
with that theory is that the call occurred at 6:19PM, or an hour prior to when
the prosecution claimed it occurred. The State was off by an hour on the phone
call. Nonetheless, the basketball players, who didn't play a role in the first
theory, are now labeled as liars who are covering for Camm when their stories
don't change that he never left the gym.
The third theory is that David Camm, somehow or another, at some time or
another, snuck out of the gymnasium, wasn't missed, drove home, was lucky
enough to know when the family was going to arrive, murders the family (he
being the lone perpetrator), drives back to the game, is cool and calm, and no
one notices the blood on his shirt or shoes. Oh, and all three of the first three
theories include the allegation that Camm also manipulated or cleaned up the
crime scene, including adding bleach to the blood, throwing the used bleach
over the back porch, and placing the shoes on top of the Bronco. Several
minutes must be added to the time it took to commit the crime.
The fourth theory is that Camm and Boney were together during the
commission of the crime, somehow or another, at some time or another and
that Camm did something and Boney did something. The State never did
actually make any type of specific assertion as to who did what, other than
David Camm shot and killed Jill, his daughter, while squatting directly in front
of her, or between her and the back of the front passenger seat, which resulted
in 8 tiny dots of blood being deposited on the lower left of his T-shirt (does
that even pass the common sense smell test? However, that's the only way
that they can get the blood on his T-shirt to be blowback from Jill's gunshot
wound). The State never specifically said what time the crime occurred, who
killed Kim or Brad, or what role Charles Boney had in the murders. They did
allege that Dave and Boney conspired with one another to commit murder, but
there was no evidence of that ever presented and that charge was summarily
dismissed by Camm's trial judge.
The glue that held all four theories together, however, was the heinous and
completely unsubstantiated allegation that Dave had molested his daughter.
That trumped any need to provide specific evidence about who, what, when,
where, and how the crimes were committed. Once a person, and indeed, a
jury, is told that a father violated his daughter, the die has been irrevocably
cast.
Top of Page
Q. What is the connection between Charles Boney and David Camm?
There is absolutely no connection other than the unsupported allegation of an
11 time convicted felon, Charles Boney. Charles Boney alleged that he first met
David Camm at New Albany's Community Park in July, 2000 playing five on
five full-court basketball. This assertion was made only after the unknown palm
print on the left side of the Bronco was identified as Boney's and only after
Boney was finally arrested.
Prior to his final interview when he claimed that he sold Camm a gun and made
other incredible claims, Boney had repeatedly stated that he didn't know nor
had ever met Camm. His claim was made only after Detective Myron
Wilkerson had interrogated Boney after repeated interviews and
interrogations by other detectives failed to convince him to incriminate Camm.
An excerpt from that March 7, 2005 interview:
WILKERSON:
Thank you. You need to weigh into that real heavy. This is not a feather in my
cap. This is not a promotion. I'm over the hill. This is not anything monetary
gain. My motive right now whether you want to believe it or not you need to
quit being so damn stubborn…is to keep you alive. I can be a man and look
you in your eyes and tell you that's what I'm intending to do. You understand
Charles? I've told you off the record but now I'll tell you on the record you're
gonna have a hell of a time getting around with what's already there. Your
best scenario is to be a witness. No matter what it is Charles it needs to be
put to rest. No matter how deep it is, no matter who's involved in it or who is
not involved in it. You need this, this is ridiculous you need to tell the truth. No
more games, I told you downstairs no more diversions okay. The attorney is no
longer a diversion I mean we're legal you understand, there is nothing here
that it's your decision to move forward. There's nothing I can add to or remove
from your statement it's on the record. You understand, I've laid every bit of
this out Charles. Okay. I'm reaching a little tired okay, because what I really
think is going on here Charles is, your stubborn, your scared and you're an
opportunist. Know what I mean by that Charles? Any opportunity you get
to not talk about this your gonna use and I think its time to quit the shit. You
understand? You need to let go. Do you know David Camm?
Charles Boney is not a stupid person and he knew what Wilkerson meant when
he said that Boney was an opportunist and that his best scenario was to be
a witness. The other option was to be the perpetrator who would face the
death penalty. He didn't like that option. He very quickly realized that all he
had to do was to incriminate David Camm in order to avoid being executed.
Wilkerson immediately introduced Camm into the conversation rather than
having Boney attempt to explain how his property, DNA, palm print, and
criminal signature was at the scene of the crime. That was Boney's cue, and
Boney gave them what they wanted, even though he couldn't give them any
evidence to support his story because none existed.
Previously, during several interviews with the media and other detectives,
Boney repeatedly denied any association whatsoever with David Camm. During
Boney's taped interview with the defense investigator on February 28, he made
the following comments:
Boney: The next thing that I'm looking at is, if it was warm that day, why
would a person have a sweatshirt anyway? Another theory, if me and David
Camm, which we don't know each other, and I'm making that known on tape
right now.
Dunn: Right.
Boney: We don't know each other. I'm sure he can say, man, I don't know that
guy, and I know I don't know this gentleman. Ok. If someone theorizes that we
were in cahoots with one another. Why would he leave my sweatshirt at
the scene of the crime knowing that ultimately my DOC number and
my DNA would lead right back to him?
Dunn: That doesn't make any sense does it?
Boney: It doesn't make any sense at all. So there goes out the theory
that we know each other. That doesn't make sense.
None of the other supposed eight basketball players in that Community Park
game have ever verified the game nor has anyone ever placed Boney or David
playing at the Community Park courts either with or without one another. No
witnesses exist that place the two together anywhere. Additionally, the
police subpoenaed many telephone records and there were never any phone
calls between the two men. In short, the only "evidence" that the two ever
met was Boney's assertion and only after he was arrested and
understood that he would face the death penalty if he didn't
incriminate David Camm.
Top of Page
Q. If there was no evidence that the two ever knew each other or associated
with each other then why was David Camm charged with conspiring with Boney
to kill his family? Don't you have to have two or more people involved in the
planning in order to have a conspiracy?
Remember that David Camm was convicted first in the court of public opinion
prior to any evidence being presented in an actual court of law. Prior to the
second trial of Camm it was necessary to link him with Boney. That was
accomplished in Boney's trial which was over well before the Camm trial.
The first several days of Boney's trial, which occurred in New Albany in January,
2006 focused on David Camm. The witnesses were allowed to preach hearsay
from the witness stand about Dave's character and the unsupported allegations
about molestation. Boney's attorney was giddy because the prosecution was
focused on Camm and not his client. That attorney surely wasn't going to
object to Dave being slammed. After all, David Camm didn't have any rights in
Boney's trial and no one, including the judge, was about to stop the
prosecution from using hearsay, innuendo, and unsupported allegations about
David Camm. The prosecutor had timed his trials well and knew that Camm
was once again being tried in the court of public opinion.
Boney was a secondary character to Camm in his own trial. No evidence, of
course, existed about any connection between the two other than Boney's last
ditch effort to put the blame on Camm. The prosecution used what little they
had about such a relationship (all claimed by Boney), claiming that Boney
was a liar about practically everything but wasn't lying about his
connection with Camm. They cherry-picked Boney's statements to
include only those parts which could be molded into fitting with their
conspiracy theory.
Boney was never on the stand and was never challenged about his story. The
defense wouldn't allow Boney on the stand and the prosecution sure didn't
want him on the stand to mess up their hearsay and unsubstantiated case
against Camm. All of the allegations against Camm went unanswered.
During Dave's trial, most of which came after Boney's trial, no evidence at all
was presented about any connection between Camm and Boney. Although the
prosecution claimed a connection and a conspiracy between the two, they
failed to produce any evidence whatsoever in that regard.
After the prosecution rested in Dave's trial, the judge issued a directed verdict,
dismissing the conspiracy charge. That is most unusual in a criminal trial and
meant that there was nothing to substantiate the conspiracy charge. David
Camm can never again be charged with conspiring with Boney because there
was absolutely no evidence presented that linked in any way Charles
Boney with David Camm and the judge made a definitive ruling as to
that.
Top of Page
Q. What did Boney actually say about his involvement and the involvement of
David Camm in the murders?
This is impossible to briefly answer because of Boney's continuing and everchanging stories. In order to adequately answer this question, one must wade
through over 30 hours of interviews and interrogations of Boney. After Boney
would be confronted with yet another piece of evidence, he would modify his
story and eventually, after being informed that his palm print was found on the
right side door jamb of the Bronco, and after being threatened with the death
penalty if he didn't become a witness, he finally "confessed." Only his
confession was that David Camm was responsible. The only thing consistent
with Boney's ever-changing stories, and finally, his last unbelievable and
incredible story, is that he always minimized his involvement. It is suggested
that the section on the police investigation of Boney be read in its entirety in
order to fully comprehend just how Boney, the inveterate liar, incriminated
Camm with a story that not only didn't make sense, but was finally labeled as
a "crock of shit" by one of the investigators and as a "story of convenience" by
another investigator.
Top of Page
Q. Why would Boney leave his sweatshirt at the scene of the crime?
People often confuse a premeditated crime with a crime that was committed
without any problems. Don't confuse those two. Criminals often plan a crime
and think that they're smart enough that the plan will be executed well and
without any issues.
Before answering this question, you must first answer the question of why did
Boney even have a sweatshirt at the crime scene? That question is
answered by Boney himself. During his attacks on Indiana University coeds in
1988-89, he often wore disguises. After he was apprehended, he made several
stark admissions, including one that he had an "escape plan" (his words). He
would wear a sweatshirt to the scene of the crime and then later take it
off and place it into his backpack in order to not have on the same clothes
as the perpetrator should anyone have seen him. He had an escape plan and
Boney's escape plan was his sweatshirt!
Don't overlook the fact that Boney also said during his 1989 interview that he
had a backpack with him during the commission of his crimes. At the Camm
crime scene, there was a clear impediment in the flow of blood from Kim's
head wound. That impediment also had a straight edge, much like the bottom
of a backpack would have.
Remember also that several people saw Boney with a backpack, including
several individuals at Anderson Woods, where Boney was working on the night
shift in September, 2000 (he was absent from work on September 28th) Boney
was seen by at least one co-worker with a handgun in that same backpack.
That co-worker also knew that Ernest Nugent, a co-worker, had sold Boney a
gun.
After answering the question of why he had a sweatshirt, we can then answer
why would Boney leave it at the crime scene? The answer is probably
quite easy. He panicked. He panicked just like most criminals do when things
don't go right.
As noted, most criminals talk a good game before or after a crime but
how they act during the crime is a different story. Adrenaline is pumping
and things aren't going the way they were planned. The female victim is
fighting for the lives of her children and herself and isn't being compliant, as
witnessed by Kim's wounds to her fingernail, knees, elbows, and feet. Perhaps
the original intent was only to satisfy the foot/shoe/leg fetish that obsessed
Boney and when things got way out of hand in the darkened garage his plan
literally blew apart.
Top of Page
Q. I'm confused about the DNA which was found on 'BACKBONE" sweatshirt.
Who found the DNA, when did they find it, and why wasn't it important to try
and match that DNA with the DNA database?
In October, 2000 the sweatshirt was taken to the ISP laboratory in Evansville
where DNA analyst Lynn Scamahorn took swabs of areas on the sweatshirt
which contained stains visible to the naked eye. Several months later the
results revealed that there was unknown female DNA on the front of the
sweatshirt. Not only was there female DNA on the sweatshirt, but it was mixed
with DNA from Kim and Brad.
The ISP laboratory didn't discover any male DNA on the sweatshirt.
After the ISP lab spent months examining the sweatshirt, in October, 2001 the
original defense team had the sweatshirt tested at a certified independent
laboratory and that laboratory took swabs from the collar (in order to
determine if DNA was present from an individual who had worn the sweatshirt)
and subsequently was able to determine that the cellular DNA was male
DNA. That unknown DNA did not match David Camm's DNA profile.
The FBI maintains a national database containing the DNA profiles of violent
felons. Most states, including Indiana, have collected profiles from violent
incarcerated felons in order to assist in the identification of the source of
unknown DNA found at crime scenes. The Combined DNA Index System
(CODIS) was perfectly suited to identify the unknown male DNA found on the
"BACKBONE" sweatshirt.
Top of Page
Q. Was CODIS ever queried in an attempt to identify the unknown male DNA
found on the "BACKBONE" sweatshirt?
Sergeant Sean Clemons said he never knew about the unknown DNA on
the sweatshirt until 2005 and that Prosecutor Faith never told him
about it and never asked him to run any DNA profile through the
CODIS database. Prosecutor Faith, however, said he asked the ISP to
run the unknown DNA profile through CODIS and that someone with
the ISP had dropped the ball.
Complicating these stories, however, is the information provided by former
defense attorney Mike McDaniels that he asked Faith to run the unknown DNA
through CODIS and that Faith told him that he did run it but that there was no
match.
It wasn't until the second defense team advised Prosecutor Henderson of the
intended filing of a motion to compel to have that unknown DNA profile
checked through CODIS did he and the ISP attempt to find its true source. It
was only in February, 2005 or four and a half years after the murders was
Charles Darnell Boney's DNA matched to the unknown male DNA found
on the "BACKBONE" sweatshirt. Boney's DNA profile had been in the CODIS
database since 1997 or four years prior to the unknown male DNA's discovery
on the sweatshirt.
(Note: Prosecutor Henderson later bragged that the ISP was diligent about
finding that Charles Boney was the donor of the unknown DNA on the
sweatshirt. What he didn't brag about was the fact that the Camm/Lockhart
family had literally begged the ISP to have the profile run through CODIS and
the ISP refused to do so. He also didn't brag about the fact that no such profile
would ever have been run unless David Camm's appeal was successful.
Indeed, it took the knowledge of an impending defense motion to compel the
ISP to run the DNA before they did so. It is an absolute fact that Charles
Boney would never have been discovered without the persistent
efforts of Camm's family and defense teams.)
In short, determining the source of the unknown male DNA found on the
sweatshirt was critical to solving this crime. However, the initial
investigator called the sweatshirt an artifact which wasn't important.
The former prosecutor also tried to get the DNA analyst to
misrepresent her findings in order to associate the sweatshirt with
David Camm and the last "fresh eyes" investigation only attempted to
match the DNA after the prosecutor was told of an impending motion
by the defense to compel them to do so.
DNA Analyst Scamahorn testified in the second trial that she was
threatened by Faith during the first trial after she refused to testify
that Dave Camm couldn't be excluded as the donor of the unknown
male DNA profile on the sweatshirt. She was asked to testify about
scientific data that wasn't accurate.
During the first trial, analyst Scamahorn testified under direct examination by
Stan Faith that she had examined the ''BACKBONE" sweatshirt and that David
Camm was eliminated as the individual whose DNA was on the sweatshirt. Ms.
Scamahorn, like the rest of the ISP's laboratory technicians and examiners,
testified according to the results which were obtained scientifically. In short,
she and the other technicians have only testified as to the facts known to
them. Ms. Scamahorn isn't perfect but she is a scientist and a professional.
While still on the witness stand in the first trial, the court took a recess and she
and Faith went into his office where he berated her about her testimony,
reducing her to tears. It was only after the trial and during her crossexamination in the second trial that it was publicly disclosed that Faith had
threatened her job if she didn't change her testimony to include Camm as a
possible donor of the unknown DNA on the sweatshirt. Ms. Scamahorn also
testified that she wrote a memorandum to her supervisor, Joe Vetter, that
she was threatened by Faith to be charged with a Class D felony of
obstructing justice.
Still more incredible is Ms. Scamahorn's allegation that Faith also told her
that he wanted her to testify that Jill Camm's vaginal fluid was found
on the master bedroom bed of Dave and Kim Camm rather than DNA
from any other possible body fluid, such as saliva. Ms. Scamahorn refused to
testify according to his threats, however.
(Note: David Camm acknowledged that he and Kim like many parents and
grandparents would have their kids join them in bed, watching television,
reading to them or simply being a family. Using Faith's criteria that Dave
molested Jill because her DNA was found in the bed shared by he and Kim
would mean that there should be molestation investigations conducted of the
vast majority of parents and many grandparents in the United States.)
Faith made good on his threats, however, and "reported" her to her
superiors. Incredibly enough, no one at the State Police responded to him
threatening one of their own for simply doing her job but rather hid the entire
sordid affair. The State Police didn't support their own employee who
was doing the right thing. The ISP also didn't report Faith to the Indiana
Disciplinary Commission for his conduct.
It doesn't stop there, however. Jon Singleton, a veteran ISP Sergeant and
fingerprint expert examined the unknown palm print found on the passenger
side door of the Bronco and eliminated Dave Camm as the donor for that print.
Singleton testified in the second trial that Faith wanted him to say that
he, Singleton, couldn't eliminate Dave Camm as the donor of that print.
Singleton refused to do so and he wasn't called by Faith to be a
witness during the first trial. As we know, Singleton was the expert who
later positively matched that previously unknown palm print on the Bronco to
the left palm print of Charles Boney.
How egregious is it for an officer of the court to threaten a person if she didn't
change her testimony? Is that a technicality or does it undercut the very basic
fabric of fairness and due process? What does it say about a prosecutor who
demanded that testimony be slanted in order to support allegations of molest?
What does it say about Stan Faith who later represented Charles Boney in a
Monroe County, Indiana courtroom in 2004 where Boney was released from
custody after violating his parole from the Department of Corrections?
Top of Page
Q. Kim's blood was actually found on the ''BACKBONE"" sweatshirt? Was
there any other blood found on the sweatshirt?
Yes, DNA from her blood was found on the left sleeve of the sweatshirt. The
autopsy revealed that the only open wounds on her body were the massive
head wound, her index finger which was missing part of its fingernail and the
wounds to her feet. The only source of her blood would therefore have had to
have been one or more of those three sources.
In addition to Kim's blood on the sweatshirt, Brad's blood was found (which
makes sense inasmuch as he was laid on the sweatshirt by his father).
In September, 2000, Boney was dating Mala Singh and her blood was also
found on the sweatshirt, mixed with Kim's blood.
Top of Page
Q. Is it true that the prosecutors still believed Boney even after his DNA was
matched to the ''BACKBONE"" sweatshirt and he also failed a polygraph
examination about him killing the Camm family?
Either they believed this prolific liar or their agenda was to get him to give them
the story they needed. On the afternoon of February 28, 2005 or after the
public became aware that Boney was the owner of the ''BACKBONE"
sweatshirt, the prosecutors held a news conference and they claimed
that Boney's story checked out. Apparently what was meant when they
supported this 11 time convicted felon was that his story about dropping his
sweatshirt at the Salvation Army drop box could have been truthful but there
was no way to verify that claim. The Salvation Army had no records, no
receipts, no video, no witnesses and no other means to verify Boney's claim.
Simply because it couldn't be discounted doesn't mean that it checks out,
however.
At that same news conference, nothing was said that Boney had already
failed a polygraph test when it was given to him ten days before. They knew
for ten days that he had failed a polygraph test and that his DNA was at the
murder scene. Ten days and still Boney was giving interviews in the media
while the prosecutor stood by him and told the public that Boney's
story checked out. Indeed, the prosecutor could have and should have
arrested Charles Boney and he should have been the recipient of an
appropriate interrogation that demanded rather than gave suggested answers.
Instead, the prosecutors told him to stay around the area.
Top of Page
Q. Boney took and failed a polygraph?
Absolutely. It was bad enough that the prosecutor and police took almost four
and a half years in finally matching the unknown DNA at the scene with the
CODIS database but it also took them over two weeks to match the palm print
at the scene with Boney's print. How long does it take for a fingerprint
examiner to match fingerprints? The obvious answer is minutes if the examiner
has the prints and not weeks. The ISP fingerprint examiner wasn't provided
Boney's palm prints until March 4, 2005 or over two weeks after they were first
taken.
Regarding Boney's polygraph, it was a stipulated polygraph. What is that?
Simply put, a stipulated polygraph is one where both the state and the
suspect agree that "the results of said examination may be introduced
into evidence, without objection by either the State of Indiana or Charles D.
Boney at the time of the examiner's testimony at any trial or hearing."
Officer Doug Inghram of the Louisville Metro Police was the original polygrapher
who examined Boney on February 17, 2005. Detective Inghram, who was sick
when he began the examination, had to stop midway through it and called
retired Jefferson County Police polygrapher Robert Ennis for help.
Mr. Ennis spent a period of time with Boney prior to testing him during which he
went over all of the questions, relevant and otherwise. He posed the following
three relevant questions to Boney:
1. Did you shoot any of those people in Indiana?
2. Were you there when they were shot?
3. Did you see who shot them?
Mr. Ennis has noted on many different occasions that he is a "seeker of the
truth" and doesn't have a preconceived opinion of the involvement or noninvolvement in a crime of a suspect. As with most professional polygraphers, he
gave the examinee the benefit of the doubt. He did that with Boney and after
running three tests, came to the solid conclusion that Boney was deceptive
about being involved with the murders of Kim, Brad, and Jill when he answered
no to each of the three relevant questions.
(Note: Although polygraphers score each question and don't separate the
individual questions, they weigh the exam as a whole and not the individual
questions before coming to any opinion as to whether the subject is deceptive
or non-deceptive.)
Ennis talked about the reaction of the two investigators (Kessinger and
Gilbert) when he told them that Boney was deceptive when deposed by
defense attorney Liell in October, 2005:
Ennis: "They were surprised."
Liell: "Even shocked?"
Ennis: "Yes, ma'am."
Even more amazing is the fact that Ennis gave Boney a peak of tension test,
the goal of which was to determine if he had knowledge of the type of
weapon that was used to murder the Camm family. Boney claimed he
didn't have a clue, but yet responded to the question involving a .380,
indicating further deception. A .380 Lorcin was used to kill the family.
Could Boney have been given another test which would have further
defined his denials that he had been responsible for the murders of Kim, Brad
and Jill? Absolutely. How about these questions:
1. Did you personally shoot Kim Camm?
2. Did you personally shoot Jill Camm?
3. Were you responsible for Kim Camm removing her shoes?
4. Were you attempting to steal Kim Camm's shoes?
5. Did you leave your "BACKBONE" sweatshirt at the scene?
And if they believed that David Camm was the murderer, why didn't they
simply ask him questions such as these:
1. Was David Camm present in the garage?
2. Did David Camm shoot his wife?
3. Did David Camm shoot his daughter?
4. Did David Camm shoot his son?
Why wasn't Boney given another test with any of these questions?
Another test which would have further pinpointed him as the killer? Remember
that Boney was giving interviews to the press and was free to roam the
metropolitan Louisville area for weeks after his initial polygraph. He claimed
that he was being cooperative with the prosecution and police. Okay,
cooperate and take another polygraph that further refines the original
questions.
Remember also of the two investigators reaction when first told by the
polygraph examiner that Boney was lying about his involvement. Perhaps they
simply didn't want to face the fact that the whole scenario that David Camm
was involved was wrong and they didn't want to face the fact that the Indiana
State Police had been egregiously wrong for almost five years.
Top of Page
Q. Why were the prosecutors and police so anxious to believe Charles Boney?
Place yourself as the prosecutor who has already assured his electorate
(through dozens of television appearances and news articles whenever
possible) that he had things well in hand. If you had already recharged David
Camm and claimed that David Camm was the only perpetrator in this horrible
crime, what would your reaction be? Would you acknowledge that you didn't
get it right and that there had been a triple-murderer on the streets for well
over four years? Or would you claim that poor Mr. Boney, without
acknowledging that he was an 11 time convicted felon who had violently
attacked women on the streets, had violently attacked them in their own
homes, had abducted three women and had threatened to kill them, as well as
having his property and DNA at the crime scene and had failed a polygraph,
was telling the truth?
Unfortunately, the prosecutors and the police effectively made an unspoken
deal with Mr. Boney who was spared the death penalty when such a penalty
should have been aggressively pursued.
Top of Page
Q. What is the role of the prosecutor in the State of Indiana?
The role of the prosecutor is to be a seeker of the truth. The prosecutor's
primary role is not to "keep score" with convictions and sentences, but rather
to be a seeker of the truth. Unfortunately, as events have unfolded in the
recent past throughout the United States, there are some prosecutors who
believe otherwise.
The prosecutor has more power than literally anyone in the State of Indiana.
With the simple stroke of a pen a prosecutor can deprive a person of his
freedom and literally make life intolerable. Such power should only be used
with the greatest discretion and the soundest of judgment and based solely on
the evidence and not on emotion or politics.
Top of Page
Q. If the result of Boney's stipulated polygraph could be introduced into
evidence at any trial or hearing, why weren't they introduced at Camm's trial?
The defense tried to get those results introduced but the prosecution
vigorously opposed that evidence, claiming that the results could only be
introduced in Boney's trial. Unfortunately, the trial judge didn't allow the
introduction of those results and he again failed to allow David Camm's 6th
Amendment right to present a defense. This was yet another example of an
ongoing failure by the court to allow a fundamentally fair trial.
Top of Page
Q. Why didn't David Camm take a polygraph?
Dave was asked to take a polygraph by one of the detectives prior to his arrest
and he readily agreed. The ISP didn't follow up on that, however, because as
testimony later revealed, they only wanted to see his reaction to being asked,
believing that he would not accept their offer. Their offer was bogus and
only a test to see how he reacted.
Top of Page
Q. Boney claimed to have alibi witnesses for his whereabouts on September
28, 2000. Did the police interview those alibi witnesses?
During one of his first interviews Boney not only claimed that he dropped his
sweatshirt into the Salvation Army drop box but that he also recalled his
whereabouts on the afternoon and evening of September 28, 2000 or well over
four years later. While that supposed recollection is incredible in and of itself
(where and what were you doing four years ago?) also is the fact that the
police didn't interview all of those alibi witnesses but accepted Boney's
assertions as truthful.
Those "witnesses" were interviewed immediately, however, after the defense
found out about them and all denied having any interaction with Boney in
the manner he claimed or on the date he claimed. For example, Boney
claimed that he appeared at the home of a minister and asked for a loan in the
presence of the minister and his wife and that both could confirm his story. The
minister responded that his wife had dementia at the time and further that
Boney's story wasn't truthful inasmuch as he wouldn't have entertained any
such request because the church elders were responsible for hearing any loan
requests.
Boney also claimed to have accompanied his girlfriend, Mala Singh, to the place
of her employment the night of the 28th (conveniently at or about the same
time the family was being slaughtered) where she received money for Boney to
use to make a car payment. The employer denied ever lending any money to
Singh, stating that the story was false.
False alibis are generally indicative of someone who has something to hide. The
fact that Boney lied about his alibis is significant. Significant, that is, to
all except the police and prosecutors who not only didn't interview those alibi
witnesses but said that Boney's story had checked out.
Top of Page
Q. Were the basketball players relatives of David and did they lie?
Several players were, in fact, relatives of David, including two cousins and his
uncle. Others included the husband of his cousin, as well as friends and players
with whom he had played previously. One person accompanied his brother to
the game and it was his first ball game that he played with David. Their
brother was a local police officer.
During the initial telephone interviews of the players by the ISP, their words
were accepted without question. Not one player has ever stated or
inferred that David Camm left the church gym that evening. The fact
that he sat out one game so his uncle, Sam Lockhart, could play is also without
question. However, he sat along the baseline with a church elder and
they talked. He sat at the end of the court where the other ten players saw
him as they would run towards that basket. Near the end of that game, David
got up and began stretching in order to play again.
During the time of the prosecution's first theory that David had murdered his
family after he returned home, the basketball players weren't important to the
prosecution. It was only after the forensic evidence indicated that it was
impossible for the murders to have occurred after 9:22PM (the time that the
church alarm was set and David left the gym) did the basketball players
become critical.
Indeed, during David's last interrogation before he was arrested on October 1,
2000, Detective Neal told David that the basketball players are "not
trying to hide anything."
The prosecution's subsequent theories that the family was killed after they
returned home and before David came home around 9:27PM meant that the
basketball player's credibility had to be attacked. Although the players had
never changed their stories, nonetheless they were painted as either lying
or mistaken because the prosecution had to "get David out of the gym" in
order to kill his family.
All of the basketball players vehemently deny that they have lied or shaded the
truth for David Camm. As one said, "David was at the gym for the entire
time I was there. He didn't leave, nor did he come back. I wouldn't lie
for him or anyone." The other players expressed very similar comments and
have told their stories repeatedly and under oath several times.
The basketball players were honest and not mistaken on October 1,
2000 but were liars and mistaken only after the prosecution changed
their theory as to when the family was murdered. They have never
been inconsistent but rather any inconsistencies lie with the
prosecution.
It is indeed ironic that ten basketball players (with one additional
spectator) who were present with David Camm during the entire
evening of September 28, 2000 are considered liars or mistaken but
yet the eight other basketball players who supposedly played with
Boney and David have never been identified nor come forward. The
police and prosecution chose to embrace Boney's fictitious story without any
corroboration and cast aside the stories of eleven solid citizens but only after
their theory changed.
Top of Page
Q. Much has been made of the fact that two different prosecutors from two
different political parties and two different investigations were conducted with
the same conclusion that Camm killed his family. How do you account for that?
The first investigation lasted less than 70 hours prior to an arrest probable
cause affidavit, filled with erroneous assertions, being filed and David arrested.
At that time, there were no DNA results, no matching of any fingerprints, and
an assertion that the murders occurred after David came home from playing
basketball.
Throughout the first investigation, the "BACKBONE" sweatshirt was ignored and
labeled as a simple "artifact" by the police that meant nothing. The prosecution
made the proclamation that there was but a single person who was present
who committed the crime: David Camm.
Susan Orth was the former chief deputy for Stan Faith and she is now a Floyd
County Judge. She told the press, echoing Faith's comments, that the
investigation resulting in Dave's arrest was "very, very thorough." She was
wrong, of course, but she still moved on to the next level, first being appointed
and then elected judge.
The second investigation was supposedly a new one with "Fresh Eyes." What
did they do? They were headed by a prosecutor, Keith Henderson, who was a
former ISP trooper. In November, 2004 Prosecutor Henderson told the press
that he was re-charging Camm and further that his new investigation had
conducted "probably conducted 20 interviews." Twenty interviews?
That's it? Twenty interviews over three months? That isn't a lot of interviews to
conduct while claiming that the investigation was exhaustive.
Of those 20 people who were interviewed, several were Camm family members
who pleaded to be interviewed by the police and then pleaded with them to run
the unknown DNA. They were ignored and so was their simple request.
One of the twenty who was interviewed was former prosecutor Stanley O.
Faith who provided the police with a lead that he had uncovered. It was a
hearsay story about a woman who supposedly had hard evidence against David
Camm. It proved to be nothing. The ISP quickly followed up on that lead which
proved to be worthless but didn't do anything about the pleadings of the family
to check the unknown DNA.
Additionally, of all the forensic evidence that had been collected, no additional
examinations or comparisons was conducted from the time the Indiana
Court of Appeals overturned David Camm's first conviction until he was
recharged by Henderson.
Three months after Camm was recharged, the lead investigator complained
about the large number of boxes that he had to go through in order to try and
find the unknown male DNA profile on the sweatshirt, claiming that he had
never seen the paperwork before. Wouldn't you be aware of such a possibly
significant piece of evidence before a person was recharged? If he was only
going through the boxes after Camm was recharged, what does that say about
the thoroughness of the "Fresh Eyes" investigation?
If only routine police work had been conducted…..if only routine police work had
been conducted the police and prosecutor would have discovered that the
unknown DNA belonged to an 11 time convicted violent felon. But then again
Henderson also told the press after recharging David Camm and prior to the
DNA eventually being compared to the CODIS database that, "most of the
detective work has been done."
Top of Page
Q. Did the prosecutor use prison informants in his "Fresh Eyes" investigation?
How reliable are they?
Among those twenty (20) interviews conducted before Prosecutor Henderson
re-charged David, the police conducted one with a prison inmate who
claimed that David had confessed to him.
That inmate, J.B. Hatton, claimed that David told him that he had killed his
family as the Bronco sat outside the garage and that Kim was killed
inside the car. The evidence, all have agreed, is that Kim and the children
were killed inside the garage with Kim outside the car. Nonetheless, the
prosecutor still used Hatton in the new affidavit and later at trial. J.B. Hatton
simply lied (you're probably asking if Hatton took a polygraph; he refused to
do so).
One might ask why Hatton and two other inmates, both of whom were admitted
murderers, were eventually used by Henderson even though their testimony
wasn't truthful or didn't even fit the forensic evidence. That's simple. It
provided the opportunity to introduce to the jury the fact that David Camm had
associated with three despicable men in prison (although it's not an option as
to where or with whom you're incarcerated); i.e. he was in prison and had
already been convicted.
(After his testimony in the Camm trial, J.B. Hatton, previously convicted of
manufacturing methamphetamine and escape, was successful in having
his sentence of 25 years modified. He was granted house arrest pending the
imposition of his new sentence. He simply walked away from his house
arrest in December, 2006 and his whereabouts are unknown. Hatton
knew how the system worked and he traded his perjured testimony for
his freedom to make and distribute more methamphetamine).
The "Fresh Eyes" didn't conduct any new investigation nor have any
forensic tests conducted from the time of the reversal of David's
conviction until he was recharged in November, 2004 other than
accepting a bogus story of a prison informant.
Top of Page
Q. How do you account for the fact that David Camm was convicted twice of
killing his wife and children?
Innocent people are convicted in the United States. That is irrefutable.
Recently, a man from Terre Haute, Indiana was released after spending 24
years in prison for murder. He was innocent and innocent people are convicted.
When the State, which has immense power, makes unsubstantiated allegations
against a defendant and is allowed to do so by an elected judge who fails to
follow the U.S. Constitution, a fundamentally fair trial is impossible. That can
and does happen in a highly emotional case when children are victims.
Juries don't always hear all of the evidence and sometimes are prejudiced with
unfounded allegations against a defendant.
During the first investigation, David Camm was first convicted in the court
of public opinion. David's conviction at trial was a simple matter after that.
After all, who wouldn't despise a father after the community had come to
believe that he molested his daughter and then murdered his entire
family?
During the first trial, the two major pieces of "evidence" against David were his
previous affairs and the allegation without any supporting evidence that he
molested his daughter.
The Indiana Court of Appeals, in reversing the first conviction made the
following comments:
"We are left with the definite possibility that the jury might have found
Camm not guilty…if it had not been exposed to a substantial amount of
improperly admitted and unfairly prejudicial evidence…"
The Court of Appeals left no doubt that should Camm be tried again that there
would be no evidence allowed of his previous affairs and further that (of the
molestation issue):
"(T)he trial court will need to carefully consider whether the highly
inflammatory nature of this evidence substantially outweighs the probative
value of any evidence that Camm molested Jill."
In the second trial prosecutor Henderson was also allowed to argue that
the injuries to Jill's genitalia were also sexual in nature and that Dave
was responsible. And the evidence that supported this unfounded allegation?
Nothing. The prosecutor had no evidence but was allowed to argue that
Dave was not only responsible for the injuries but that they were also the
result of molestation.
Members of both juries, in interviews after convicting David, stated
that the issue of molestation was very instrumental in coming to their
guilty votes.
Additionally, the defense was prohibited by the judge in the second trial
from introducing any evidence that Charles Boney was responsible for
the murders. The Defense attempted to introduce Boney's property, DNA, his
girlfriend's DNA at the crime scene, his criminal signature, his confession to the
defense investigator, his confession to a friend that he had "three under his
belt" and his past violent crimes against women, as well as his sexual fetish for
women's legs, feet, and shoes. Every attempt was denied by Judge Aylsworth.
During Dave's initial interviews the investigators asked him who did it if it
wasn't him? He didn't know who did it and told them it was their job to find
out. When the answers were given to them in the form of forensic
evidence and confessions to others, they didn't listen…and neither did
the court.
In the end, it's easy to see why David Camm was convicted twice. Simply put,
he was denied simple fundamental fairness in both of his trials. Contrary
to what some believe, that isn't a technicality but rather an abomination
of our justice system.
Top of Page
Q. What evidence existed that David molested Jill?
The answer is nothing. The last day of Jill's life was an active one. She attended
school, played at recess, attended dance class and was active for an hour, and
then, within less than an hour or two of her death, was frolicking like the
normal five year old she was at a volleyball game while her brother was at a
nearby swim practice.
The prosecution provided nothing, other than their unsupported and
highly inflammatory allegation, that David was responsible for injuries to
her genitalia and that those injuries were the result of molestation. There was
absolutely no evidence that Dave molested the little girl that he loved so dearly
or that he was the source of her injuries, yet both judges allowed the
prosecutor to make those highly prejudicial arguments before the juries.
Also, answer this very important question: If either Stan Faith or Keith
Henderson had evidence, any evidence whatsoever, of David molesting
Jill wouldn't David have been charged? The answer is an obvious yes but
no molestation charges have ever been filed against him.
Members of both juries, in interviews after convicting David, stated
that the issue of molestation was very instrumental in coming to their
guilty votes.
Jill did have blunt force trauma to her external genitalia. The cause of that is
still unexplained, but Charles Boney's comments to a former friend perhaps
explained it all:
(of his anger)…"he told me that he was sorry that happened but he thought he
took control of that, that it happened with his first wife or something, that he
wished that, he thought he took control of it, but he didn't. He said that he's
got a rage that roars inside of him, that's what he told me. He said, and
then he told me that that same night, he said, (name of friend) buddy, he said,
man, I've done some things you wouldn't even believe, like that. And I
said, yeah? He said, yeah. He said, I'm telling you things that you or
nobody else could even conceive that I've done. I said, mmm, but he
never went into detail." This witness was never interviewed by the police.
Charles Boney's violent attitude towards females was well-established.
Little Jill was shot in the head by him and it shouldn't surprise anyone that he
was capable of violating her prior to her death.
Top of Page
Q. Did Boney actually admit to killing three people?
When Boney was working for a used car dealer in Jeffersonville, Indiana he was
trying to sell a big screen television on which he was making payments to a
new friend. When they were driving to Louisville Boneytalked to his wife on his
cell phone and told her that he was bringing by a prospective buyer. She got
angry and told him they couldn't sell a TV they didn't own. After yelling at her
he hung up and told the prospective buyer, "I'll kill that bitch. I'll leave her
where I see her…I can kill her, my conscience already hold three murs,
three deaths, one more is not going to bother any more."
If you think that Boney was kidding about killing his wife, a few months later
he solicited his best friend to build him a silencer for his handgun so he
could kill his wife.
Top of Page
Q. Is there also a video tape interview of Boney where he confessed to killing
Kim and the kids?
After being told on Friday evening, February 25, 2005 that the unknown DNA
was finally checked and that it belonged to Charles Boney (and right before the
story broke as a major exclusive on a Louisville television station) the defense
team arranged with Boney to interview him. He agreed to meet with the
defense investigator but only in the Floyd County City-County Building. When
he showed up he also had one of the ISP investigators with him. He needed
their support because, after all, he was only a witness whose story about
dropping off his "BACKBONE" sweatshirt had "checked out."
During the interview Boney lied numerous times about never possessing a
handgun after his release from prison (the defense quickly located five
people who saw him in possession of a gun; the prosecution didn't
pursue those witnesses and only later charged Boney with being in
possession of a gun after he admitted having one but only for the purpose of
selling it to Camm). He also lied about his prison record, his violent
treatment of women, his previous violent crimes and, of course, his
alibis regarding his whereabouts on the day of the murders. Many of
those alibi witnesses weren't interviewed by the police nor did they know of all
of his previous violent crimes.
When asked about his involvement in the Camm murders, Boney responded
(Boney Video) in the following manner to the questions posed to him:
Boney: And are you aware that there are possibly more that just my DNA and
the DNA of an unknown female on the sweatshirt?
Dunn: There's a lot, and yeah, see that is one of the contentions that the
defense has had, is that for years this DNA was not ran through any database,
CODIS or other databases to try and determine as to whose identity that DNA
belonged, ok? And there is other things there. There is a multitude of physical
evidence that was found at that crime scene
which hasn't been, i.e. or a. either tested, or b. tested against any to see if
there is any matches or database. There is certainly fingerprints, there is
blood found at the scene that hasn't been identified yet and that's the reason I
asked you, and I ask you again, if any of that belongs to you, then that
would put you at the scene, would you agree?
Boney: That's, that is correct. If, if something of mine was there at the
scene that means that I would have been there.
Dunn: Right.
Boney: And that's why, and that's why I have no problem speaking with you,
and that's why I have no problem meeting with you. That's why I have been
forthright and honest with the prosecution team.
Dunn: So, and let me ask you this, in the next extension Charles, would
be, if you were at the scene, then you would have been the individual
committing that crime then?
Boney: That would be pretty obvious.
So, if Boney's prints were at the scene, it would be "pretty obvious" that he had
committed the crimes. Obvious to everyone except the police and the
prosecution.
Incredibly, Boney's numerous self-serving lies and his admission that he
was the murderer if his fingerprints would be found at the scene of the
crime were not allowed by the judge in David Camm's trial. This was a
major deprivation of Dave's right to present to the jury critical evidence about
the man who slaughtered his family.
Top of Page
Q. Did Charles Boney actually have a fetish for women's legs, shoes, or feet?
We'll let him answer that himself in his comments to the police after his
apprehension in 1989 for attacking women and stealing their shoes, actions
with his former wife, comments to fellow inmates and to a close friend. During
his 1989 interrogation he spoke very freely and offered the following
comments: "This may seem strange, but I have a thing for ladies' legs and
feet." "I collect shoes and stuff like that." He targeted his victims as those
"whoever has nice legs." He never assaulted any woman with a dress or a
shirt, but only those who wore pants (and yes, Kim was wearing pants when
she was attacked) and he could tell if a woman had nice legs even if she wore
pants. Assaulting women for their shoe was "just my hobby…I made it
my own hobby."
A former wife also acknowledged that on several occasions when they were
married in the early 1990's she awoke from sleeping to find that Boney had put
a knee high stocking onto her leg and was ejaculating over her.
Inmates who knew Boney during his Indiana prison incarceration from 1993 to
2000 told of his fascination with feet, shoes and legs and how Boney retained
photographs of those "objects."
Mala Singh, Boney's girlfriend at the time of the murders and whose blood
was also found on his "BACKBONE" sweatshirt also told of his obsession with
feet. She related the fact that he "romanced" feet and that he liked to kiss her
feet and paint her toenails. Her feet aroused him sexually and he also had a
fascination with pantyhose and stockings.
Singh also provided a possible clue as to the motive for the trauma to Kim's
feet and her death. She said that ugly feet were a turn off for him. For a
person who obsessed with pretty painted toenails it is possible that he became
irate when seeing Kim's chipped toenail polish and his fascination was
overcome with anger.
Additionally, Trevor Smith, a friend of Boney's, stated that Boney told him,
after his release from prison on June 19, 2000 that he had a foot fetish.
Specifically, Smith said, "He told me he liked to smell them, lick them, kiss
them, suck them. He was into feet." (Boney apparently felt very confident in
confiding his thoughts to Smith because he also asked Smith to make him a
silencer in order for Boney to kill his estranged wife).
Within weeks after the Camm murders, Smith was celebrating his birthday with
Boney in a topless club in Louisville when Boney made other comments about
his foot fetish. It was also at that time that Boney bought a used hose from
one of the topless dancers for $50.00.
Smith was also told by Boney that some feet were ugly and some were
pretty. The pretty ones were the ones that Boney smelled, licked,
kissed and sucked.
A neighbor of Boney's (not interviewed by the police) at the time of his arrest
said that Boney had told him that he had found his "dream job" of being a
distributor for a pantyhose manufacturer. That assertion was, of course, a
lie, but about which Boney apparently did dream. Incredibly, Boney also told
the police that he had such a job, but they never attempted to verify such
a claim. It was a lie.
Based upon Boney's own comments and his behavior, most would agree that it
has been firmly established that Boney did have a fetish in 1988-early 90's,
during his almost eight year incarceration, after his release from prison and
after the Camm murders. That sexual obsession has continued for at
least 18 years and the fact that Kim's shoes were removed and placed
neatly on top of the Bronco (to which Boney admitted) is very relevant
to the crime.
Top of Page
Q. Was Boney's sexual fetish a motive for killing the Camm family?
Establishing a motive for a crime is not always easy. Additionally, the end result
of a crime may not have been the original intent. For example, a bank robber
may want money from a robbery in order to buy drugs. During the robbery a
plainclothes police officer is in the bank, interrupts the robbery, and is shot.
The robber didn't intend to shoot anyone but nonetheless it happened and the
result is a wounded police officer. Nonetheless, the robber is held accountable
for all crimes committed whether intended or not.
Did Boney intend to kill Kim Camm and her children? Only he can answer
that question. What is clear is that the crime scene clearly reflected
Boney's presence not only through the presence of his sweatshirt, his
DNA and palm print being left at the scene but also his criminal
signature.
Regarding the presence of a person who obsessed over feet, let's examine the
crime scene. Kim had been wearing pants. According to Boney's own
admission, he targeted women who wore pants and not those who wore
skirts or dresses. Kim's pants had been removed.
Kim's feet were brutalized by her assailant. There could be several reasons
for that. The murderer could have been trying to control her and the feet are
vulnerable, particularly if stomped upon by someone wearing hard sole prison
shoes like those worn by Boney while incarcerated. The feet may have
appeared to have been "ugly" in the eyes of the beholder and weren't what
they should have been. Was Boney angry upon seeing them?
Kim's shoes were placed neatly on the top of the Bronco by someone who
was taller than her. Look at the photograph of the shoes on top of the Bronco.
At a crime scene of enormous violence, the shoes were placed neatly on top
of the Bronco and they themselves were away from the violence but clearly
significant to the crime itself. The placing of those shoes was dismissed by the
police, however, as an attempt to rearrange the crime scene.
Remember also what Boney confided to a friend about the rage that roared
inside him. Was Kim initially compliant and did she remove her pants only at
the point of a gun? When she thought that she was about to be raped and/or
her children harmed did she then fight like the mother lion she was? What was
Boney's reaction? As the rage ensued, did Boney begin seeing the white that
he described?
Many different people commit crimes. There are murderers who are carpenters,
painters, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, black, white, short, tall, fat, skinny, or
whatever. A skinny, white painter isn't automatically a murderer but that
doesn't mean that you eliminate such a person because of those three
identifiers. Why, then, would a person get a pass on being a murderer simply
for having a sexual fetish for feet, particularly when so much evidence of such
a fetish puts Boney at the scene?
Top of Page
Q. Was Charles Boney a devil worshipper?
During one of Boney's interviews with the defense investigator, he claimed,
"The Father in Heaven that I serve is of the Trinity, God the Father, Son and
Holy Ghost." Did his actions and words support this fundamental Christian
belief?
Boney's wife, girlfriend, former co-worker and others stated that he
was a Satan worshipper. According to them, Boney routinely blasphemed
God with perverse sexual comments and claimed that Satan was his "higher
power" as well as his "father" and "he talked to him all the time." He also
conducted séances with black candles and chants at midnight.
Boney additionally has a tattoo on his chest of a pentagram with the number 5
inside. On the cover page of his autobiography, he sketched his nickname of
"BACKBONE" having two horns, a pointed tail, and a pitchfork.
We'll let you decide if Charles Boney worshipped the Devil.
Top of Page
Q. Why did David Camm leave the Indiana State Police?
Dave had been with the ISP for ten years when his uncle, Sam Lockhart,
offered him a full-time job with his basement water proofing company. Dave
had previously worked part-time and loved meeting the public and presenting
the company's products.
Dave was also tired of the irregular shifts. Nights and weekends were never
consistent and the job didn't lend itself to spending quality time with his wife
and children.
The pay was also an issue, as most police officers will attest. Dave was working
part-time for his uncle and doing doing well. He contrasted the pay with the
ISP with the possibility of making as much as twice that with his uncle and
having nights and weekends off. When it came down to the final analysis, there
was no question as to what he should do.
Dave left the ISP on good terms in March, 2000 and within six months he had
earned almost what he would have made in a year with the ISP. The decision
had been a good one.
When Dave told the investigators that his life was perfect, he meant it in every
sense. As he said, his wife loved him "unconditionally" and his children were
angels. He and Kim were also making more money than they ever had. Life
indeed was perfect.
Top of Page
Q. Did David Camm inquire about Kim's insurance the day after the murders
and why was the insurance coverage on the Camm family raised just months
before the murders?
In the aftermath of the murders of his wife and children, one of David's siblings
offered to call Kim's employer and tell them the horrible news. David said that
he should be the one to do so and as a result, telephoned Aegon in the
early morning hours of September 29, 2000. The operator on duty
directed his call to the president, Rudy Gernert, and David told him of the
murders and asked him to tell Kim's co-workers as well. David was
merely doing what any other spouse would have done under the
circumstances.
David also told him that he, David, was a former trooper and requested that
Kim's e-mails and voice mails be saved. Gernert said that he would attend
to that and also said that the Human Resources (HR) department would
do whatever they could for Dave. Gernert was emphatic that it was he
who told Camm that he would have the HR department call David.
As to increasing insurance, in July, 2000 Kim was the force behind
updating the family's insurance policies. She was the one who handled literally
everything financial in the family. It was Kim who arranged with David's
brother, Danny, to have their life insurance policies updated. After all,
David had recently terminated one job, lost group life insurance, and Kim saw
to the need to have his insurance enhanced. It was David's insurance that
was greatly increased while Kim's insurance was raised very little. Kim
was the one responsible for doing so, not David.
Top of Page
Q. I've heard that Danny Camm, the brother of Dave, forged the signature of
Kim Camm on the insurance policy. Is this true?
This is another falsehood which has made its way into the public, but only
with the help of the ISP. The answer is absolutely no. The prosecution and
police initially made this allegation without any proof whatsoever and
when pressed to prove it, finally admitted that it wasn't true.
Incredibly enough however, when David was recharged on March 9, 2005, the
probable cause affidavit signed by Detective Gilbert claimed once again
that Danny Camm had signed Kim's name to the insurance policy. That
claim was made without any proof whatsoever. When pressed about this while
under oath in a hearing on June 29, 2005 Detective Gilbert said that he had
been told of the forgery by someone but admitted that there was no evidence
to support the claim. It was never pursued after that.
Top of Page
Q. Were there lies told during any of Camm's interviews?
Yes, the investigators told several lies to David during his interview on
October 1, 2000, including one where Sergeant Neal claimed that the other
basketball players said that David was wearing a sweatshirt that evening.
In fact, no one ever said that. Once they couldn't tie David to the sweatshirt, it
became a mere "artifact" that was unimportant.
They also claimed that neighbors heard shots around 9:15PM, or the time
that they thought that David would have gotten home. No neighbor ever
claimed to hear any shots at that time.
They further claimed that a neighbor saw Dave on his back deck dressed
in a sweatshirt…at about 9:15PM. Another lie.
They claimed that they found blood on a jacket of his in the garage and
that David had tried to clean up the blood and that he was also in the
laundry room. That fit with their first theory of him getting home, killing his
family, and then calling the police…all after 9:15PM. The prosecution didn't
pursue those false assumptions after they needed to get David out of the gym,
into his house, and back into the gym while the games were still ongoing
because they didn't have enough time.
They also said that they would check every avenue available to them but they
didn't. Once they arrested David, they didn't conduct any investigation outside
of that which would support their case against David. They got their man
within 70 hours and the unknown palm print, "artifact" of a sweatshirt with
both unknown male and female DNA, and other critical evidence was ignored
completely.
As for David, he told his interrogators more than once that he was "trying to do
the best that I can" to answer their questions and further that "I can't
remember everything." He was a husband and a father whose family had been
slaughtered and who was being subjected to the severest emotional stress
imaginable, but he didn't lie about anything, unlike his interrogators.
Top of Page
Q. Was Kim Camm contemplating leaving David Camm at the time of her
death?
David Camm had previously committed affairs in his marriage. David and Kim
briefly separated in the 1994 but later reconciled. After Dave resigned from the
Indiana State Police and began a new career, his life had changed and he was
able to spend more time with his family, even coaching Jill in a church T-Ball
league in the summer of 2000. Kim was very pleased that he was no
longer with the ISP and shared those thoughts with others, including church
members.
Four days prior to her murder, Kim and David went to a movie together and left
the kids to be with their grandparents. In David's first interview he
acknowledged that he and Kim were intimate after the movie and physical
evidence supporting that was found in the laundry room.
Within three weeks of the murders, Kim hired a friend and fellow church
member to redecorate her master bed room. According to that friend,
"who's going to be painting your bedroom if you're going to leave your
husband?"
Additionally, the night before her murder, Kim made a comment to another
church member that she and David only recently had talked about having
another child. Those actions and thoughts don't reflect the intentions of a
wife and mother who was intent on leaving her husband.
A few weeks prior to her murder, Kim had spoken with one of Dave's cousins,
Karla, who was pregnant for the first time. Kim had agreed to host a baby
shower at her house and asked the cousin while at church to drop off the list of
invitees to her. She agreed to do and said she would drop by either
Wednesday, September 27th or Thursday, September 28th.
Karla stopped by the house after 8:00PM on Wednesday and Dave invited her
into the house, telling her that Kim was giving the kids a bath. She heard the
kids in the bathroom and sat and talked with Dave while Kim finished bathing
the kids.
Kim subsequently came out and accepted the list of invitees and was very
pleasant. Brad came walking into the living room wearing his pajamas and Jill
was heard still splashing in the bathtub.
The two talked for a while longer and then Karla left. The visit was pleasant,
routine, and Kim acted very much like the caring mother that she was.
Nothing of any note was out of the ordinary and there was absolutely nothing
to indicate that Dave or Kim were having any marital problems at all.
Talk of the future, of having another child, redecorating her home and
intimacy with her husband, planning for a baby shower and all of those
actions and comments within days of her murder. Those are not
indicators of Kim leaving David but rather of a person looking towards
the future with her husband and family.
Top of Page
Q. Did Kim know that David was molesting Jill but refused to leave him as
some people have claimed?
Kim Camm was quiet and demure. That doesn't mean that she was
weak and compliant. Anyone making the spurious claim that she would have
tolerated anyone harming her children, much less molesting her precious
daughter surely didn't know Kimberly Camm. She was a very warm, caring
and loving mother who placed her children's safety and needs above
anything else in her life. If she thought that anyone, anyone at all, had
imperiled her children, she would have immediately and furiously responded
like a mother lion. In fact, she did respond like a mother lion on the evening
she was murdered. Her numerous injuries suggest that she fought tenaciously
before she was shot to death.
Additionally, just weeks before the murders, Kim had taken Jill to their family
doctor for a pre-school examination of Jill. The doctor noted, "She is doing very
well according to her mother and is having no problems at this time." After a
complete examination of Jill, the doctor concluded that she was a normal
five year old.
The prosecution needed a theory to justify their story that Dave had killed his
wife and children. In coming up with the molestation motive, they also
suggested that the loving mother and protector of her children was
knowledgeable about her daughter being harmed. That is much more than a
disservice to Kim, and it is patently untrue.
Top of Page
Q. Is it possible that Kim only found out about Jill being molested the same
day of her murder?
In order to determine any validity to that it is important to find out what Kim
did on the day she was murdered.
Kim dropped the kids at Graceland School and then headed to work at
Aegon where it was a normal workday. She twice telephoned the family
dentist that afternoon and made an appointment for the kids' annual checkup.
At approximately 4:00PM Kim left Aegon and drove to her mother's house
where she picked up Jill and took her to dance practice, arriving there at
approximately 4:30PM. Jill was as active and as engaged as she normally
was at dance for the entire practice session.
At approximately 5:30PM Kim and Jill drove back to Kim's mother's house
where they picked up Brad and took him to Hazelwood Junior High School
where he engaged in swimming practice from 6:00PM to 7:00PM. During the
time that Brad was swimming, Jill was running up and down the bleachers
at the nearby volleyball game.
The three of them left the parking lot of Hazelwood Junior High School at
approximately 7:05PM. One of the parents and her child walked with Kim and
the kids to the parking lot and chatted along the way. It was a normal
conversation and there was no urgency in Kim's demeanor. In short, she was
normal.
Shortly thereafter, her Bronco was seen by a neighbor pulling onto Lockhart
Road at approximately 7:35PM.
During Kim's last day, she spoke with many different people, but most
importantly she personally spoke with her mother on at least two
occasions. Janice Renn has repeatedly testified that her conversations with
Kim were normal in nature and that Kim offered no hints or thoughts
that anything was amiss.
The unfounded claim by some that somehow or another Kim Camm
discovered injuries to Jill's genitalia on her last day of life and didn't do
anything about that is absurd. Kim was an outstanding mother who
would have given her life for her two children and in fact probably did.
Top of Page
Q. Did David Camm act "funny" after the murders of his wife and kids? Did he
also ask questions of the police about the status of the investigation and what
they had found in the house?
If you mean by acting "funny" that his range of emotions went from crying
uncontrollably to trying to comprehend not only what happened but why it
happened then David Camm did act funny.
The police accused Dave of asking questions about the interior of the house and
what was found inside as though that was somehow or another an indication
that he was being overly inquisitive to see if they had found anything
incriminating him. He indeed was asking such questions but it was when he
was trying to get into the house to pick out the clothes that Kim, Brad and Jill
would wear for eternity. He acknowledged to the police that he could
understand him not being allowed inside if there was evidence and the house
itself was a crime scene but he wasn't told about any of that.
Remember, also, that Dave was a 10 year law enforcement veteran. It's
normal and very natural for people, particularly cops, to want to know
about what's going on. For goodness sakes, his family had been
slaughtered! Place yourself in such a position. Wouldn't you be asking
the police if they had any leads? If they had a suspect? If they had a
motive? Why were three innocent people murdered? Dave was being
asked those questions by the police. Isn't it natural that he would ask
them, in return, the same questions?
Regarding the police treating the house with such due diligence and caution
because it was a crime scene, a video taken on less than 18 hours after the
murders revealed that over a half dozen policemen were sitting around the
kitchen table holding a meeting as the videographer was taping the inside. It
was not what one would expect of the police trying to maintain some type of
security or preservation while the house was being held for eight days as a
crime scene.
Also, Sergeant Sarkisian, during a taped telephone call with Dave on October
1st told Dave that he, Sarkisian, had only a few hours sleep during the past
four days and that he was "soup silly." Dave responded that he also had
very few hours sleep and that he was experiencing a wide range of
emotions. If it was okay for Sergeant Sarkisian who hadn't had his wife
and kids slaughtered to be "soup silly," wasn't it to be expected that
David Camm might also be acting less than normal?
When Dave responded to Sarkisian that he had also only had a few hours sleep
he also told him that he had gone to church that morning. One of the slams
against Dave is that he didn't act appropriate in a television interview outside
of church. Some people have claimed that he wasn't crying enough or that his
grief was faked.
How do you respond to such accusations? How do different people react to
the death of a loved one? Ten people may react very differently and to
one person another person's reaction may not seem appropriate or
correct. That surely doesn't mean that people can't grieve and be angry in
their own way.
Top of Page
Q. What do you think really happened? Did Boney randomly pick Kim and or
the house? Why were Kim and the kids targeted?
People never want to contemplate that a seemingly random yet very violent
act can occur, particularly in the sanctity of their house and away from
high crime areas. The fact of the matter, however, is that such crimes do
occur.
The only person who knows why Kim and/or her children and/or the house were
targeted is Charles Boney. In the opinion of many, Boney is a classic
psychopath because he is a prolific liar, manipulator, deceiver, and has
absolutely no conscience.
Let's look at what we do know. Just weeks before the murders Boney was at
the Louisville residence of the brother of his girlfriend, Mala Singh. It was there
that Boney solicited him to help in a robbery which Boney had planned
for Indiana. According to the brother, Boney wanted him to be the driver
and the lookout while Boney committed the crime. According to the
brother, Boney told him that he would have everything set up and that he was
confident in what he was doing. All the brother had to do was drive Boney's
car, an older dark Cadillac, and be the lookout while Boney committed the
crime.
The brother recalled that Boney told him that it was going to be a Kroger or a
bank but no such unsolved robbery occurred at or near that time. Was Boney,
the classic liar, only telling the brother about part of the plan? Was it in fact a
residence rather than a business?
Incredibly enough, when the brother's interview by the defense investigator
was provided to the police and prosecution they never followed up on his story
or interviewed others who could verify the story. The defense wanted to allow
him to testify but the prosecution argued against that and the judge
refused to allow his testimony. Again, another fundamental violation of
Dave's 6th Amendment right.
Top of Page
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One Deadly Night (St. Martin's
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?...
Not Recommended-YET!
Those readers who enjoy the true crime saga will
certainly enjoy this well-researched book about David
Camm, the Indiana man who in September of 2000 was
alleged to have blown away his wife and two small
children, leaving them to die in a pool of blood in his
garage. What could possibly have compelled this man,
a former state trooper, to have committed these
heinous...
Read the full review ›
"One Deadly Night" may be the most unusual true crime
tale this reviewer has read. This is entirely due to the
fact that author Glatt, or his publisher, rushed ODN to
print far too soon. The following will attempt to justify
that charge: David Camm was a former Indiana State
Trooper. He may have been a fine cop but it appears he
was anything but a good husband or a nice...
Read the full review ›
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GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?..., November 25, 2006
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This review is from: One Deadly Night (St. Martin's True Crime Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
Those readers who enjoy the true crime saga will certainly enjoy this well-researched book about David Camm,
the Indiana man who in September of 2000 was alleged to have blown away his wife and two small children,
leaving them to die in a pool of blood in his garage. What could possibly have compelled this man, a former
state trooper, to have committed these heinous murders?
This book attempts to answer these questions in a methodical fashion, exploring the many facets of this killer's
personality and sifting through the evidence presented at the trial. The book also follows the case through the
unanimous reversal by the Indiana State Court of Appeals of Camm's trial convictions of the three murders.
Even though the book contains some very interesting late breaking news regarding this sensational case, the
final outcome of the retrial is not known by reading this book alone.
Send us feedback
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The Darkest Night: Two
Sisters, a Brutal Murder, and
the Loss of Innocence in a
Small Town by Ron Franscell
(Mass Market Paperback March 4, 2008)
As a prosecutor, I was not surprised at the reversal of Camm's trial convictions, as I had expected such a
decision based upon how the trial had been conducted. The presiding judge had issued poor evidentiary rulings
that were quite surprising, and the prosecutors did not distinguish themselves either with their handling of the
case. What was surprising was the late breaking news, which initially seemed to throw into question the
defendant's guilt in the matter. All I can say is thank goodness for Google, which allowed me to discover the
final outcome of this sensational case.
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Monster by Steve Jackson
(Mass Market Paperback July 2, 2013)
Did he?...or didn't he?, December 3, 2005
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(109) By Susie Rigsby "([email protected])" (Eldorado, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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That's the question a reader will have to decide for themselves after reading Glatt's account of the murder of
David Camm's wife and two small children. Glatt did an excellent job of research and story-telling in this nonfiction about an Indiana State trooper accused of killing his family. After reading the book, Glatt portrays David
Camm as the sort of person you just love to hate. The man is an arrogant and adulterous, ladies man that is so
self-centered you simply can't stand him. And for all I know, maybe that's the way he really is. It's just hard to
imagine a father looking into the eyes of his small children, and then blowing them away with a gun. Glatt really
did do a great job on this story, but the saga continues because Camm's first trial was over-turned and a new
trial is expected to begin early in January of 2006 along with his suspected accomplice. So the reader really
doesn't know the final outcome of what happened and who done it. I highly recommend this book to non-fiction
lovers of true crime.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews Was this review helpful to you? Never Leave Me: A True Story
of Marriage, Deception, and
Brutal Murder (St. Martin's
True Crime Library) by John
Glatt (Mass Market Paperback
- May 30, 2006)
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AND THE CASE GOES ON....., October 4, 2005
By Anne Salazar "inveterate reader" (Huntington Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
I had not heard of this case, but I do like the books John Glatt writes, so I bought this..... Besides being another
husband on family murder a la O.J. and Scott Peterson, this case is not over yet. He is convicted, it is
overturned, he is rearrested, the charges are dropped, he is rearrested yet again.... etc. It is very interesting.....
except that I have been trying to get an update on the case and haven't had much luck. I wish all authors had
email addresses so we readers could reach them with our comments and questions. In any case, this is another
well-written true crime book by Glatt and it is terribly sad in this day of easy divorces that we have so many
men resorting to this type of crime. It is especially appalling when the perp is a former law enforcement officer.
One can only hope he will a come-uppance of some sort in prison.
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Comments (16)
Looks like Officer Camm planned the perfect crime., October 16, 2006
By Douglas Palaschak "Lawyerdude" (Oregon) - See all my reviews
8086 Indiana State Trooper David Camm obviously planned to murder Ex Con Charles Boney and blame the
murder on Boney!
Much has happened since the book was published. Former Indiana State Police Officer David Cam won a reversal
of the jury verdict finding him guilty of murdering his wife and two young children. Then at his second trial the
jury convicted him again. The blockbuster turn of events is that a third jury convicted Charles Boney of the
murder. This does not trouble me. Dual culpability is certainly believable.
Notes about this murder:
1. I read that convict Charles Boney ( now convicted for the murder of David Camm's wife and two children) said
that Former Indiana State Police Officer David Camm (convicted twice for these same murders) invited Boney to
his house under the pretext of buying another gun. Boney says that (unbeknownst to Boney) Camm had
planned to do the murders while Boney was there. Boney said that Camm tried to shoot Boney also but the gun
misfired. The gun misfiring seems very unlikely. Had Camm been successful he would likely have succeeded.
Boney would have been at the scene - dead. Camm would not have needed his basketball alibi. I have not
explored this story further.
2. Also, Camm would have been able to collect on the half million insurance money!
Attorney Douglas Palaschak [..]
Comment
A Story Too Close To Home, August 11, 2005
By T. L. Rakes (New Albany, IN) - See all my reviews
I was especially interested in this book because I live in New Albany and not too far from where this murder took
place. A lot of names in the book are people I've heard of or know. The book is very well written and quite
accurate. It is a book that I found hard to put down. The retrial of Camm and Boney (mentioned at the end of
the book)will be coming up soon. It still floods the news daily. I look forward to a sequel to the book. It could
definitely be written.
Comment
Recommended Reading, March 18, 2007
By Shanna McQueen "True Crime Valentine" (Lubbock, Texas) - See all my reviews
If you are a True Crime fan, you should enjoy this book. It is well researched and well written. The story is
interesting. While the crime itself is rather ordinary, the stories behind the crime are what I found gripping. I
also recommend "And Never Leave Me," by this same author.
I finished reading "One Deadly Night" several months ago and have since seen a prime-time news documentary
about this case. It is rather disturbing that the "Bones" sweatshirt that was found at the crime scene was not
fully pursued as a viable piece of evidence by the prosecuting attorney at the time of the initial trial. Do I believe
David Camm murdered his wife and two children? I am not certain to this day what I think. It seems most
unlikely that Charles Boney, who had no association to any of the victims, would have chosen the Camm house
(at random) and then killed 3 innocent people for no discernable reason. These murders did not personally
benefit Charles Boney in any way. I think it is likely that Boney had some sort of relationship with David Camm
and was either asked by Camm to commit the murders or was there with Camm when he committed the
murders. Although Charles Boney did not present as insecere or untruthful during the interview I watched, I am
equally certain he can be charming when he needs to be and has the capacity to appear sincere even when he is
not. He is a two-bit career criminal with a long history of conning others.
What I am certain of is this... I have not one shred of sympathy for David Camm. This may be an evil thought,
but I really do not care if Camm was wrongfully convicted or spends the remainder of his life in prison. He was
not a good husband, a good father, or a good man! He was supremely selfish and did whatever he wanted
whenever he wanted. His wife did EVERYTHING for those two children and did EVERYTHING for David Camm to
assure that he had a restful, stable home environment waiting for him. His wife took the children to school,
worked full time, picked the children up from school, and escorted the children to all extracirricular activities.
What did David Camm do? He chose to play basketball and pursue other women, as if he had no responsibilities
at home! Perhaps he got what he deserved... at least morally. As I said, I really don't care what happens to
David Camm.
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Comments (3)
Was this review helpful to you? 16 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Not Recommended-YET!, March 9, 2006
By Mcgivern Owen L (NY, NY USA) - See all my reviews
"One Deadly Night" may be the most unusual true crime tale this reviewer has read. This is entirely due to the
fact that author Glatt, or his publisher, rushed ODN to print far too soon. The following will attempt to justify
that charge: David Camm was a former Indiana State Trooper. He may have been a fine cop but it appears he
was anything but a good husband or a nice guy. (There are no crimes attached to those personal
shortcomings!). One evening in September 2000, Camm's wife and two children were murdered in the garage of
their New Albany, Indiana home. The setting is a Louisville suburb, not a remote town in the cornfields. ODN is
told mostly from a prosecutorial viewpoint. The investigating State Police fingered DC as the perp from the very
outset. Virtually no effort was made, at least within the pages of ODN, to identify another suspect or accomplice.
This reader had the suspicion that Camm made enemies among his fellow troopers while still in uniform and was
receiving some serious payback. It is almost meaningless that that DC is found guilty of murder only to have
that conviction overturned. What happened next? My amazon friends have 2 choices in securing an answer: 1)
Do a web search on David Camm to be bought up to date as of March 7, 2006. 2) Wait until the case has
COMPLETELY wound its' way through the legal system. Perhaps then author Glatt will produce a comprehensiveand FINAL! - story on the events of that "deadly Indiana night" of September 2000. In that forthcoming final
version, one hopes the author will shed light on the urgency to rush a garden variety, uncompelling murder case
into print. Judging by the reprint history ODN is selling well but promoting an unresolved case is plainly and
simply misleading. For the moment, ODN is not recommended to my amazon friends.
Comments (3)
The authority on the David Camm Story, May 31, 2005
By benny "regnyouth" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
Before I get into the specifics of the book, allow me to say that John Glatt is a phenomenal author (I have read
nearly all his works now) and a class act (a fellow New Yorker who I know personally). All of his publications
have been well written, straight forward and a presentation of all the facts. I not only recommend this book, but
his other books as well (Internet Slavemaster is my personal favorite).
The David Camm story is truly a winding tale of deception, accusation, and murder. Although Mr. Camm is no
angel, as the book first introduces his escapades with numerous women while married and his abuse of power as
a State Trooper, he is convicted of triple murder with little to no evidence. Although the sentence has been
overturned, Mr. Camm faces retrial on the charges with a co-defendant.
At the time of the murders, Mr. Camm claims he was playing basketball with 14 other people, none of whom saw
him leave the courts during the entire time. Moreover, one must remember that Mr. Camm is a police officer and
knows how an investigation of a crime scene is handled. Thus, it is hard for me to believe that he would shoot
his family at much a close range to splatter blood on his clothing. Finally, Camm was willing on numerous
occasions to take a polygraph test, although his was never given one.
Although I am not convinced that Mr. Camm did not have any involvement in the crime or even conspire to have
his wife killed, I do not feel that he committed the crime or intended to have his children executed in such a
vicious style. This case seems to be a personal attack by the State Troopers of Indiana and the District Attorney
of Indiana on an ex cop who was constantly harrassing a female officer, bragging about his increase in salary
since quitting the force, and pointing fingers at certain hierarchy for their own abuse of the system.
Regardless of my opinion, this book sparks great debate and interest in the case. I have even read numerous
internet articles, some in support of Mr. Camm and others calling him a cold blooder killer who deserves the
death sentence. One Deadly Night provides all the facts and information supporting this case from an unbiased
view so that you, the reader, can draw your own conclusions.
Comment
Unbelievable but true, July 18, 2006
By naturewomyn (Big Rapids, Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
This was in incredible true story of a man who had everyone fooled. I am a true crime fanatic, I watch all the
forensic files, and cold cases on TV. So if you like that sort of thing, this book is for you. Especially because
there is twist to the story at the end. Definately read this one, you won't want to put it down.
Comment
One Deadly Night, August 2, 2005
By Cathy N. Lahue (Clarksville, IN USA) - See all my reviews
I found this book intriquing. I couldn't put it down. Of course, these murders took place in an area where I live
and I was familiar with the case, plue I knew all the landmarks mentioned in the book. Everyone I know wants
to read this book and it is being discussed everywhere I go. Recommend this book for anyone living in or from
Southern Indiana.
Comment
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David Camm | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers
Murderpedia
Juan Ignacio Blanco home
last updates
MALE murderers
by country
by name A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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David R. CAMM
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Parricide - Indiana State Trooper - To collect insurance money
Number of victims: 3
Date of murders: September 28, 2000
Date of birth: January 1, 1964
Victims profile: Kimberly Camm, 35, and their children, Bradley, 7, and Jill, 5
Method of murder: Shooting
Location: Georgetown, Indiana, USA
Status: Sentenced to 195 years in prison in 2002. Overturned 2004. Sentenced to life in prison
without possibility of parole on March 26, 2006
photo gallery 1
photo gallery 2
affidavit
The Court of Appeals of Indiana
camm vs. state
boney vs. state
David Camm is a former Indiana State Trooper convicted of the September 28, 2000 murders of son
Brad (7), daughter Jill (5) and wife Kim in their Georgetown, Indiana home.
http://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/camm-david.htm[10/31/2013 9:18:38 PM]
Camm was convicted of three counts of murder in 2002 and sentenced by the court to 195 years in
prison, but these convictions were overturned in 2004. He was later re-tried and found guilty for the
second time.
Appeal Filed for David Camm
February 29, 2008
Lawyers for the former Indiana State Trooper convicted of murdering his wife and children, have filed
their final appeal. David Camm's lawyers argued that his murder conviction should be reversed because
another man was proven to be at the scene and was acknowledged to be involved.
They also argue that the Floyd County Prosecutor failed to prove a connection between Camm and the
other suspect, Charles Boney, during Camm's 2006 trial. Charles Boney was also convicted in the
murders of the Camm family during a separate trial and is currently serving a 225 year sentence. Camm
is serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. This is the second time Camm's been
convicted and found guilty of murder.
Ex-State Trooper Gets Life In Prison For Murdering Family
March 28, 2006
A judge sentenced a former Indiana state trooper to life in prison Tuesday for the murders of his wife
and two young children.
Jurors earlier this month convicted David Camm of three counts of murder for the September 2000
slayings of Kimberly Camm, 35, 7-year-old Bradley and 5-year-old Jill.
"I am innocent; I did not do this," Camm said before the judge announced his sentence. "Another tragic
mistake has been made."
At the same time Camm's trial was under way, another jury across the state was hearing testimony that
led them to convict an ex-convict in the same killings.
Prosecutors said the two men conspired to carry out the shootings.
Camm was first convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 195 years in prison, but the state appeals court
overturned the verdict, ruling that testimony about Camm's extramarital affairs had unfairly biased
jurors.
The prosecution's case centered on tiny bloodstains found on a T-shirt he wore the night of killings.
Crime scene experts testified those stains placed him within feet of his daughter when she was shot
while strapped into a seat of Kimberly Camm's SUV.
Defense attorneys argued that the stains got on Camm's shirt when he found the bodies. They called
witnesses who said Camm was playing basketball that night, but prosecutors contended Camm left the
game, killed his family, then returned. He reported the deaths when he returned home.
The ex-convict, Charles Boney, 36, was charged with conspiring with Camm, convicted on three counts
of murder and sentenced to 225 years in prison. He was linked to the case last year by DNA evidence on
a prison sweat shirt bearing his nickname, "Backbone," and a palm print at the crime scene.
Camm's attorneys have said Boney was solely responsible for the deaths, but the jury in Camm's trial
was not told of Boney's conviction because of evidence rules.
Prosecutors alleged in their closing arguments that Camm killed his family because his wife discovered
he had molested their daughter. They also maintained that Kimberly Camm planned to leave her
husband and that Camm was motivated to kill her to cash in on insurance policies worth nearly
$300,000.
The Alibi: Disturbing The Peace
Is David Camm A Cold-Blooded Killer?
By David Kohn - CBSNews.com
Jan. 22, 2005
On Sept. 28, 2000, Kim Camm and her two children were victims of a triple murder in New Albany, Ind.
They were found shot to death at home in their garage.
Kim and her 5-year-old daughter, Jill, were shot in the head. Her son, Brad, 7, was shot in the chest.
The murders were reported by Kim’s husband, David Camm, a former Indiana state trooper.
"In some ways, it still seems like a nightmare that just didn't happen," says Janice Renn, Kim's mother.
Three days later, the community mourned for the Camm family. But just hours after the memorial
service, police arrested their prime suspect, David Camm, for murdering his wife and two children.
Camm, who claims his innocence, has a very good alibi. Eleven witnesses say they were with him at the
time of the murder.
It's simple police work to suspect the survivor when family members are murdered. But this case quickly
became very complicated. David Camm is from a very large, prominent family in the county, and he has
what seems like an airtight alibi.
On top of that, there's no obvious motive for these murders. So proving what happened behind these
garage doors, beyond a reasonable doubt, is going to be very tough. Correspondent Richard
Schlesinger reports on this murder that was broadcast last May.
*****
"If there's anybody who wanted to get married, have 2.5 kids and a white picket fence, that was Kim,"
says Debbie Renn, Kim's sister. "Being a little sister, I thought he was nice and he was cute and to me
he seemed to bring Kim out more as a person."
Camm, who came from a close and influential local family, was seen as a mentor who never showed a
violent side.
"He wanted to reach out. He looked for a way to help, he stepped up to the plate," says sister, Julie
Camm.
Kim and David Camm were married in 1989. Kim raised the children while working full time as an
accountant. Camm, a state trooper, was liked and respected by his colleagues, including fellow trooper
Shelly Romero.
“He was very trusting, very loyal, extremely honest. He could be trusted with anything, just one of the
most upstanding people you would ever fathom in your life," says Romero.
But three years into the marriage, Camm began having an affair with a woman he’d met at the gym
while Kim was pregnant with their second child.
“It was sheer stupidity on my part,” says Camm. “I allowed myself to get caught in something that never
should have happened. And you know, I take full responsibility for that.”
Camm moved out, but a few months later, they reconciled and things seemed to be back to normal. And,
at least financially, life was getting better for the Camms. David quit the state police to work for his
uncle’s construction business, was making more money and had more time for his family.
"I had never been happier," he says. "I should have left five years ago."
But investigators later discovered that he had been involved in several other affairs over the years. In
fact, prosecutors have rounded up a dozen women who either had affairs with or were propositioned by
him.
"He was very flirty," says Andrea Craig. "He was always trying to rub my feet underneath the radio
console. He would ask me several times if I wanted to get together, hook up."
“It was a given he was going to hit on you,” adds former colleague, Romero. "He was going to propose
an innocent kind of liason or something like that."
But did those affairs somehow constitute a motive? “That’s utterly ridiculous,” says Camm.
“We don’t have to prove motive,” says prosecutor Stan Faith. “All we have to do is prove that he did it.
We don’t have to say why he did it. We'll never know the reason why he did it exactly because the three
people that could tell us are dead."
“He never said I'm perfect,” says David's brother, Donnie. "I don't think any of us are. We all have faults
and we make mistakes."
The family is convinced that police rushed to judgment.
“The prosecution can’t decide what his motive is. They’ve been bouncing around on different motives and
they can’t find one to stick," adds Donnie.
"Now they have gone to — well, he killed his wife and his kids so he can pursue extramarital affairs. My
question would be if he was so successful at doing that, why does he have to kill his family?”
On the day of the murder, Kim and the kids were on the move until 7 p.m., when Kim and Jill picked up
Brad from swim class and headed home.
Around the same time, Camm was off to a weekly pickup basketball game with friends and relatives.
Those who attended the game that night say that Camm couldn't be guilty of murder because he was
with them, playing basketball until he headed home around 9:15 p.m.
If those men are right, then it's awfully hard to believe that David Camm is guilty of murder. Kim, Brad
and Jill got home about 7:30 that night. Camm says he was at the gym playing basketball until 9:15
p.m., and he has 11 eyewitnesses to back him up.
After the game, Camm says he pulled into the driveway around 9:22 p.m. and saw his wife lying in a
pool of blood. Minutes later, Camm made a frantic call to the state police.
One of the first officers on the scene was detective Sean Clemons, one of Camm's closest friends. "I
always considered Dave a friend. I thought I knew Dave. I thought he was a good person."
But Det. Sam Sarkisson became suspicious after Camm told him he tried to revive his son, Brad, before
realizing that his entire family was already dead.
“Usually, if you have someone come upon a crime scene, and they talk about rendering aid, or being
involved in the crime scene, then there’s footprints,” says Sarkisson. “I didn’t see footprints.”
But it wasn’t just the lack of bloody footprints that drew suspicion to David Camm. Detectives
immediately noticed the entire scene was just too neat.
"We don't think it occurred the way he said it did," says Sarkisson.
Police believed that Camm got home, killed his family, cleaned up the crime scene, and called them - all
within seven minutes.
His family was outraged. “I can probably see a husband or wife killing their partner in the heat-ofpassion type thing. But not your kids! You cannot kill your own kids. David could not kill his kids,” says
Camm's uncle, Sam Lockhart.
As for the motive, police believe they got their answer at the laboratory. An autopsy on David's
daughter, Jill, found evidence of sexual abuse. Faith believes she was molested by her father, which
may have set off a violent confrontation the night of the murder. “I think that’s a likely scenario."
But if Jill was molested, it's hard to say who did it.
The medical examiner says Jill was likely molested “within hours” of her death. But by all accounts,
Camm had not seen Jill since 7 a.m. that morning, nearly 13 hours before the murders.
David Camm says unequivocally that he did not molest his daughter. "I don't know anything about her
being molested. I don't know anything about that."
His family backs him up.
"Now we’re saying he left the ball game, went home, sexually abused his daughter, then murdered his
family and somehow got them, the kids, conveniently buckled back in his car? That's crazy," says
David's sister, Julie Camm.
*****
The Alibi: Reasonable Doubt
48 Hours Looks At A Murder Trial
By Mary Jayne McKay
When their son-in-law David Camm was arrested, Janice and Frank Renn couldn’t believe it.
"I just couldn't believe that the person I knew, thought I knew, could do that," says Kim's mother, Janice
Renn.
But in the 15 months between the killings and the start of Camm’s trial, the Renns have become
convinced that their son-in-law is a murderer.
“There’s no way you’re going to bring the kids back and my daughter back,” says Kim's father, Frank
Renn. “No way, no matter what they do with David. But he’ll have to suffer, when he dies someday - if
it’s soon or if it’s 40 years from now - he’s got to answer to God.
The murders of Kim, Brad and Jill Camm have gripped this small Indiana town. And as the trial begins,
defense attorney Michael McDaniel knows all eyes are on the courthouse, and on his client.
“Right now, David is the only one out there that they can punish,” says McDaniel.
"My life is on the line," says Camm. "I'm not just fighting for me, it's not just me, I want justice for my
wife and my children."
David Camm and his supporters believe they have a strong hand to play in court. Eleven witnesses put
him at the gymnasium at the time of the murders.
With all those witnesses, prosecutor Stan Faith has a lot of talking to do to convince a jury Camm could
have committed the murders.
His first theory was that Camm committed the murders between 9:23 and 9:30 p.m., minutes before he
called police.
But scientific evidence put that theory in jeopardy. The blood in the driveway, which had coagulated and
separated before police arrived, proves the family was murdered much earlier.
"These folks had to be killed a couple hours before David got home -- would've been killed while he was
playing basketball," says McDaniel.
Then Faith discovered evidence that challenged the theory that the murder happened at 9:30 p.m., and
putting Camm at home two hours earlier.
Faith has a phone record that proves Camm made a call from his house at 7:19, placing him at the scene
at a time Faith now believes the murders were probably committed.
"We have a piece of evidence that's objective and it's recorded that indicates that he was in the house
before 7:30 p.m. and gives a precise time," says Faith.
It's a phone record that Faith says proves Camm made a business call to a contact from his house at
7:19 p.m., just a few minutes before Kim and the kids arrived at home.
But if Faith is correct, Camm would have to have left the basketball game less than 15 minutes after
arriving.
Yet all 11 witnesses say he was at the basketball game that started at 7:15 p.m., and that there was no
way he could have made that phone call.
Faith, however, says phone records don’t lie.
It seems hard to believe, but five weeks after the surprise 7:19 p.m. phone call was introduced, defense
attorney McDaniel dropped his own bombshell. He discovered that the phone company has trouble
telling time.
"What you had was an hour's difference between real time and the time that appeared on the phone
records," says McDaniel.
As it turns out, it all appears to be a huge mistake. Indiana is one of two states that has two different
time zones. Camm’s home is in one time zone, but his cell phone company's computers are in another
time zone.
A phone company employee testified that a glitch in the computer's computer resulted in an incorrect
time on the bill - and that David's phone call was actually placed at 6:19 p.m., well before his family
returned home.
It could have been all over for Faith, but he had one more card to play. He says he has scientific
evidence, tiny droplets of blood on David's T-shirt and sneaker, that removes any reasonable doubt.
Crime scene reconstructionist Rod Englert of Portland, Ore., believes that every blood stain tells a story.
He says high velocity blood splatter, blood that has been hit by something going very fast, like a bullet,
is the key to solving this murder mystery.
Englert, who was hired by the prosecution in the Camm case, examined the T-shirt David wore the night
of the murders. He found eight tiny dots, which he identified as high-velocity blood spatter.
"This is so unique and so separate from other stains that one can say with confidence, that this is from
high-velocity mist that the person got on him and would have to be within four feet of the shots when
they were fired," says Englert.
He also found smudged droplets of Kim's blood on David's sneakers.
"The shooter had to be facing her left side," says Englert, who believes Kim's hand could have splattered
her own blood as she fell to the floor. "Because the shot is through the left side of her head, it exits out
the right and then what happens when you're shot through the brain? You're bleeding, you're dropping
blood and it's hitting the concrete, and as you go down, you strike that."
This was enough to convince Frank Renn of his son-in-law's guilt. “It's going to be proven it was on his
shirt. And that told me right then that David did it. There's no more doubt in my mind that David did it."
But David's family still has a lot of doubt.
"Blood spatter is not an exact science, and their expert admitted two experts can disagree," says David's
sister, Julie Camm. "You have a 50/50 chance of having the right answer. That's reasonable doubt."
Defense attorney McDaniel has his own expert, who claims those tiny dots were transferred onto Camm’s
shirt while he was moving around the bloody crime scene, after his family was murdered.
"He's given his conclusions that there isn't any high-velocity blood spatter on the front of David's Tshirt," says McDaniel. "There isn't any impact on his shoes or socks."
Now, the jurors have to decide what to believe - eight spots of blood that prove David Camm did it or
the 11 witnesses who say he couldn’t have committed the crime.
Three days after they began deliberating, the jury reaches a verdict: guilty. David Camm is now a
convicted murderer, sentenced to 195 years in prison without parole.
"They painted this small portion of a picture of my brother and they got a conviction based on that," says
David's sister, Julie.
“You just sent an innocent man to jail,” screams David's brother, Donnie, at the jury outside the
courthouse. “There’s a predator loose and it’s your fault, all 12 or 15 of you!”
Juror Judy Price says the deliberations were “the most gut-wrenching experience I have ever
experienced in my entire life.”
When deliberations started, jurors say, the vote was 8 to 4 in favor of convicting Camm. In just a few
hours, it was 10 to 2.
That’s where things got stuck – and ugly. Some jurors say they were crying, others were yelling.
"I wanted so bad to find him not guilty," says Price, one of the last holdouts.
The biggest obstacle to a guilty verdict was the testimony of the basketball players, says juror Ruth
Caruso. “But when when you start breaking down to each person’s testimony, it’s all different. They
each said different things.”
But in the end, the jurors came to believe Camm had the opportunity - and a motive.
"He might have been molesting his little girl," says Caruso.
Even though Camm was never charged with molesting Jill, that allegation weighed heavily on jurors’
minds.
But Price was still troubled by the evidence the other jurors found compelling - those eight tiny drops of
blood. She was troubled by the blood spatter until another juror whom she had come to trust, won her
over with an impassioned argument.
During the two years since the guilty verdict, Camm has been doing time while his family has been
battling to prove his innocence. "We're not gonna quit on him," says Lockhart. "We know he didn't do
it."
In August, there was a development that could only be described as stunning. An Indiana appeals court
threw out the convictions, and in the process, sent this case back to the beginning. The court blasted
the judge for improperly admitting evidence of adultery, ruling that evidence could have unfairly
persuaded the jury that Camm had a motive for killing his family.
Prison, however, has taken its toll on David Camm, who is still not a free man. There's a new prosecutor,
Keith Henderson, who says he'll try him again, and this time, he has stronger evidence that Camm
abused his daughter, Jill.
But Camm's new lawyer, Katharine Liell, says there's no proof that Camm molested his daughter. She
says she'll fight to keep those charges out of the new trial. She also says that the real killer can be
identified through DNA that was left at the scene on Bradley's sweat pants but never fully investigated.
"Kim struggled with a killer or killers," says Liell. "We know Dave Camm did not commit those murders."
A second trial will be a replay of one of the worst days in the lives of two families. At least Camm's family
will get another chance, but Kim's family has to relive the murders with nothing to gain, no matter what
the verdict.
"I see my daughter getting killed, and those two little kids. I just can't imagine what went through their
last minutes of their lives," says Kim's father, Frank Renn.
"And I don't know of anybody who should have to go through this thing twice. Once is bad enough, but
doing it twice? I don't know. It'll be hard. You never get over this."
Murder On Lockhart Road
Bizarre Twists And Evidence Keep Turning Case On Its Head
By Daniel Schorn - CBSNews.com
July 12, 2008
On the evening of Sept. 28, 2000, former Indiana state trooper David Camm came home to find his 35year-old wife Kim and his five-year-old daughter Jill murdered, both shot execution-style in the head; his
seven-year old-son Brad died after being shot in the chest.
Just three days later, Camm, 36, was arrested and charged with the murders. Camm has adamantly
denied any involvement in the murders.
Correspondent Richard Schlesinger has spent years investigating the case, one with bizarre evidence
and many unusual twists that would lead to an ending that no one expected.
*****
David Camm spoke to 48 Hours shortly after his 2000 arrest, recalling what he saw when he drove up
to the garage of his home.
"I started to pull my truck in, I get up to the threshold and that’s when I saw the first stream of blood,"
Camm told Schlesinger. "I get down in her face and yell 'Kim, Kim!' And her eyes - I could tell she was
gone."
His children, Brad and Jill, were still inside the family SUV. "I looked in the back and I looked to the
right, that’s when I saw Brad, kind of like he was stretched over the seat and his little eyes-I could just
barely see his little eyes," Camm recalled. "I could see little Jill, she was still sittin’ there in her seat and
her head, her little head was down in her lap."
Up until four months before the murders, Camm had been a trooper with the Indiana State Police and a
lot of people were stunned when he was charged with the murders.
It's basic police work to look at the surviving spouse as the number one suspect, but to those who knew
Camm, it seemed like a rush to judgment. He is from a large and influential family and had no obvious
motive. And there was one other thing: he had what appeared to be an airtight alibi.
"David was at the gym at the time his family was killed. He was at the Georgetown Community Church
playing basketball," says Camm's uncle Sam Lockhart, who from day one has insisted his nephew did
not do it.
Lockhart says he was at the same gym at the same time, watching his nephew play. Ten other people
say they can prove it too; they say they were all at the basketball game that night with Camm.
All of the men said they saw Camm at the gym and that he sat out the second game that night at
approximately 7:30, around the same time police believe the murders occurred. Several players said
they remembered seeing Camm on the sidelines. Another man at the gym that night also says he spoke
with Camm.
If Camm snuck out of a basketball game at the gym, raced home, killed his family and raced back there
without anyone noticing, he’s either very clever or very lucky. Did he have time to do it? To find out, 48
Hours drove the exact same route prosecutors believe Camm took that night.
It took all of 15 minutes, investigators say, for Camm to commit the crime. It took Schlesinger eight
minutes to make the round trip which means, if you believe the prosecution's theory, Camm had
roughly seven minutes to kill Kim, Brad and Jill.
But to this day, investigators are still not sure what happened inside the garage that night. There are all
sorts of strange things about the crime scene. For one, it seemed much too clean. And on top of the
Ford Bronco, Kim's shoes had been neatly positioned.
So was the murderer tidy? A little compulsive? And there was more: an unidentified palm print on the
Bronco door and a grey sweatshirt tucked neatly next to Brad’s body.
Camm has always insisted that he could never have killed his wife and kids, and that he was a happy
family man from the moment he met Kim. It all started out beautifully when they married in 1989. It
wasn’t long before Bradley was born.
But Kim and David were headed for trouble. When Kim was pregnant with Jill, he had an affair. "It’s
sheer stupidity on my part, I allowed myself to get caught into something that you know, that never
should have happened. And you know I take full responsibility for that," Camm admits.
The couple eventually reconciled and a few years later, just months before the murders, things seemed
to get even better. Camm quit his job with the police and began work at the family business. The new
job gave Camm what he said he wanted most: more time with his family and more money.
But as this case unfolded, police said they started learning about more dark secrets. It looked like Camm
had been leading a double life. As one woman put it, Camm was "very flirty with the women," and
Camm acknowledges "there had been a few incidents over the ten-year-period."
One woman, who asked not to be named, met Camm in the early 1990s. She says their relationship
lasted for about six months, and ended abruptly when she learned Camm was married.
But Camm, she says, was persistent and there was one phone call she’ll never forget. "It was more or
less screaming at me. You know, 'Who told you!'" she recalls.
Prosecutor Stan Faith believes Camm’s adultery was a motive for murder. "If you are wanting to lead a
lifestyle that he seemed to want to lead, you may want to get rid of your spouse. This happens all the
time."
In Jan. 2002, a little more than a year after the murders, Camm’s trial began. Prosecutors planned to
present dozens of witnesses, including a parade of women saying Camm propositioned them for sex
In addition to the women, there was a pile of forensic evidence including that grey sweatshirt, which he
insists was left there by the real killer.
On that point, prosecutors had to admit that Camm was right: the DNA on the sweatshirt was not his.
And they didn't know whose palm print it was on the Bronco, either. But they still had plenty of plenty of
powerful evidence to throw at Camm, including an explosive autopsy report that would turn the trial on
its head.
Dr. Tracy Corey performed the autopsy on five-year-old Jill Camm. "When we began to remove her
clothes, we immediately noticed blood," she remembers.
It was where they found blood that alarmed Dr. Corey and her colleagues. "Personally I think that Jill
Camm was the victim of sexual abuse. What I can say as far as professionally, when asked what my
professional opinion is, I can say that she has blunt trauma, that that blunt trauma is consistent with
sexual abuse, but it might be consistent with something else. It’s just, I haven’t been presented with a
scenario that explains that to me," she says.
Dr. Corey's discovery stunned and sickened Kim’s family. If Jill had been molested then who did it?
Prosecutors thought they knew: David Camm.
But Camm denies molesting his daughter and says he didn't know anything about a sexual assault.
The most important question for Camm’s defense was: when was Jill molested? Dr. Corey believes it was
within hours of her death, between 12 and 24 hours.
By all accounts, Camm didn’t see Jill after 7 a.m. on the day she died. So if she was molested within 12
hours of her death, Camm didn’t have access to her and couldn’t have done it. But, if it was within 24
hours, that’s another story.
It is very tough to prove Camm molested his daughter and he has never been charged with it.
While Kim and Jill had been shot in the head, Brad had been shot in the chest and Dr. Corey says the
little boy bled to death internally. Before he died, Corey says Brad would have been able to hear, see
and speak. And she believes the pattern of his injuries shows Bradley was likely face-to-face with his
killer.
On Camm's T-shirt, investigators found eight tiny blood drops, which prosecutors claim got there when
he pulled the trigger.
Investigators hoped blood stain expert Rod Englert could connect the dots. Using stage blood and a piece
of paper, Englert shot a blank at the blood, demonstrating how it would splatter.
"You cannot create that pattern. This is very indicative of high velocity mist," explains Englert, who was
hired by the prosecution.
Englert examined Camm’s shirt and identified the stains as what’s called "high velocity impact spatter,"
caused by a bullet hitting a body. But that’s just one theory. The defense says those drops of blood
actually back up Camm's version of what he did when he discovered the bodies.
"I grabbed Brad, picked him up," Camm explains. "I was gonna try to do CPR on him."
Bart Epstein, a blood stain expert for more than 30 years, was hired by the defense and believes those
eight droplets on David’s shirt got there when he leaned over to remove his son's body from the SUV.
Epstein says those tiny drops of blood were made when Camm‘s shirt brushed against the tips of Jill’s
bloody hair. Using a wig and some stage blood, Epstein demonstrated how these blood stains could
have gotten on the shirt.
He believes these stains can look like high velocity impact spatter to some people. But in this case, the
number of blood stains could be as important as their size.
"Gunshot will produce hundreds of stains coming back. I’ve never seen, I believe the other experts for
both the prosecution and the defense have indicated that they’ve never seen just seven small or eight
small stains from a gunshot. I’ve never seen that," says Epstein.
Camm’s lawyers believe if he had pulled the trigger at point blank range, his clothes would have been
covered in blood.
After roughly two months of arguments and testimony, the jury finally got the case. On a Sunday night,
three days after they began deliberating, jurors reached a verdict: guilty.
Jurors believed Camm molested his daughter and murdered his family at least partly to cover that up.
They believed the forensic evidence more than the 11 men at the gym, who said they were with Camm
the night of the murders.
He was sentenced to 195 years in prison.
Kim's father Frank Renn says he felt relieved by the verdict, but not better. "I think he did it. I want him
behind bars. I guess it makes me feel comfortable that he’s behind bars," Kim's mother Janice added.
The Renns thought Camm would be in prison for the rest of his life, but this story turned out to be far
from over: a new defense attorney was determined to uncover the truth about some old evidence,
including the grey sweatshirt.
David Camm has always insisted he had nothing to do with the murders and spoke exclusively with 48
Hours about being convicted.
Camm says he didn't expect to be acquitted and that he saw it coming; he says he knew early on that
his defense team never had a chance. "We were outmanned," he says,
Nobody expected what came next: the Indiana Court of Appeals made a bombshell decision, throwing
out the convictions and slamming the judge in the Camm trial for allowing in evidence of adultery. The
court said all those women could have unfairly persuaded the jury to turn against Camm. It was a
stinging opinion. The court called the case against Camm "far from overwhelming."
Prosecutor Stan Faith knew the case was controversial but he never expected such a harsh ruling.
The court also strongly warned prosecutors that if they tried Camm again, and presented evidence that
Jill was molested, they would have to prove that it was Camm who molested her.
Camm soon learned that he would face trial again. Both he and his new attorney Kitty Liell braced for an
uphill battle, vowing to keep the molestation evidence out of the new trial.
"In reality, they were never able and still have not been able to come up with any evidence that the
blunt force trauma suffered by Jill was caused by David Camm," Liell says.
Camm’s new defense team would face a new prosecutor, Keith Henderson. His first priority was to take a
closer look at Camm’s alibi, those 11 men who say they were with him at the time of the murders. They
looked at the story each man in the gym that night told.
Prosecutors started to believe Camm’s alibi might not be so strong after all.
"They don’t know how many games they played, they don’t know what they were wearing, they don’t
know just lots of things, I think that’s where our cross examination could be built - their inability to
remember things," a prosecutor said during a strategy session, which 48 Hours was allowed to attend.
Henderson’s case was starting to take shape, even though he would not be permitted to present large
chunks of evidence the jury in the first trial heard.
From the beginning Camm always insisted that the grey sweatshirt, which never was fully investigated,
could answer a lot of questions. "That was one of the primary elements of our defense was that
sweatshirt," Camm explains. "And the state simply dismissed it."
The sweatshirt held two important clues: there were blood stains on it that contained DNA; and the word
"Backbone" was written inside the collar.
DNA analyst Lynn Skamerhorn, from the Indiana State Police lab, tested the sweatshirt before Camm's
first trial. Besides Bradley's blood, Skamerhorn says she was able to identify other blood stains, most
yielding "very good results as far as DNA was concerned."
In fact, there was a lot of DNA on that sweatshirt. Some of it matched Brad and his mother, Kim, but the
rest of it belonged to at least two unidentified people, a man and a woman. None of it matched Camm.
Amazingly, that mystery DNA was never run through the federal data bank of known felons before
Camm’s first trial. Faith did ask to have the profile run through the DNA database but that didn't
happen. "I think somebody dropped the ball," he says.
It was a huge error and Kitty Liell believes the mystery DNA would reveal the truth about what happened
on the night of the murder. She was right: the results would eventually blow the case wide open.
David Camm hoped, after five years in prison, that he would finally go free. With the help of an angry
appeals court and his attorneys, Camm’s case was transferred to another county, where the judge set
bond at $20,000.
Sam Lockhart wasted no time and went straight to the bank to get the money he needed to get his
nephew out and take him home to await his next trial.
The key to finding the killer, or killers, could be that mysterious grey sweatshirt.
Prosecutor Keith Henderson pushed to finally get some answers and ordered the lab to look at
everything. What they found changed just about everything.
Five years after the murders the DNA found on that sweatshirt was run through a data bank of convicted
felons; almost immediately there was a hit.
The DNA matched to a man named Charles Darnell Boney, a convicted felon who was recently released
from prison. It turns out Boney has a nickname, "Backbone," the same name written on the collar of
that sweatshirt.
But there was one more mystery. Investigators were unable to identify the female DNA found on the
sweatshirt. Who was this mystery woman?
Camm thought this would be the end of his legal trouble. "We got the killer. That’s the guy who killed
Kim, Brad and Jill. That’s the guy," he said
Boney grew up in the same town as Camm. Once police knew who to look for they found him right away,
just across the Ohio River in Louisville, Ky.
Boney wasn’t officially a suspect, yet, but he was a person of interest to the police and the media. He
had no problem talking - in fact, it was hard to shut him up.
"I will be on every station. I don’t have anything to hide. I stand true to my word," he said during an
interview.
Just four months before the murders, Boney had been released from prison, where he had served time
for armed robbery.
Boney never tried to deny his nickname, Backbone. He was proud of it. "As you know my nickname’s
Backbone, all it means is I’m not spineless," he said during a TV interview.
Boney denied any involvement in the murders and seemed especially eager to help defense
investigators, who were videotaping their interviews. He appeared relaxed, and at times even chatty.
It quickly became obvious that Boney had what could only be described as an odd fascination if not an
obsession: he really liked shoes and feet. His interests had gotten him into trouble with the law.
In the late 1980’s, when he was a student at Indiana University in Bloomington, Boney was known to
authorities by another name, "The Shoe Bandit." It's a fact he doesn't deny. "I mean. I’m guilty. I did
it," he told police during an interview.
Boney’s dramatic entrance into the Camm case seemed to answer a lot of questions about the crime
scene, especially the bizarre placement of Kim’s shoes on top of the Bronco.
But Boney denied being the killer. "I would rather kill myself than kill kids," he told investigators.
Camm’s defense attorney immediately checked into Boney’s background. "Well I learned he has a history
of violent crimes against women," Liell says. "Like tackling women and punching them in the face and
stealing one shoe."
Donna Ennis knows first hand Boney is a dangerous man. In Oct. 1992, she and her college roommates
were robbed at gunpoint by him.
She says his demeanor quickly changed from calm to angry and agitated. "He told us if we did anything
he was going to kill us. If we tried to run, if we tried to scream he was going to kill us," Ennis
remembers.
Luckily, a neighbor saw the commotion and called the police; Boney was arrested.
Five years after David Camm’s family had been murdered, the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall
into place. And Boney was a man with a lot of explaining to do, starting with that sweatshirt.
Boney claims he got rid it shortly after he was released from prison, saying he threw it into a Salvation
Army drop box.
He was quick to point out his DNA wasn’t the only DNA on the sweatshirt, saying that, "There’s also
unidentified female. Everyone knows that. Everyone that’s followed the case."
He insists he doesn’t know how his sweatshirt got to the crime scene and he insists he didn’t even know
David Camm. Boney wasn’t doing himself any favors by continuing to talk, especially when the subject
turned to fingerprints.
"My fingerprints would not appear at that crime scene, because first and foremost, once again, I would
have to have been there in for my finger prints to appear at the crime scene," he told police.
But Henderson says the palm print on the outside of the Bronco matched Boney's fingerprints.
The more Boney talked, the more he implicated himself. "If something of mine was there at the scene,
that means that I would have been there," he told police.
And police could not have agreed more. His sweatshirt, his DNA and his palm print at the scene of the
murders made their case. Boney was arrested and charged with murdering Kim, Brad and Jill.
Shortly after Boney’s arrest Camm and his father Don could hardly believe what happened next: the
murder charges against David had been dropped. David’s father had never seen his son so happy. "Oh
gracious, he was nervous, he was shakin’, he was beside himself," he remembers.
But the euphoria didn't last. For the first time in years there were no charges against David Camm. That
changed about 60 minutes later.
Armed with warrants, officers arrested Camm, telling him he was being re-charged and would face an
additional charge of conspiracy.
After a tiny taste of freedom, Camm was whisked back to jail. Keith Henderson had a new theory: Camm
and Boney were partners and he couldn’t let Camm remain free, fearing he might flee.
Henderson said Boney made this an entirely new case, so now Camm and Boney would face not just
murder charges but also the new conspiracy charge.
"After discovering Charles Boney my belief now is that that this was planned well in advance," Henderson
says.
But Camm says he never met or knew Boney, even though they both grew up in the small town of New
Albany.
Prosecutors suspected Boney stayed behind to clean up after the murders so that Camm could race back
to the basketball game.
Boney couldn’t very well deny being at the murder scene anymore, with the sweatshirt, his DNA and the
palm print putting him there. So he started cooperating up to a point; he always denied firing any shots
that night.
Just days after Boney was arrested, he told police an almost entirely different story. He now said he
knew Camm. He said he had met him at a basketball game and that he had told Camm he was an excon who dealt in drugs and guns. Once again, Boney was talking and investigators tape recorded every
word.
Boney told prosecutors that Camm approached him with a special request. "He asked me specifically 'Do
you still deal with getting firearms,'" Boney told police.
Henderson says Boney claimed Camm had approached him to obtain a clean, untraceable gun for $250.
Boney’s attorney Patrick Renn, who is no relation to Kim’s family, argues his client had no idea why
Camm wanted the gun. "Charles Boney sold a weapon to David Camm. He did it for financial gain.
Period. He never asked David Camm what he was gonna do with the weapon," he says.
And while Renn says Boney was at the murder scene, he says his client is a witness, and not a coconspirator.
"He hears an altercation," Renn says. "And then he hears the female voice say, 'No' and then there’s a
shot and then he hears a young male voice saying 'Daddy' and then there’s a second shot."
And, according to Renn, Camm turned the gun on Boney and tried to kill him. But the way Boney tells it,
the gun jammed, and he pursued Camm back into the garage.
"After tripping over the shoes, he picked up the shoes, placed those shoes on top of the Bronco and then
looked inside the vehicle. Saw the children. Saw they had been killed and then he left," Renn says.
Camm insists Boney’s story is fiction. "He just makes this stuff up on the fly, trying to put things
together, what he knows and what he doesn’t know to make it fit to give them what they want," he
says.
The murder investigation would lead authorities from rural Indiana to the Carribean island of Trinidad
and a young lady named Mala Singh Mattingly.
She was Boney's girlfriend at the time of the killings. Their "romance" was short, so Mala was surprised
when the police came looking for her five years later, trying to match that unknown female DNA on
Boney’s sweatshirt.
It turned out Boney still remembered her. "She would be the perfect, second perfect alibi," he told
police.
Boney may have believed Mala would help his case, but he was very wrong. She tells Schlesinger she
saw Boney leave on the night of the murder. "He told me he was going to help a buddy," she says.
Investigators say that "buddy" was David Camm.
At the time, Mala didn’t think much of it. But a few hours later, Boney came home and woke her. Asked
to describe what he was like on his return, Mala says, "Excited trying to catch his breath and panting … I
see the scrape on his knee."
She was still sleepy, but she says Boney insisted on showing her a gun. Detectives aren’t sure if Mala
saw the murder weapon, which they have never found, but she is the only witness who will say she saw
Boney night of the killing.
Boney and Camm would be tried for the same crime at the same time but on different sides of the state:
Boney in New Albany, Camm 100 miles away in Boonville.
As the trial began, Boney’s attorney faced every defense attorney’s worst nightmare - a smorgasboard of
forensic evidence, not to mention his client’s own words taped and written.
Prosecutor Henderson laid out a devastating case: Mala Singh Mattingly’s testimony about seeing Boney
with a gun on the night of the murder, Boney’s DNA and palm print at the crime scene, topped off with
his own words, including some he thought he could take back.
After agreeing to write a statement for the police, Boney apparently had second thoughts about a few
lines and crossed them out.
Unfortunately for Boney, the prosecution had a powerful weapon: forensic document examiner Diane
Tolliver. She has been uncovering hidden messages for 30 years.
Tolliver had low expectations for deciphering the crossed out words but using a high tech gizmo, called
the Video Spectral Comparator 2000, she was able to reveal the message.
"The original text was 'David Camm asked me to follow him to a secluded area. He wanted to talk to me
about something that could help me financially he said,'" Tolliver read.
It was very strong evidence, even though David Camm says it’s all a lie. "He was writing on the fly. He
was making it up as he went along," he insists.
But Boney’s attorney believes the statement helps prove Boney’s claim that all he did was sell David
Camm a gun.
It’s was a tough defense to sell to a jury. After three days of deliberations, jurors found Charles Boney
guilty on all counts.
Jurors quickly decided that Boney was guilty of Kim’s murder; that decision took less than an hour. But
the jury still had to decide about Brad and Jill’s murders. Did Boney know the kids would also be killed
that night? That’s what troubled Kristy Litch, who was the last hold out.
"I don't know if it was the fact that I knew we was gonna have to find a man guilty of murder. Or if it
was the fact I didn't want to convict 'em of the kids murders when I didn't have enough proof that he
knew that they were gonna be murdered," she explains.
Camm’s uncle Sam Lockhart saw the Boney verdict as a victory for David. "We’re ecstatic that they
finally got the killer. Our next deal is get Dave Camm free," he said.
And Kim’s family worried that there was not nearly as much evidence against Camm as there was
against Boney. "David Camm murdered these three people and he’s the one we got to get," her father
said,
With Boney behind bars, all eyes focused on Camm’s re-trial. Camm’s legal team believed when jurors
would hear about Boney’s violent past they would be convinced that Boney killed Kim, Brad, and Jill, not
David Camm.
But the jury would hear very little about Boney - the judge ruled jurors could only be told that his DNA
and palm print were found at the scene. But they would not hear about his recent conviction in this
case, his previous crimes against women, or his foot fetish.
It was huge a blow to the defense and left Camm "extremely frustrated."
Still, Camm had the appeals court decision working for him. The ruling said all those women who
testified about his adultery in the first trial would not be allowed in this one.
But the appeals court left the heart of prosecution’s case untouched: the eight tiny blood stains on
Camm’s T-shirt, which prosecutors insist got there when Camm shot his family.
Asked why the blood stains don't implicate David Camm, Stacy Uliana, a member of the defense team
says, "They fit perfectly with what Dave has said from the very beginning. He reached over his daughter
when he pulled his son out of the car."
For weeks, Camm had had to sit through all the evidence a second time. He watched the blood experts
tangle again and watched the gruesome crime scene photos, again.
It got more difficult. The judge decided prosecutors would be allowed to present some evidence that
David’s daughter Jill was molested, even though the appeals court set limits.
At the first trial, experts said Jill’s injuries told them she was molested within 12 to 24 hours of her
death. But at this trial, a new prosecution witness widened that window of opportunity in which David
could have abused his daughter.
"The jury has learned that Jill Camm was sexually abused, two days prior to her murder," Henderson
said.
But with almost every setback in this trial, Camm got some good news. After the prosecution rested, the
judge ruled there was too little proof of a connection between Camm and Boney. There was no evidence
of phone calls or meetings, hardly any evidence the men had a plan. The conspiracy charge was
dismissed.
Camm’s defense team hammered away at every prosecution witness, trying to raise as much doubt as
possible.
A big part of the defense's case rested on the testimony of the basketball players, including Camm's
uncle, who say they saw David on the night of the murders.
But prosecutor Keith Henderson thought he could punch a big hole in Camm’s supposedly air-tight alibi.
One of the basketball players who swore at the first trial that he saw Camm in the church gym for the
entire evening, now said he wasn't sure.
How damaging is the testimony? It’s hard to say because 10 other men still insist David was at the gym
all the time.
"What’s relevant here is was Dave Camm in that gym or not. The evidence shows that Dave Camm was
in that gym that night when Charles Boney was murdering his family. And that’s what counts," says
Kitty Liell.
During closing arguments, Henderson argued Camm not only had the opportunity to kill his family, he
had a motive. "Well the motive was Kimberly was leaving David Camm and she was leaving him
because of the child molesting," he said.
"What they want to do is throw anything they can up against the wall," Liell argues. "It's character
assassination. If they had any evidence of it they would have charged him."
But Camm's lawyers pointed the finger at Boney, whose DNA and palm print were at the crime scene;
they said police botched the investigation and from the outset were determined to get Camm, despite
his alibi.
Jurors got the case. On the fourth day of deliberations, the jury found David Camm guilty of murder,
again
Camm says he was "dumbfounded" and "shocked" by the verdict.
Jurors meticulously went through all the evidence and decided the defense didn’t add up, for the same
reasons as the jury in the first trial. They believed those blood stains proved Camm was the killer.
Camm was sentenced to life without parole.
"Another thing that makes it more difficult is the fact that I did have that taste of being back with you
know my brothers, sisters, cousins nieces nephews and being back with my family," Camm says of his
brief taste of freedom. "And the bottom line is, one of the things that makes it the most difficult is the
fact that I’m doing Charles Boney’s time."
But Camm has had two chances to prove his innocence and has never been able to persuade a single
juror that he’s not a murderer.
"People have formulated an opinion, and they either believe in me or they don't. The people that believe
in me are the same people that have always believed in me, and they require no convincing," he says.
"There's one group of individuals that I'm concerned with right now, and that is the Indiana Supreme
Court."
Camm’s lawyers are asking for a third trial but even he knows that’s a long shot.
For the Renn family the latest victory provides little comfort. They’ve always known who killed Kim, Brad,
and Jill. They’ve never been sure why and even after six years and three trials, they still don’t. They still
have trouble understanding what happened in the garage that bloody night.
"You always wonder, you want the whole puzzle put together," says Kim's father Frank Renn. "There’s a
part missing and I’m not sure we’ll ever know the whole truth."
*****
David Camm is awaiting a decision on his appeal.
Charles Boney was sentenced to 225 years. His appeal was denied.
It has cost more than $2 million to prosecute the Camm murders.
Overview
JusticeforDavidCamm.com
It is impossible to adequately explain everything that has happened in almost eight years since Kimberly,
Bradley and Jill Camm were slaughtered in the garage of their Georgetown, Indiana home in the evening
of September 28, 2000. That incomprehensible crime shook the entire metropolitan Louisville, Kentucky
area. Perhaps equally as earth shattering, however, was the subsequent arrest of David Camm, the
husband and father of the slain family, less than 70 hours later.
This overview, as well as a more thorough review of other areas, will hopefully provide the reader with
an understanding and appreciation of many things. Chief among those should be the stark realization
that there was a rush to judgment and subsequent denial of justice for Kim, Bradley, Jill, David Camm,
their families, the community in which they lived, and, of course, those that perpetrated this most
heinous of all acts.
In early 2000, David Camm resigned from the Indiana State Police after spending 10 years as a road
trooper. He was well respected, had been on the Emergency Rescue Team (ERT) and had been awarded
the department's medal of valor for his efforts in risking his life in an effort to try and save the life of a
drowning man.
Dave's successful uncle, an American entrepreneur, had built a basement waterproofing business from a
one man operation into a successful and well-respected business employing over forty workers. Dave
made a positive career change and went to work for his Uncle Sam and quickly became a successful
salesman and supervisor, earning in six months almost a year's ISP salary.
On September 28, 2000, Dave had been married to Kimberly for over 11 years and had two beautiful
children, Bradley, age seven and Jill, age five. At the time, Kim had a well-paying and highly regarded
position as a financial analyst at a major insurance carrier in nearby Louisville, Kentucky, and their two
children were happy and well-adjusted children who attended a Christian school in New Albany, Indiana.
On September 28, 2000, after a busy day at work, Dave played basketball at the Georgetown
Community Church with ten other players. The one game he didn't play he sat on the baseline talking
with a church elder. Dave was at the gym from 6:59PM, when the alarm was disengaged, until the
security alarm was set at 9:22PM, when he and the seven other remaining players left. Dave's presence
in the gym was accounted for by the other players and the church elder with whom he was talking. He
never left the gym.
After he left the basketball games, Dave drove the two and a half miles to his residence and then pulled
onto the driveway. The garage door was raised and he was presented with a horrific nightmare that was
impossible to comprehend. His wife, missing her pants, lay on the garage floor with a massive head
wound with a blood trail streaming from her head. His two children were both in the back seat of the
family Bronco.
Dave tried to gauge what had happened and in the confusing course of a few moments had frantically
climbed into the two-door Bronco and between the two front seats to the rear seat where his son and
daughter were located. He removed his son from the Bronco and laid him on the concrete floor and gave
him CPR in an attempt to revive him (Jill had a massive head wound; Brad was shot through the chest),
ran into the house to call the State Police, ran across the road to his grandfather's house yelling for his
uncle for help and then ran back to the garage.
Less than 70 hours later, David Camm was arrested and charged with the murders of his wife Kim, son
Brad, and daughter Jill. The date was October 1, 2000. The probable cause affidavit which was the
document used to charge Dave was inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, and based in large part upon
the false deductions and speculations of the lead detective who significantly relied upon the conclusions
provided by a supposed blood stain expert and crime scene re-constructionist.
Robert Stites was that supposed crime scene re-constructionist and was also supposedly a blood expert
who was the source of much of the information in the probable cause affidavit. The ISP relied upon
Stites for his expert opinion on blood pattern analysis and for his assessment and evaluation of the
crime scene. The crux of the arrest warrant was based upon Stites' opinion that eight tiny dots of blood
on the lower left front of Camm's T-shirt, known as Area 30, was high velocity, meaning blowback from
a gunshot wound. Years later and under oath, Stites admitted that when he rendered his opinion that he
hadn't even taken the basic elementary course on blood stain analysis and had never before
independently rendered an opinion on blood stains.
Stites further admitted during Camm's second trial that his previous testimony that he was working on
his PhD in fluid dynamics wasn't accurate, for he hadn't taken any college courses in the nine years prior
to when he first testified. Additionally, his previous testimony under oath in the first Camm trial that he
had testified in other venues about blood stains in other cases wasn't accurate either, for he had never
done so.
As to being a crime scene re-constructionist, Stites had never before processed a homicide scene. He
later admitted that, contrary to the sworn probable cause affidavit, he wasn't a crime scene reconstructionist when he offered his conclusions about the Camm crime scene.
Stites was neither a crime scene re-constructionist nor a blood stain expert, but yet he was allowed free
rein at the crime scene and held out by the ISP as a man who had a national reputation and was relied
upon for his “expert” opinions and conclusions to support the probable cause affidavit which authorized
the arrest of David Camm.
Prosecutor Stanley Faith had taken over the crime scene, according to several investigators. He also had
politically appointed investigators who were intimately involved at the crime scene and in later critical
interviews. They also were instrumental in helping the crime scene re-construction efforts but yet didn't
have any police training or police experience. They collected possibly crucial evidence without
maintaining any chain of custody. What they collected, who collected what, and when they collected it
and where it was retained was unclear or unknown. Potentially critical evidence was lost and untrained,
inexperienced, and politically appointed investigators were intimately involved in the most horrific crime
ever to occur in Floyd County, Indiana. (Recently added condoms to the septic system were collected
but lost. Kim and David didn't use condoms. A shower curtain which appeared to have blood stains was
also collected and lost. The prosecutor's investigators possibly collected them but they didn't have any
record. Regardless, no one knew what happened to the evidence. Somebody lost those items, but no
one admitted responsibility.)
The same probable cause affidavit which relied upon the conclusions of Stites, also claimed that Jill had a
recent tear in the vaginal area consistent with sexual intercourse. The inference was deadly. Her father
was the one responsible and had violated her. There was absolutely nothing which corroborated any
sexual abuse much less anything which supported the contention that Dave was responsible for his little
girl's injuries.
The injuries were deemed to be so painful that Jill would have had trouble urinating, and according to
one doctor, they would have "hurt like hell" when she urinated. The day of her murder, however, Jill had
been active at school, had been energetic at her dance practice, was dressed by her grandmother (Kim's
mother), and was running around during Brad's swim practice just hours before her murder. She never
said a word about nor exhibited any symptom of any pain. Her autopsy also reflected very little urine in
her bladder, indicating that she had urinated not long before her murder.
Indeed, the Chief Medical Examiner in Kentucky who performed the autopsy on little Jill later testified
that Jill's injuries were the result of blunt force trauma which had many possible causes. She further
stated that her official report didn't even use the term sexual intercourse and at trial stated, "In fact, it
doesn't even say sexual abuse, it says trauma."
The horrific allegation that Jill was molested and that Dave was responsible was never to be dropped,
however, and carries with it the same odorous and indelible stain that it did when it was first alleged on
October 1, 2000.
Nonetheless, the prosecution of David Camm marched forward. He was first convicted in the court of
public opinion, greatly aided by the spurious allegation that he had molested his precious daughter and
then with the revelations of his previous infidelities while with the ISP. Indeed, during the trial, the
prosecutor called several very reluctant women to testify about their relationships with Camm. Their
testimony was lurid and sensational but had no bearing on the crimes.
Before and during the trial, prosecutor Faith changed theories three times about when the crime
occurred. The first probable cause affidavit alleged that Dave killed his family between 9:15-9:30PM, or
after he returned from the basketball games around 9:00PM. At the time that allegation was made, the
ten players and the church elder weren't important and had told the truth. It was only after the
prosecution changed their theory as to the timing of the murders did the prosecutor refer to those same
truthful people as liars.
The second theory proffered by deputy prosecutor Susan Orth in her opening comments to the first jury
claimed that after arriving at the gym, Dave snuck out of the basketball games, drove to his home, tried
to make a phone call to a customer at 7:19PM, then slaughtered his family, cleaned and manipulated
the crime scene, returned to the games, had blood on his shirts and shoes, and continued playing with a
calm and carefree manner.
After a phone company billing representative testified that the call actually occurred at 6:19PM, or when
Kim, Brad and Jill were still at Brad's swim practice, the prosecution then changed their theory once
again. Theory three said that Dave still snuck out of the games, but at some time or another, murdered
his family, cleaned and manipulated the crime scene, and returned with a bloody shirt and shoes to the
gym. All three theories had him acting alone.
What about the other 11 people present at the games who said he never left and never saw any bloody
clothing or change in demeanor? According to prosecutor Faith they were either lying or mistaken about
not seeing him leave or return. All 11 of them. Again, of course, they only were liars after the
prosecution changed the timing of when the murders occurred.
During the trial testimony of Stites, he testified that after he examined the T-shirt and prior to Camm's
arrest, he telephonically spoke with his mentor Rod Englert. In that phone call, Stites described the
eight stains in Area 30 as being a result of high velocity. Englert, according to Stites, then told Stites
that he was doing a good job. According to Stites, Englert then, over the phone, and without seeing the
T-shirt, agreed that the eight tiny stains were high velocity.
Stites testimony was naturally buttressed by the later testimony of Englert who had originally dispatched
Stites to the crime scene. The well-known Englert first provided the jury with his personalized tutorial on
blood stains. Englert then testified that Stites had based his Camm opinion on high velocity being the
cause of the eight tiny stains on a previous case the two had just worked, as well as on "his (Stites)
experience and knowledge and having experience in many other cases also."
Terry Laber, the highly-respected blood expert and State of Minnesota forensic laboratory scientist,
countered Englert's testimony that the eight tiny stains originated from contact and not from projected
blood. The lower portion and hem of Dave's T-shirt had simply come in contact with Jill's bloody hair as
he removed Brad from the back seat and then gave him CPR in a desperate attempt to save him.
Indeed, if the eight tiny stains were blowback, then one would expect additional blood misting on the
shorts that Dave was wearing. There was no blood on his shorts, further indicating that the T-shirt,
which was hanging loosely from Dave’s body, was the only garment that came in contact with Jill’s
bloody hair.
(It should be noted at this juncture that Blood Stain Pattern Analysis, or BSPA, is not a science. It is
simply an opinion rendered by someone who purportedly knows what he or she is talking about. On the
other hand, matching fingerprints or DNA profiles is a science and not an opinion. Of the eleven BSPA
"experts" who were eventually deposed or testified in the Camm cases, five claimed that the eight tiny
blood spots on area 30 of Dave's T-shirt was high velocity misting, or the result of blowback from a
bullet striking Jill; five said it was transfer consistent with Dave removing his son from the backseat of
the Bronco and his shirt touching his daughter's bloody hair; and one, a former FBI Agent, said he didn't
know. The five who claimed that it was high velocity didn't agree with one another as to the basis of
their opinions, however, with one person simply claiming that he knew it when he saw it.)
Several key pieces of evidence were either ignored as "artifacts" or not pursued. The most critical
"artifact" was a sweatshirt found at the crime scene that bore the hand-printed name of BACKBONE in
the collar. That sweatshirt, which also had the DNA of an unknown male and unknown female, as well as
the blood of Kim and Bradley Camm, was ignored by the police and prosecution after they failed to
connect David Camm to it. Indeed, one of the interrogators of Camm lied when he told Camm that the
other basketball players had seen him wearing the sweatshirt the night of the murders. When that lie
failed, the prosecution simply claimed that the sweatshirt was part of the crime scene manipulation and
didn’t pursue any attempt at finding the true owner.
Because the judge allowed testimony about Dave's infidelities and because of the molestation allegation,
the actual conviction in his first trial was but a mere formality. Jury members acknowledged that the
argument about him molesting his little girl was critical to their decision. He was sentenced to 195 years
in the Indiana State Prison in March, 2002.
The case was over and many of the parties moved on. Faith, the prosecutor who later claimed that an
unexplained sweatshirt at the crime scene bearing the hand printed name of BACKBONE on the collar
was "much ado about nothing," used his notoriety to run for office again. His chief deputy, Susan Orth,
who claimed that the investigation was "very, very thorough," used the publicity to run for and be
elected judge, replacing the retiring judge who presided over the Camm trial.
Sean Clemons was the lead ISP detective who made numerous false assertions or assumptions in the
probable cause affidavit:
1. the crime scene being manipulated (Kim's shoes were on top of the Bronco)
2. the blood of Kim having a foreign substance added to it (it was the natural phenomena of serum
separation);
3. witnesses claiming that Dave left the basketball game around 9:00PM (rather than at 9:22PM)
4. his (erroneous) interpretation of three sounds as gunshots which occurred between 9:159:30PM. Clemons testified at length in the trial and was later promoted to Sergeant.
David Camm moved on as well...to the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana, where he began
serving his sentence in the Protective Custody Unit. He was a former Indiana State Trooper who was at
distinct risk of being physically harmed or killed if incarcerated with the general prison population.
Members of Dave's family didn't move on. They stayed true not to their belief that Dave was innocent
but their conviction that he was innocent. Family members were present with Dave playing basketball at
the church gym when Kim and the children were brutally slaughtered. Those family members as well as
the other ball players, many of whom were not relatives, have never wavered that Dave never left the
gym. They know that he couldn't have killed his family...he was with them playing basketball.
Sam Lockhart was one of the basketball players who was playing ball on September 28, 2000. Sam is
the uncle of Dave and he and his family have expended whatever savings they have accumulated in
their lives to seek and secure justice for Dave. Dave's parents, Susie and Don Camm, now in their 70's,
have mortgaged practically everything they own in their quest for justice. Dave's brothers and sister and
their families, as well as a host of other family members and other individuals have continued to be
unwavering in their support of Dave.
After the conviction, Sam and the family secured the appellate services of two attorneys who, after
reading the transcript and speaking with witnesses, knew that justice had been denied for Dave. They
also reached a startling conclusion that is rare among defense attorneys. Dave not only had been denied
justice, but he was also innocent.
Those lawyers used their legal acumen to author an appeal which was eventually heard by the Indiana
Court of Appeals. In an opinion handed down on August 10, 2004, the conviction of David Camm was
reversed. The reversal was based upon the court noting that Camm's conviction was based in part upon
the prosecution painting Dave as a bad character for his previous infidelities. There would be no such
“evidence” allowed in any retrial according to the Appellate Court.
As to the argument allowed by the judge that Dave had molested his daughter, the Court also stated
that "the trial court will need to carefully consider whether the highly inflammatory nature of this
evidence substantially outweighs the probative value of any evidence that Camm molested Jill." In
short, the court said that evidence needed to be presented that linked Dave to the injuries of his little
girl in order for such an allegation to be made. No such evidence had ever been presented.
That Appellate Court also noted that the basketball players "all agreed that Camm was there the entire
time and that even though he sat out at least one game, he did not leave the gym." The court also
made a comment rarely seen in such decisions, "(W)e are left with the definite possibility that the jury
might have found Camm not guilty of murdering his wife and two children if it had not been exposed to
a substantial amount of improperly admitted and unfairly prejudicial evidence..."
Many people think that David Camm's conviction was reversed because of a technicality. It isn't a
technicality when false allegations abound. It isn't a technicality when the prosecutor, with the consent
of the judge, is allowed to argue that a person committed the heinous crime of molestation without a
shred of evidence. The whole process went against the very grain of our system of justice, the basic
foundation of which is due process and fundamental fairness.
The new Floyd County prosecutor was Keith Henderson, who was also a former Indiana State Trooper.
He took the Appeals Court decision under advisement and then later stated that he had organized a
"Fresh Eyes" investigation, also headed by the ISP, to look into the case. There are those who couldn’t
understand how the new investigation could be “fresh” and unbiased if the same agency which was
involved in the first investigation were also involved in the second investigation. Nonetheless, the ISP
began their new investigation on September 3, 2004. Nothing had been done since Dave’s conviction in
March, 2002, because, of course, the ISP and the prosecutor had solved the case.
After the "Fresh Eyes" investigated the case for a little over two months, on November 16, 2004,
Henderson, who said that almost 20 interviews had been conducted in the new investigation, re-charged
Dave with the murders of his wife and children, using a probable cause affidavit sworn to by ISP
Detective Gary Gilbert. Twenty interviews was the extent of their new investigation.
Included in that new affidavit was yet the same refuted allegation that a telephone call had been made
from the Camm residence at 7:19PM. Detective Gilbert also saw fit to include information from Detective
Sam Sarkisian that there had been sexual devices taken from the Camm residence and that “the trauma
to Jill Camm's vaginal area is consistent with a sexual device and/or a penis.” Nothing was said about
those devices being tested negatively for Jill’s DNA or that the injuries suffered by Jill were the result of
non-specific blunt force trauma.
What forensic evidence was tested, analyzed or matched? Nothing. The "Fresh Eyes" investigation didn't
conduct any tests or attempt to secure any matches of unknown fingerprints or DNA with known prints
or profiles. No one tried to determine the owner of the BACKBONE sweatshirt nor did anyone try to find
the answers to the many unanswered questions that lay in the forensic evidence. The forensic evidence
was ignored, other than the previously purchased blood spatter opinion of the state's two primary
witnesses, the cost of which was borne by Floyd County in the amount of $280,000.
The "Fresh Eyes" didn’t interview any of the basketball players other than Sam Lockhart, who requested
a meeting with the new investigators and who literally begged them to attempt to find the owner of the
BACKBONE sweatshirt by running a DNA check. The investigators met with other Camm family members
and they, too, requested that the police try and find the owner of the BACKBONE sweatshirt and the
DNA on it. The “Fresh Eyes” ignored these earnest, simple, and very legitimate requests.
There was a bombshell in the new affidavit, however, and that was the revelation that Dave had
confessed to someone. That person turned out to be a prison inmate who was a prolific drug dealer and
escape artist. He was a career informant who had also claimed that two other inmates had confessed
their murders to him. His story was that Dave said that he had shot and killed Kim in the car as it sat
outside the garage. There was no denying that the evidence was that Kim was outside the car and in the
garage when she was murdered. That didn't stop the prosecution from using his story, however. A story
sold by a serial informant that didn"t comport with the agreed-upon facts was the complete extent of
their new evidence prior to David Camm being recharged.
That source of that new information, career criminal James B. Hatton, was later allowed to petition his
trial court for a sentence modification after he testified in Camm's second trial. The judge allowed him to
also be freed on an ankle bracelet on home detention, pending the resolution of his modification, even
though he had served less than six years of a 25 year sentence for methamphetamine production and
for escape. Hatton was released from prison and then simply walked away from his home detention in
December, 2006. He is currently a fugitive.
The new defense attorneys were, however, successful in having the case transferred from Floyd County
to Warrick County, just east of Evansville, where Judge Robert Aylsworth was to be the presiding judge.
It was a given that David Camm couldn't get a fair trial in Floyd County. That would hopefully change in
Warrick County.
On January 26, 2005, the defense argued in Warrick County that David Camm should be released on
bond pending his trial. Much of the argument dealt with the fact that Dave had been convicted on blood
stain evidence which the Appellate Court called the "battle of the experts."
In order to agree to such a reduction in bond, from no bond to one of only $20,000, the case had to
have been seen as very weak. When the judge ordered Camm released on a $20,000 bond, Prosecutor
Henderson and the citizens of Floyd County were shocked and angered.
At that same bond hearing on January 26, 2005, the defense advised the prosecution of the intent to file
a motion which would compel them to act on much of the forensic evidence. A critical part of that
motion was that the unknown DNA profiles be run through the national DNA database in order to
attempt to find the owner of the BACKBONE sweatshirt.
Only when faced with the defense motion to compel testing did the police finally attempt to match the
unknown DNA with the national DNA database in February, 2005. They were shocked to find out that
the DNA belonged to Charles Darnell Boney, an 11-time convicted felon who had a history of violently
attacking and kidnapping women. Boney, known as BACKBONE in prison, was also a shoe freak, having
previously attacked women for their shoes. That quickly explained why Kim's shoes had been neatly
placed on top of her Bronco at the crime scene. Boney had been released from prison just three months
prior to the murders after serving only eight years of a 20 year sentence for two armed robberies and
the kidnapping of three women.
Boney had made a startling admission when arrested previously for his assaults on women in order to
steal their shoes. He said that he had an escape plan and that plan was to wear a sweatshirt to the
scene of the crime and to later remove it so he wouldn't match any possible witness descriptions.
(It was only months later, and after the defense was attempting to possibly link the unknown female
DNA found on the sweatshirt with that of Boney’s girlfriend, did the ISP finally match that unknown
female DNA with Mala Singh, Boney's girlfriend at the time of the murders. It was mixed with blood
from Kim. Rather than pursue the possibility that she was with Boney at the crime scene, however, they
used a story (that changed significantly over time) from her that allowed her to retain her freedom.)
An incredible aspect of the sweatshirt and the unknown male DNA was that the first prosecutor, Stan
Faith, not only knew about the DNA but claimed that he told the ISP to run it in the national database.
The ISP didn't run the DNA and later claimed that the prosecutor didn't tell them about it. As a result,
the DNA was ignored for years, both by the initial investigators and by the “Fresh Eyes” investigators
until the defense mandated that the DNA profile be run in the database.
Three days after his sweatshirt and DNA was identified, Boney was found to be living in Louisville, less
than 25 minutes from the Camm residence. At the time of the murders, he was living with his mother,
who later admitted that she had sent him on errands to a nearby meat store which also happened to be
owned by Kim's sister and brother-in-law and which Kim and the kids frequented on a routine basis.
Boney was soon interviewed by the police and claimed that he had numerous people who could alibi him
for the afternoon and evening of September 28, 2000. The police accepted his story even though the
critical alibi witnesses weren't interviewed and even though Boney had failed a stipulated polygraph
examination as to his involvement in the murders. The polygraph examiner who administered the
polygraph to Boney acknowledged that the "Fresh Eyes" investigators were both surprised and shocked
at the results.
What happened next will astonish many people. At a press conference on February 28, 2005, Boney was
defended by the prosecutors. They claimed that his story about giving the BACKBONE sweatshirt to the
Salvation Army after his release from prison had checked out. They insisted that David Camm was still
the one who was responsible for the murders of his family. As to an 11-time convicted felon who
assaulted women, robbed women, kidnapped women at gunpoint and who threatened to blow their
brains out, he was regarded by the prosecutors as simply having his sweatshirt show up at the crime
scene through no fault of his own. Nothing was said to the public about Boney’s failed polygraph or the
failure to verify his false alibi witnesses.
Deputy prosecutor Steve Owen asked this question at the same press conference, "What do you think?
Mr. Boney's going to come out of jail, go to somebody's house in Georgetown, brutally murder three
people and say, 'Oh, I think I'll take off my sweatshirt that I got from (the Department Of Corrections)
and lay it down here by the blood (boy). Does that make sense to anybody?" Owen said it didn’t make
sense to him, but it sure made sense to a lot of people that an enraged, violent person, engaged in a
sexual assault of a woman, who then shot and killed her and her two children, just might leave evidence
at the scene of a crime. After all, Boney had left his property and fingerprints at previous crime scenes.
The defense tried to get the prosecutors to act and filed a motion for Judge Aylsworth to authorize an
arrest warrant for Boney. That failed. Boney's identity and the fact that his sweatshirt had been linked
to the crime scene (and prior to the defense being advised that his DNA had been identified) was leaked
to the press, presumably by someone in the prosecutor's office, and Boney was in the process of giving
an exclusive interview to a Louisville television station.
Boney was found and then quickly interviewed by a retired FBI Agent who was working for the defense.
During the videotaped interview of Boney, he was caught in numerous lies and he claimed that nothing
more of his would be found at the crime scene, including other DNA or his fingerprints. In fact, he stated
that if anything else of his other than his sweatshirt was found at the scene it would be "obvious" that
he murdered the family.
Weeks after Boney was first interviewed and when the police took his finger and palm prints, the
unknown palm print was finally compared to that of Boney. It was a match. It was therefore "obvious"
that he was the murderer. Only the police still thought that David Camm was involved, due to the
"compelling" evidence of blood spatter, according to Detective Gilbert. The prosecution and the
investigators weren’t giving up on Camm being involved.
The "Fresh Eyes," however, were compelled to arrest Boney. After his arrest and initial interview, he was
allowed to be alone for several hours in order to compile a written statement. His assertions quickly
changed, however, and at the end of the post-arrest interviews, the investigators told Boney that his
story was a "crock of shit."
After that first round of interviews, ISP Detective Myron Wilkerson, a distant relative of the Boney's,
found Boney's mother and sister and, according to them, told them that they needed Boney to sign a
"conspiracy note." Boney's sister was allowed to meet twice with her brother, including a contact visit,
prior to his next interview. It was obvious that the ISP and the prosecutor needed to link Boney and
Camm together and they were trying to get Boney to provide information of a "conspiracy" between he
and Camm.
It took over 30 hours of interrogations and changing and contradictory stories for Boney to finally
provide a story that was the stuff of fairy tales, saying that he only sold a gun to David Camm which
was used in the murders. Nothing of what Boney said, including when and how he supposedly met
Dave, where he obtained the gun, and other aspects of his story have ever been corroborated. Nothing
of what he said could be construed as the two conspiring with one another. Boney put the murders all
on Camm.
Parts of the interrogations of Boney are chilling, however. He was told by Wilkerson that he was an
"opportunist" whose"best scenario is to be a witness." He was further told that David Camm had an alibi
which was "gonna be a problem." Wilkerson told Boney that his goal was to keep Boney alive. Boney
was given a stark choice. He could be a witness or face the death penalty. Incriminate Camm or die
were his options. He chose the option that kept him alive. It was clear to many that the death penalty
was spared in exchange for Boney incriminating Camm.
Another astounding facet to the Boney interviews is the fact that critical parts of Boney's written
statement and later his stories were first provided by the authorities. It was Wayne Kessinger, one of
Henderson’s investigators, who first suggested to Boney that the gun was “dirty” or “untraceable” and
that he might have had it wrapped in his sweatshirt. Boney later incorporated those two aspects with his
story that after he bought the untraceable gun, he wrapped it in his sweatshirt prior to giving it to
Camm.
What else did Boney claim? He said that he first met Dave in July, 2000, at a local park where they were
playing full-court basketball. In addition to the ten players there were several others present as
onlookers. How many witnesses were found that saw the two together? None. There were no witnesses.
Boney also claimed that he and Dave never spoke on the telephone but met in front of a convenience
store immediately adjacent to Karem’s Meat Market owned by Kim's sister. It was there that Dave spoke
to him about getting a gun and later where the gun was provided. That's smart. Meet and talk with a
convicted felon and obtain a gun in a busy parking lot of a business owned by your sister-in-law where
you're well-known. As one might guess, there were no witnesses.
Boney also said that he knew that Dave was a former ISP trooper but that Dave trusted him enough,
after ten minutes of conversation, to ask him to find him a gun. That contradicts Boney’s other
statements to many others, including the defense investigator, that he would never trust a cop.
Dave agreed to a price of $250, but there was no discussion as to what make, model, caliber or type of
gun. Boney claimed that he went to his long-time acquaintance, Larry Gerkin, who lived in Louisville,
and purchased a .380. Wayne Kessinger, who spent 30 years with the Louisville Metro Police, was
unsuccessful in finding Gerkin, much less identifying him. Gerkin was probably just a quick figment of
Boney's imagination. (One should ask why he would lie about the identify of the real source of the gun,
however.)
After claiming that he sold Dave one gun on the afternoon of the murders, which was delivered in the
same Karem's parking lot, Boney claimed that he followed Dave to his house. For 15 or more minutes,
he followed Dave home, but he couldn't remember the vehicle that Dave was driving, thinking that it
was a LeSabre. Dave, of course, drove a white pickup truck. Boney did recall, in the span only seeing
Kim’s Bronco for mere moments, that her car had an FOP sticker on the license. Boney then said that he
was outside the garage next to his car when Kim and the kids pulled into the driveway. He said he then
heard three pops and Dave walked outside the garage and confronted him.
Incredibly, Boney also claimed that Dave then tried to kill him but that the gun jammed. Boney said
Dave then ran into the house from the garage, presumably, according to Boney, to get another gun to
kill him. Dave, a former SWAT member, panicked when a gun jammed and ran away was Boney's story.
Ask any law enforcement officer, or better yet, a SWAT member, how long it takes to remove a jam in a
semi-automatic handgun. Mere seconds will be the answer.
Rather than fleeing the scene after Camm tried to kill him, Boney then said he followed behind Camm
and walked into the garage. He said that he then tripped over Kim's shoes and that he leaned down,
picked them up and placed them neatly on top of the car. He then leaned into the vehicle and looked to
see what was inside because of "curiosity." That's when his palm print was deposited on the door jamb,
as he was looking in at Jill and Brad.
It was only then that he decided that it was time to leave. As he was driving away, however, he saw in
his rear-view mirror a woman in a vehicle that looked like a state owned Crown Victoria. Boney was
trying to incriminate a female trooper associate of Dave's. She had previously been eliminated as a
suspect because when the crimes had occurred, she was with friends eating a late dinner. (The new
investigators suggested that she take a polygraph as to her possible involvement. She passed the
polygraph.)
Boney's story is not supported by any witnesses, any records, any documents, or any other
corroboration at all. It is his unsupported story, fostered by the need to have him incriminate David
Camm, which he finally provided. The story is that of a person who knew he had to incriminate David
Camm in order to escape the death penalty, which he did. His stories were labeled by the police
investigators as a "crock of shit" and as a "story of convenience" but they finally had him incriminating
Camm.
After several interviews the police finally had Boney incriminating Camm. What happened next?
Prosecutor Henderson dropped the charges against Dave which were pending in Warrick County. For a
little over an hour the Camm and Lockhart families thought that justice finally had been achieved. They
didn't know that Henderson had already drafted another new probable cause affidavit, the third one,
against Dave.
On March 9, 2005, David Camm was, for the third time, charged with the murder of his family. This was
the prosecution's fourth theory. Lead "Fresh Eyes" investigator Gary Gilbert swore under oath that Dave
not only committed the murders but that he and Boney conspired with one another to commit murder.
Boney didn't provide any "evidence" of such a conspiracy. There were no witnesses, no documents, no
records, and no connection whatsoever between the two.
The new affidavit also alleged that Dave's brother, Danny Camm, had forged Kim's signature on a life
insurance policy which had been obtained only months before the murders. That affidavit didn't say
anything about Kim being the one responsible for the family's financial affairs and also the one
responsible for securing life insurance. Indeed, when she obtained the new life insurance, through
Danny, most of the increases were on Dave, who had lost his group policy after leaving the ISP.
The allegation of fraud by Danny Camm was later dropped. In a bond hearing in June, 2005, Detective
Gilbert said that he had been told by someone that Danny Camm had forged Kim's signature but that
the information wasn't correct. Detective Gilbert had sworn, under oath, to the authenticity of that
allegation and then simply dismissed it months later.
The third affidavit also followed in the same manner as the two preceding it. Pertinent parts of the story
were left out. For example, there was no mention of the ever-changing, inconsistent and contradictory
stories told by Boney. Neither did the affidavit tell of Boney's violent criminal background other than to
simply note that he had been released from the Indiana State Prison (not accurate) in June, 2000 for
armed robbery. Nothing was said about his previous convictions for assaulting women for their shoes,
his threats to shoot women in the head or his armed abduction of three women.
The new charges now afforded Henderson the ability to charge David Camm, which he did, in Floyd
County. Only a few months before, Henderson had agreed with the defense argument that Dave couldn't
get a fair trial in Floyd County and had been intimately involved in selecting Warrick County as the new
venue for the second Camm trial. Henderson was now claiming that there wouldn't be a problem in
securing a fair trial in Floyd County.
The defense team refused to recognize that the old venue of Floyd County was legitimate and
subsequently filed a Writ of Mandamus with the Indiana Supreme Court challenging the change of
venue. Such writs are rarely heard by the Supreme Court (less than 2%) but it did agree to hear the
arguments in the Camm case. Three months passed but the Supreme Court, in a unanimous 5-0 ruling,
ordered Dave's trial back to Warrick County. During those three months the prosecutor refused to
provide discovery to the Camm defense team.
In the months leading up to the second trial the defense team continued to interview many possible
witnesses and develop promising leads. One witness, Victor Nugent, was found by the defense in midMarch, 2005. Nugent was a co-worker of Boney’s at Anderson Woods in Louisville who also missed work,
as did Boney, on the evening of September 28, 2000. Nugent lied repeatedly to the defense and then
later to the “Fresh Eyes” investigators about the source of a gun that he reluctantly admitted selling to
Boney. Nugent claimed that the gun was a .38 revolver that he simply found in a tire in a van that he
had purchased.
Nugent denied selling a .380 to Boney, although other co-workers heard Nugent complaining that Boney
hadn’t paid him for a gun he had sold to him. One of those co-workers saw Boney with a semi-automatic
in his backpack at work near the same time of Nugent's complaint.
The defense also located a friend of Nugent's who said that Nugent admitted to him that he did sell a
.380 to Boney. That information was provided to the “Fresh Eyes” investigators but they said that they
didn’t read much of the discovery provided to them by the defense. They dismissed Nugent as
insignificant and didn’t pursue him as the source of the weapon.
The prosecution was approached by the mother of yet another inmate who wanted to help them. He also
claimed that Dave also confessed to him that he had murdered his wife and children. The second
inmate, Jeremy Bullock, claimed that Dave told him that he played basketball very hard while he was at
the gym so that he would be noticed by the other players but that he left in the middle of the games.
Does that make any sense? If someone is playing hard and then goes missing, wouldn't he be missed all
the more? How does that account for the fact that the one game he did sit out it was with a church elder
and that the two spoke during the entire time Dave didn't play ball?
Bullock, who confessed at age 16 to planning and then murdering his drug dealer, also said that Dave
said that he committed the murders because Kim was leaving him. Was there evidence of that? There is
no such evidence and on the contrary, Kim and Dave were talking about buying a bigger house with a
swimming pool which would be closer to the kids' school. The two were making more money than they
ever had and Dave's new job was not only affording him more money but also a better schedule to be
with his family.
The prosecution was relying on two prison informants to buttress their case. David Camm, who has
never wavered in the fact that he didn't kill his family, supposedly picked two inmates, at random, to
confess that he killed his family. Those two informants were able to testify, however, thus allowing the
jury to hear that Dave was incarcerated with two felons in the Indiana State Prison. Allowing the jury to
hear that Dave was incarcerated meant that they therefore knew that he had been previously convicted.
That was as important as the two stories.
Remember also that each one of the informants came forward and told of Dave's "confessions" prior to
Boney's DNA being matched to the BACKBONE sweatshirt. What did the two informants say about
Dave's co-conspirator? Nothing. Their stories didn't involve anyone who supposedly helped Dave. The
fact that the inmates' stories didn't comport with the prosecution's theory that Dave and Boney acted
together didn't stop the prosecution from using them at trial.
The defense found and interviewed several other inmates who were incarcerated with Dave and the two
informants. Those other inmates, who had not been interviewed by the police or prosecution, refuted
the claims of the two informants that Dave had confessed. Hatton was a well-known informant who
wasn't trusted, not only by other inmates, but by police officers who knew him well. Bullock had
bragged that he hated cops and was going to lie against Camm.
Prior to Camm’s trial, at least two other inmates in the Floyd County jail also attempted to gain favor
with the prosecution in exchange for their stories. One inmate was telling other inmates that the
prosecution needed someone to connect Boney and Camm together and that they would get a good deal
if they did so. Their stories were so jumbled that they weren't used but only after the defense found
other witnesses who told of their plans to sell their testimony in exchange for reduced sentences.
Hatton and Bullock, however, both benefited after their testimony for the state. As noted, Hatton, after
his release on house arrest, fled and he is now a fugitive. Bullock was allowed to move from the prison
at Michigan City to the Pendleton Reformatory where his family, residing nearby, could visit him more
frequently.
During the second trial, which began on January 9, 2006, the judge refused to allow the defense to use
Dave's 6th Amendment right to present evidence that Charles Boney was responsible for the murders.
Boney's confession to the defense investigator as well as another confession, "I've got three (murders)
under my belt" wasn't allowed, nor was any of his improbable story of being at the crime scene and
looking into the car out of "curiosity" sake. His placement of the shoes on top of the car along with the
rest of his story wasn't allowed.
Boney's criminal signature, his foot and shoe fetish, his violence towards women, his “escape plan” using
a sweatshirt, and the fact that he was given a clear alternative to the death penalty in return for him
incriminating David Camm was not allowed.
The judge, upon a motion filed by the defense, was required by law to dismiss the conspiracy charge
against Dave because there was absolutely no evidence submitted by the prosecution that there had
been any such conspiracy. The prosecutors never placed any witness on the stand that ever placed
Boney with David Camm. The only "witness" was Charles Boney. The judge acquitted Dave of the
conspiracy charge, but only after effectively apologizing to the prosecution for doing so.
During the second trial, there were a total of eight experts who testified about the blood on Area 30 of
Dave's T-shirt which contained the blood of his daughter. The four prosecution experts all came to the
same conclusion that the eight tiny drops of blood in Area 30 was deposited as a result of high velocity
impact spray (HVIS) but they couldn't agree as to what made the blood on the shirt HVIS.
The State’s prime expert, Rodney Englert admitted during cross-examination that he didn't know that
blood wasn't on the periodic table of elements. He also claimed that a basic knowledge of chemistry,
physics, and blood viscosity wasn’t important when it came to identifying the source of blood stains.
Rod Englert, however, is admired by many as an individual who does a great sales job with juries. It was
Englert, another crime scene re-constructionist, who claimed that Dave was squatted down in front of
Jill in the backseat of the Bronco when he shot and killed her and Brad. The basis of that testimony
stemmed from Englert’s assertion that blood on the back of Dave’s T-shirt was the result of contact with
the rear of the front passenger seat which had been deposited there by high velocity misting. Englert
had never proffered that opinion before, not in the first trial or in his depositions. That was new
testimony. None of the other seven experts thought that the stain on the rear of the shirt was high
velocity blood that was transferred to the shirt, but rather they all considered it to be a simple transfer
of blood. Rod Englert was able to testify to something that seven others could not.
The four defense blood experts testified that the eight blood stains on Area 30 were a result of transfer
or contact with blood from Jill. Those experts were Bart Epstein, the former forensic chief of the
Minnesota State Crime Laboratory; Paulette Sutton, the Assistant Director of Forensic Services at the
Regional Forensic Center in Memphis, Tennessee; Paul Kish, textbook author and recognized blood
expert who was on the Executive Board of the FBI’s Scientific Working Group on Blood Stain Pattern
Analysis (SWGSTAIN); and Stuart James, a forensic scientist, former chief toxicologist, clinical chemist,
SWGSTAIN member, and author of textbooks on blood stains.
The jury was greatly aided, however, in their deliberations by what Judge Aylsworth allowed the
prosecution to argue in their final argument. The judge ruled that the prosecution could argue that Jill
was molested by her father. Incredibly enough, the Judge said that he couldn't prevent the prosecution
from making such an argument, stating, "I don't believe it's my prerogative to restrict the argument as
to any matters of evidence or in evidence, and I'll let you argue those as you please, and the jury can
determine whether or not it has any merit."
The judge, whose job is to make definitive determinations on whether it is permissible to even admit
certain "evidence," completely ignored, in the opinion of many people, the Court of Appeals ruling. He
even contradicted his previous rulings during the trial. The prosecution was allowed to argue that Dave
molested his child even though not one scintilla of evidence existed that he had done so.
Later, in another ruling after the trial, Judge Aylsworth also acknowledged that, "the evidence allowed to
be admitted at trial did not in and of itself indicate such propensities (molestation) on the part of the
defendant, or the existence at least on the surface of anything other than a natural father and daughter
relationship between the defendant and his daughter."
To put it mildly, that's illogical. The judge said that Dave and Jill had a natural father and daughter
relationship but there could have been something that wasn't “on the surface.” A judge who is supposed
to ensure that fundamental fairness and due process are the foundations of his court allowed allegations
of molestation without any evidence. An allegation, without any evidence whatsoever, was allowed to be
argued as fact.
The judge justified his decision by claiming that both sides had the opportunity to litigate the "existence
of and time of molestation" but ignored the Appellate Court's strict warning to "carefully consider
whether the highly inflammatory nature of this evidence substantially outweighs the probative value of
any evidence that Camm molested Jill." Many of the courtroom observers also thought that the judge
also ignored the testimony of the pathologist who conducted Jill's autopsy who said that the injuries
were non-specific and could have resulted from a myriad of other reasons other than molestation.
(On February 11, 2008, the Indiana Attorney General filed a response to the appeal filed by Camm's
attorneys after his second conviction. In that response, the Attorney General acknowledged that the
State had presented no evidence that David Camm was the source of the genitalia injuries suffered by
Jill, yet still argued that it was permissible to allege that he molested his daughter. )
Judge Aylsworth refused to admit the two confessions of Charles Boney and refused to allow the defense
to introduce other critical evidence against Boney, including his flunked polygraph, his criminal
signature, and his ever-changing and totally unbelievable stories, yet he allowed prosecutor Henderson
to claim that Dave not only molested Jill but that Kim had confronted Dave about that and was going to
leave him. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever or any confrontation or that Kim was going to
leave Dave.
With the final words that Henderson uttered to the jury, he was able to have the most poisonous words
that the jury heard prior to their being given their instructions from the judge. Those final words,
"molested his daughter" tainted every other aspect of the trial and were instrumental in the jury finding
Dave guilty.
Robert Crowell, the jury foreman, was later quoted as saying, "I think there are a number of things that
were strong, but that timeline, I think, on the molestation is critical," he said. "We were convinced that
what happened to Jill could not have happened anytime after 7:30 PM that night." Crowell further
added, "If it had been only the impact spatter, I think we would have had a much longer discussion."
There was no evidence whatsoever of any molestation by Dave, but the jury came to that conclusion.
The harsh words of Prosecutor Henderson resonated in the jury room and the need to have proof
beyond a reasonable doubt vanished with the allegation that Dave had molested his precious little
daughter. That heinous allegation trumped 11 eyewitnesses and simple common sense.
The jury later recommended a sentence of life without parole and less than a month after the guilty
verdicts, Judge Aylsworth sentenced Dave to that mandatory life sentence.
In obtaining the two convictions, the police and prosecutors relied upon an expert who wasn't, ignored
mountains of evidence, came up with four different theories of when and how David Camm committed
murder, labeled 11 eyewitnesses as mistaken or liars, publicly supported a kidnapper and armed robber,
relied upon drug dealers/murderers for witnesses, dismissed the possible source of the murder weapon,
and spent literally millions of dollars in public funds.
The prosecutor, whose claims of a conspiracy between Boney and Camm secured headlines and lead
stories, nonetheless fought vigorously to prevent any of Boney's statements or confessions from being
allowed in the Camm trial. Sadly, the State of Indiana obtained two convictions through character
assassination, speculation, and the failure of a judge to allow the defense to present critical evidence.
The two trials and two appeals, in addition to the cost of the experts and other associated costs have, to
date, cost the taxpayers of Floyd County over $2 million. That doesn't include the costs associated with
conducting the investigation and prosecution of the most investigated crime ever by the Indiana State
Police. It also, of course, doesn't include the enormous costs, financial and emotional, borne by the
families of the slain.
Many people, after learning of the events that have occurred in this case, have righteously asked the
question, "What aren't you telling me?" This website will hopefully answer that question and more. Many
will rightfully have a difficult time believing that this monumental injustice occurred and that it is still
being perpetuated by the State of Indiana. They will fail to comprehend why David Camm was convicted
of a crime he didn't commit.
David Camm is currently imprisoned at the Pendleton, Indiana Reformatory and his family, supporters
and defense team are still seeking justice for him and his slain family.
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA
David R. Camm, Appellant-Defendant
v.
State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff
No. 22A01-0208-CR-326
APPEAL FROM THE FLOYD SUPERIOR COURT
The Honorable Richard G. Striegel, Judge
Cause No. 22D01-0010-CF-343
August 10, 2004
OPINION - FOR PUBLICATION
BARNES, Judge
Case Summary
David R. Camm appeals his three convictions for the murder of his wife and two children. We reverse.
Issues
The dispositive issue we address today is whether the trial court committed reversible error by allowing
the State to present extensive evidence of extramarital sexual activity by Camm. For retrial purposes,
we also address other issues that Camm has raised.
Facts
The evidence most favorable to the convictions is that on the evening of September 28, 2000, Camm
shot and killed his wife Kim and their children, seven-year-old Brad and five-year-old Jill, at their home
in Georgetown. The shooting took place in the Camms’ garage, apparently sometime after 7:30 p.m.,
when Kim and the children would have been due to arrive home from Brad’s swimming practice.
Camm’s version of events was that he was playing basketball at a nearby church from 7:00 p.m. until
approximately 9:20 p.m., after which he drove home and found Kim, whom he immediately thought was
dead, lying on the ground next to her Bronco. He then claimed to have looked inside the vehicle and
found Jill and Brad. Camm thought Brad might still be alive, so he reached in over Jill, removed him
from the Bronco, placed him on the garage floor next to Kim, and began performing CPR. When this
proved futile, Camm said he called the Sellersburg Indiana State Police post for help, then ran across
the street to his grandfather’s house to tell his uncle, who was staying there, what had happened.
Camm had been a State Police trooper for many years, but had quit the force several months earlier to
work for a family business that, among other things, waterproofed basements.
Police showed the t-shirt Camm was wearing on the night of the 28th to a blood spatter expert. The
expert believed certain blood droplets, which were later confirmed to be from Jill, found on one corner of
the shirt were high velocity impact spatter resulting from a gunshot. Based in part on this evidence, on
October 1, 2000, the State charged Camm with three counts of murder. See footnote
On January 7, 2002, a jury trial began with the selection of jurors from Johnson County because of the
extensive media coverage of the crime in the Louisville area. The trial continued in Floyd County until
March 15, 2002, when the jury retired to deliberate. The key physical evidence against Camm was the
purported high velocity blood spatter on his t-shirt, which was challenged by Camm’s forensic expert.
The State also presented extensive evidence of Camm’s personal life, specifically, evidence that he had
had several sexual encounters with or propositioned women other than Kim during his time with the
State Police. On March 17, 2002, the jury informed the trial court that it was deadlocked; the trial court
instructed the jury to continue deliberating. Later that day, the jury returned with guilty verdicts on all
three counts. Camm was sentenced to a total of 195 years, and he now appeals.
Analysis
I. Evidence of Camm’s Adultery
During the State’s case-in-chief, it presented the testimony of twelve women who had had various types
of relationships with Camm since 1991. At one end of the romantic spectrum were three women with
whom Camm had had prolonged sexual relationships, the most recent of which occurred in 1997. Camm
had a relationship with one of these women, Stephanie Neely, while he was separated from Kim in 1994
and had moved out of the family home and into an apartment. On the other end of the spectrum were
two women to whom Camm apparently made implied sexual advances, such as offering to take care of
one woman’s basement waterproofing bill in “other ways.” Tr. p. 2848.
Two other women testified as to more overt sexual overtures that they had rebuffed. The remaining five
women, who had varying levels of acquaintanceship with Camm, had had at least one instance of sexual
contact with Camm, including kissing, fondling and, in some instances, intercourse, but little else
besides what the women described as extensive flirting. Some of the women were asked during their
testimony to divulge details of their relationships with Camm, such as when, where, and how they
engaged in sexual activities, including such details as the shaving of pubic hair. Camm filed a motion in
limine challenging the admissibility of this evidence and repeated his objection at trial. He argues that
the admission of this evidence was an attack on his character not admissible for any proper purpose
under Indiana Evidence Rule 404(b).
A trial court has broad discretion in ruling on the admissibility of evidence, and we will disturb its rulings
only where it is shown that the court abused that discretion. Griffith v. State, 788 N.E.2d 835, 839 (Ind.
2003). Evidence Rule 404(b) provides in pertinent part:
Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to
show action in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof
of motive, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident . . . .
“This rule prevents the State from punishing people for their character . . . .” Bassett v. State, 795
N.E.2d 1050, 1053 (Ind. 2003). Evidence of other wrongs or acts poses the danger that a jury may
convict a defendant because his or her “general character” is bad. Id. (quoting Gibbs v. State, 538
N.E.2d 937, 939 (Ind. 1989)). In determining the admissibility of extrinsic act evidence under Evidence
Rule 404(b), courts must: (1) determine whether the evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is
relevant to a matter at issue other than the person’s propensity to engage in a wrongful act; and (2)
balance the probative value of the evidence against its prejudicial effect pursuant to Evidence Rule 403.
Id. Otherwise admissible evidence may be rendered inadmissible “if its probative value is substantially
outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice . . . .” Ind. Evidence Rule 403.
The State asserts that this evidence was offered to establish motive. With respect to the motive
“exception” in Evidence Rule 404(b), our supreme court has said that motive is “always relevant” when
proving a crime. Ross v. State, 676 N.E.2d 339, 346 (Ind. 1996). It is clear, however, that just because
motive is “always relevant,” this does not mean the State can introduce questionable character evidence
simply by labeling it evidence of “motive.” If the State’s claim of relevance to motive is too strained and
remote to be reasonable, then the extrinsic act evidence is inadmissible. See Bassett, 795 N.E.2d at
1053.
Our supreme court has also said that evidence of extrinsic acts may be relevant as proof of motive if the
acts “show the relationship between the defendant and the victim.” Ross, 676 N.E.2d at 346. This
rationale has been used to uphold the introduction of evidence of prior violence or threats by the
defendant against the victim in a trial alleging the battery or homicide of the victim. See id.; Price v.
State, 619 N.E.2d 582, 584 (Ind. 1993). Specifically, “where a relationship between parties is
characterized by frequent conflict, evidence of the defendant’s prior assaults and confrontations with the
victim may be admitted to show the relationship between the parties and motive for committing the
crime—‘hostility.’” Spencer v. State, 703 N.E.2d 1053, 1056 (Ind. 1999).
Neither party has cited to this court, nor has our own research revealed, any Indiana case that has
discussed the admissibility, as evidence of motive, of a defendant’s adulterous affairs in a trial where
the defendant is accused of killing his or her spouse. The Indiana case closest to being on point appears
to be Henson v. State, 530 N.E.2d 768 (Ind. Ct. App. 1988), trans. denied. In that case, a wife was
charged with the voluntary manslaughter of her husband. On cross-examination of the wife, the State
questioned her regarding several alleged instances of adultery; her answers to the questions were
equivocal.
Thereafter, on rebuttal the State presented four witnesses to the affairs.
conviction, holding (1) that the State’s cross-examination regarding adultery
the wife’s direct examination and (2) that the rebuttal evidence of the affairs
no relevance to [the wife’s] guilt or innocence.” Id. at 770. We further stated,
We reversed the wife’s
was outside the scope of
was immaterial and “had
“We can find no basis for
the State’s introduction of the rebuttal testimony other than to prejudice the jury against [the wife].” Id.
The opinion does not address, however, whether the adultery evidence could have been relevant to
establishing motive, presumably because that was not argued by the State. Nevertheless, Henson does
evidence healthy skepticism about the relevance and admissibility of evidence of extramarital affairs by
a defendant charged with killing his or her spouse.
There is a general paucity of cases throughout the country discussing the issue of adultery as evidence of
motive to kill one’s spouse. See footnote However, we have discovered that the Supreme Court of
Mississippi has addressed precisely this issue in detail and in a manner that appears to us entirely
consistent with Indiana case law and Indiana Evidence Rule 404(b). In Lesley v. State, 606 So. 2d 1084
(Miss. 1992), a wife was convicted of conspiring with a lover to murder her husband. The wife admitted
to the affair with the accused lover. However, the husband was also allowed to testify as to two other
men with whom his wife allegedly had had extramarital affairs in previous years. The Mississippi
Supreme Court reversed the wife’s conviction based upon its application of Mississippi Evidence Rule
404(b), which is virtually identical to Indiana Evidence Rule 404(b). See footnote Id. at 1089-90. First, it
noted that the other two alleged affairs had occurred years before the conspiracy to commit murder
arose and thus were too chronologically remote. Id. at 1090. It also noted that the husband had failed
to prove that the alleged affairs had actually taken place. Id. Finally, and most relevant to this case, the
court stated:
Any extramarital affairs of Loretta Lesley other than the affair with Hood [the current lover and alleged
co-conspirator] were not part of any chain of events leading to the planned murder of Dale Lesley.
Additionally, proof of previous extramarital affairs lacked relevance into the murder conspiracy and was
so prejudicial as to fail any balancing test under Rule 403. Her alleged prior adultery did not make it
more likely than not that she committed conspiracy to commit murder, and it did inflame any listener.
Id. The court held it was improper to use this evidence “only to show that she had a motive for killing her
husband because she was unhappy in her marriage and had a reason for wanting to ‘get rid’ of her
husband. The only effect of such testimony was to show the jury that she was a ‘bad woman.’” Id. The
court also distinguished the case before it from cases in other jurisdictions that had allowed evidence of
extramarital affairs to be introduced, noting among other things that in the other cases the “evidence of
adultery was introduced in combination with evidence of violence or current conduct [an ongoing affair
at the time of the murder] to show motive.” Id. at 1090-91 (citing State v. Green, 652 P.2d 697 (Kan.
1982) and Commonwealth v. Heller, 87 A.2d 287 (Pa. 1952)). We, too, have discovered that insofar as
evidence of adultery has sometimes been admitted as evidence of motive in a murder trial in other
jurisdictions, such evidence has been that the defendant was engaged in an affair at the time of the
murder. See United States v. Stapleton, 730 F. Supp. 1375, 1378-79 (W.D. Va. 1990); Givens v. State,
546 S.E.2d 509, 512 (Ga. 2001).
In another case, the Seventh Circuit addressed the admission into evidence of a defendant’s extramarital
affair in a trial for solicitation to murder the defendant’s wife. Cramer v. Fahner, 683 F.2d 1376 (7th Cir.
1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1016, 103 S. Ct. 376. The court held that although the prosecution failed
to make a tie between adultery and motive as it had claimed it would, the mention of the affair by the
defendant’s co-conspirator was relevant to explain the relationship between the defendant and coconspirator and why the murder plot was delayed: the defendant, an attorney, had explained to the coconspirator that he might have to order additional murders if the mother-in-law of the woman with
whom he had had an affair, and who was the wife of one of his clients, continued to press an ethical
complaint with the bar. Id. at 1384. However, the court went on to state that the trial court “should not
have allowed prolonged questioning on cross-examination of petitioner’s wife on her knowledge of
petitioner’s adultery and bar association problems . . . .” Id. The court did not find this error to warrant
habeas corpus relief because the trial court had given a proper limiting instruction regarding the
evidence, the error did not deprive the defendant of fundamental due process of law, and the evidence
against the defendant was strong. Id. at 1385.
We conclude it is clear from the above authorities and Indiana law that evidence of a defendant’s marital
infidelity is not automatically admissible as proof of motive in a trial for murder or attempted murder of
the defendant’s spouse. Instead, to be admissible as proof of motive, the State must do more than
argue that the defendant must have been unhappily married or was a poor husband or wife, ergo he or
she had a motive to murder his or her spouse. This court has previously discussed and acknowledged
the high rate of marital infidelity in this country, with some studies estimating that between thirty to
fifty percent of women and fifty to seventy percent of men have been unfaithful to their spouses.
Jaunese v. State, 701 N.E.2d 1282, 1284 n.3 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998).
Rather, to be admissible, evidence of a defendant’s extramarital affairs should be accompanied by
evidence that such activities had precipitated violence or threats between the defendant and victim in
the past, or that the defendant was involved in an extramarital relationship at the time of the completed
or contemplated homicide. The admissibility of such evidence may be further constrained by concerns of
chronological remoteness, insufficient proof of the extrinsic act, or the general concern that the unfair
prejudicial effect of certain evidence might substantially outweigh its probative value in a particular
case.
There was clearly sufficient proof of Camm’s philandering, and at least some of his activities took place
relatively near in time to Kim’s murder. However, there was no evidence of a violent or hostile
relationship between Camm and his wife, nor any evidence that he ever threatened her with harm.
Camm did apparently lose his temper in 1994 following a conflict over an affair at a time when he and
Kim apparently were separated. The only evidence in the record with respect to this incident, which we
will discuss in more detail, was that Kim was not even present when Camm caused some minor property
damage in his home. There is no evidence that Camm ever battered Kim or issued any threats, either to
her directly or to others. See footnote
There was no evidence that Camm was involved in an extramarital relationship at the time of Kim’s
murder. Ten days before the murder, Camm had apparently asked a woman with whom he had had a
relationship in 1992 and 1993 whether she would be interested in having sex again, and she declined.
Camm evidently had asked the same or similar question of this woman on previous occasions. There is
no evidence that Camm and this woman, or any other woman, were involved in a romantic relationship
at the time of Kim’s murder.
Nonetheless, the State argues in its brief, “Under the State’s theory, the Defendant did have a defect in
his character to allow him to engage in these acts. He did not act as a proper husband and father.”
Appellee’s Br. p. 23. This amounts to a virtual concession that the evidence of Camm’s extramarital
sexual escapades was introduced to establish that he was a person of poor character who was more
likely to commit murder because of that character. This is precisely what Evidence Rule 404(b) and
volumes of case law prohibit. The law simply does not allow the State to pursue conviction of a
defendant on the basis that his character is “defective.” This principle has been recognized for many
years. It represents the cumulative wisdom and knowledge gleaned from hundreds, if not thousands, of
trials conducted over the years as to the inherent unfairness of such evidence. Professor Wigmore
observed 100 years ago:
The deep tendency of human nature is to punish, not because our victim is guilty this time, but because
he is a bad man and may as well be condemned now that he is caught, is a tendency which cannot help
operating with any jury, in or out of court. . . . Our rule, then, firmly and universally established in
policy and tradition, is that the prosecution may not initially attack the defendant’s character.
John H. Wigmore, A Treatise on the System of Evidence in Trials at Common Law 1:126-27 (1904). See
also Foreman v. State, 203 Ind. 324, 327, 180 N.E. 291, 292 (1932) (stating “general moral character
cannot be established on direct or redirect examination by proof of particular acts or of remote
extraneous crimes.”). We see no indication that our supreme court wishes to discard Evidence Rule
404(b) and overrule numerous cases regarding the general inadmissibility of bad character evidence.
See, e.g., Bassett, 795 N.E.2d at 1053. Nor, in our view, would such a momentous change in the law,
which would conflict with well-settled law throughout the country, be appropriate. We therefore
conclude the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the State to introduce evidence of Camm’s
adulterous conduct in its case-in-chief because the tie between such evidence and motive, or anything
other than simply portraying Camm as “bad,” is too strained and remote to be reasonable. See id. Even
if this evidence had minimal probative value as proof of motive, its prejudicial effect substantially
outweighed such value under Evidence Rule 403, particularly given the extent to which the State
emphasized this evidence.
Closely related to the issue of the twelve women who testified as to Camm’s adulterous nature during
the State’s case-in-chief, is the rebuttal testimony of a female guard at the jail where Camm was
awaiting trial, who testified that Camm said to her shortly before her upcoming wedding “that I still had
time for one last fling.” Tr. p. 6984. Clearly, this evidence is along the same lines as the inadmissible
testimony of the twelve women who testified during the State’s case-in-chief regarding Camm sexually
propositioning them. The State contends that Camm opened the door to this evidence during his crossexamination by the prosecutor; it offers no other basis for its admissibility.
During cross-examination, after the prosecutor accused Camm of being self-centered, Camm said, “Right
now it’s all about Brad and Jill and Kim.” Tr. p. 6723. The prosecutor then asked Camm whether he had
propositioned the jail guard in November 2001; Camm said that he could not recall doing so. The State
points to nothing on Camm’s direct examination that might have opened the door to the guard’s
testimony. Statements made by a defendant that are elicited by the State on cross-examination cannot
be relied upon to “open the door” to otherwise inadmissible evidence. Newman v. State, 719 N.E.2d
832, 836 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999), trans. denied (2000); see also Kien v. State, 782 N.E.2d 398, 409 (Ind.
Ct. App. 2003) (holding that although a party may inquire into a collateral matter on cross-examination,
“the questioner is bound by the answer received and may not impeach the witness with extrinsic
evidence unless the evidence would be independently admissible.”), trans. denied; Rhodes v. State, 771
N.E.2d 1246, 1256 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002), trans. denied; Roth v. State, 550 N.E.2d 104, 105 n.1 (Ind. Ct.
App. 1990), trans. denied. Thus, the guard’s rebuttal testimony was improper.
The State argues that the admission of the evidence of Camm’s sexual affairs and propositioning during
its case-in-chief and on rebuttal does not constitute reversible error because the trial court gave
admonishments and a limiting instruction regarding it. At first, the trial court told the jury that the
adultery evidence “has been received on the issue of motive and for impeachment purposes” and that
the jury should only consider it for those purposes. Tr. p. 2755. After the jury expressed confusion over
how impeachment applied in the case, the trial court modified the admonishment to “[t]his evidence has
been received on the issues of motive and credibility.” Tr. p. 2832. The trial court also gave a final
instruction containing identical language. See Tr. p. 7126.
It is true that a timely and accurate admonishment is presumed to cure any error in the admission of
evidence. Kirby v. State, 774 N.E.2d 523, 535 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002), trans. denied. The trial court’s
admonishments and limiting instruction in this case did not cure the error in the admission of evidence
of Camm’s adultery. First, the admonishments and instruction allowed the jury to consider such
evidence as proof of motive. We have held that the evidence was not admissible for that purpose.
Second, the trial court originally admonished the jury that it could consider the extramarital affair
evidence for impeachment purposes. This reference to impeachment undoubtedly was confusing,
because Camm had not testified to the contrary regarding any of the incidents presented during the
State’s case-in-chief. The jury, in fact, expressed to the court its confusion over this admonishment. To
the extent the trial court then altered its admonishment to say that the extramarital affair evidence
could be used for “credibility” purposes, without any limitation or definition as to “credibility,” it allowed
for the possibility that the jury would have felt free to use the fact that Camm regularly cheated or
attempted to cheat on his wife to discount his testimony on any matter, including his account of the
events of September 28, 2000. Clearly, this is the very thing that Evidence Rule 404(b), not to mention
Evidence Rule 608 governing and limiting “credibility” evidence, See footnote are designed to prevent:
judging a defendant based upon evidence of poor character and not upon evidence related to the
present charges.
The State also argues briefly and without citation to authority that it was allowed to introduce the
testimony of the women in order to “impeach” out-of-court statements Camm had made to others,
including police interrogators, regarding the overall good state of his marriage to Kim at the time of the
murders that the State introduced into evidence during its case-in-chief. The failure to cite authority
waives this argument for our review. Bartley v. State, 800 N.E.2d 193, 196 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003). This is
especially true given that “impeachment” is understood to refer to challenging a witness’ credibility with
respect to testimony, not the credibility of unsworn pretrial statements. See, e.g., Black’s Law
Dictionary 578 (7th ed. 1999) (defining “impeachment evidence” as “Evidence used to undermine a
witness’s credibility”).
Additionally, it was the State, not Camm, that injected the issue of his relationship with Kim into the
trial. Clearly, the State here attempted to “bootstrap” otherwise inadmissible evidence regarding
Camm’s affairs into the trial by arguing about it during opening statements and introducing out-of-court
statements made by Camm wherein he had discussed his relationship with Kim. This is impermissible.
See Willey v. State, 712 N.E.2d 434, 444 (Ind. 1999) (holding State could not “bootstrap” introduction
of hearsay statements regarding murder victim’s fear of defendant by reading during opening argument
defendant’s statement to the police saying he had threatened the victim, and where defendant did not
attempt to portray relationship with victim as harmonious during his opening statement). We have
reviewed the opening statement of Camm’s attorney and have found that, as in Willey, he did not place
the issue of Camm’s relationship with Kim into the trial or attempt to portray their relationship as
harmonious. Therefore, pursuant to Willey, the State was not given carte blanche to delve into
otherwise inadmissible details of Camm’s personal life merely because he mentioned his relationship
with Kim in out-of-court statements. See footnote See also Appleton v. State, 740 N.E.2d 122, 124
(Ind. 2001) (“Trials should principally proceed on the basis of testimony given in court, not statements
or affidavits obtained before trial.”).
Finally, the State argues that the admission of this evidence was harmless. We disregard errors in the
admission or exclusion of evidence as harmless unless the errors affect the substantial rights of the
party. Wilson v. State, 770 N.E.2d 799, 802 (Ind. 2002) (citing Ind. Trial Rule 61). To determine
whether an error in the introduction of evidence affected a defendant’s substantial rights, we must
consider the probable impact of that evidence upon the jury. Id. The question is not whether there is
sufficient evidence to support the conviction absent the erroneously admitted evidence, but whether the
evidence was likely to have had a prejudicial impact on the jury. Currie v. State, 512 N.E.2d 882, 88384 (Ind. Ct. App. 1987), trans. denied (1989). Here, although we cannot say the evidence is insufficient
to sustain Camm’s convictions as a matter of law on appeal, we are left with the definite possibility that
the jury might have found Camm not guilty of murdering his wife and two children if it had not been
exposed to a substantial amount of improperly admitted and unfairly prejudicial evidence concerning his
extramarital affairs and the State’s use of that evidence to portray Camm as a person of poor character
who was more likely to commit murder because of his indiscretions.
Eleven witnesses with varying degrees of familiarity with Camm See footnote testified that he was
playing basketball at a church at the time his wife and children most likely were murdered; although not
all eleven were on precisely the same page as to the details of basketball games played one and a half
years earlier, they all agreed that Camm was there the entire time and that even though he sat out at
least one game, he did not leave the gym.
The State’s claim in opening argument that Camm made a phone call from his house at 7:19 p.m., which
would have refuted the alibi witnesses’ testimony that he was at the gym at that time, was found to be
incorrect upon examination of a Verizon employee who testified that due to a software error concerning
Indiana’s unusual time zones, the call was placed instead at 6:19 p.m., when Camm said he was at
home and before he left to play basketball. The State’s gunshot residue expert, who found some
gunshot residue particles on Camm’s clothing, clearly testified, “you can’t . . . make that judgment” that
such evidence meant Camm was present when the gun was fired. Tr. p. 4590. There was some
unexplained evidence found at the scene of the crime, such as the presence of unidentified DNA found
on Kim’s and Brad’s pants, and a sweatshirt found underneath Brad that had the word “Backbone”
written on the tag that also had unidentified DNA on it. The determination of Camm’s guilt essentially
came down to a “battle of the experts,” with the State’s blood spatter experts claiming certain blood
spots on Camm’s shirt that came from Jill were high velocity spatter and Camm’s claiming it most likely
was transferred by contact.
The possibility clearly exists in this case that the improper admission of evidence may have consciously
or subconsciously influenced which expert or experts the jury chose to believe and the weight it
assigned to the testimony of Camm’s alibi witnesses, not to mention Camm’s own testimony.
Additionally, the State’s attempt to minimize the impact of this evidence, by noting that “only” thirteen
witnesses testified about sexual advances by Camm out of eighty total witnesses for the State, is
unavailing. Appellee’s Br. p. 23. As Camm points out, in addition to the testimony of the thirteen
women, the State devoted the first approximately one-quarter of its lengthy cross-examination of
Camm to exploring his marital infidelity. During opening argument, the State dwelled at length upon this
evidence, stating in part:
You will hear the Defendant was a predator of women. Their marriage was plagued by the Defendant’s
continuous affairs. And these aren’t affairs based upon admiration and love. These were sexual
encounters that were disrespectful and humiliating. . . . He collected and devoured women. . . . And you
will hear that while married to Kim those eleven years there were at least fifteen other women. . . .
From strippers, to co-workers, to professional women, married or unmarried, the Defendant collected
them just the same.
Tr. pp. 1216-17. The State began its closing argument by again referring to this evidence extensively:
In November of 1994, the Defendant set himself upon a journey that would end in a hail of gunfire,
destroying not only his family, but ultimately himself in an orgy of annihilation. In November of 1994
the Defendant looked upon the surface charms of Stephanie Neely, and having no ability to refute his
whims, betrayed his wife and kids. . . . The Defendant went back to Kim where he betrayed her
repeatedly and deliberately. He betrayed not only the honor of his family, but the trust of his badge and
the honor of his profession. He used his power to prey upon vulnerable women, the ones they met, the
ones that he stopped. The Defendant cared for no one. He sought only his pleasures and it pleased him
to invite his secret lover into the very presence of Kim. . . . He preyed upon woman after woman over
the years. The Defendant is a devourer of women. He cares nothing for his immediate family, or
extended family. He is willing to bring down upon their heads a holocaust of extermination and
destruction.
Tr. pp. 7065-67. We need say no more. Clearly, the State’s portrayal of Camm as an immoral, selfcentered individual of poor character because of his philandering was central to its case.
Where the evidence against a defendant is far from overwhelming, as was the case here, and the
determination of the jury depends in large part on assessing and weighing the credibility of witnesses,
“it is paramount that the defendant be protected from evidence which has only the effect of reflecting
unfavorably on his character.” Lehiy v. State, 501 N.E.2d 451, 456 (Ind. Ct. App. 1986), adopted by
Lehiy v. State, 509 N.E.2d 1116 (Ind. 1987). Although we are cognizant of the great financial and
emotional expense invested in the first nine-week trial in this case, we cannot allow these convictions to
stand. We reverse. See footnote Because Camm does not assert that the evidence was insufficient to
support his convictions, he may be retried. See Goble v. State, 766 N.E.2d 1, 7 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002).
II. Other Issues
Camm has raised a number of other issues with respect to the conduct of his trial. Because we have
reversed on the basis of the erroneous admission of evidence regarding Camm’s extramarital sexual
activities, we will not address many of these issues in detail; some we will not address at all. However,
for purposes of guidance on retrial, we will mention some of Camm’s arguments.
First, Camm challenges the trial court’s allowing one of Kim’s friends to relate a statement she made
approximately three weeks before the murders. Specifically, in response to a question from the friend
regarding Kim’s relationship with Camm, Kim reportedly said, “History is repeating itself.” Tr. p. 2991.
The State essentially argues that the statement was not introduced as proof of the matter asserted, i.e.
Camm was again being unfaithful, and, therefore, was not hearsay under Indiana Evidence Rule 801(c).
Rather, the State argues, the statement indirectly established Kim’s dissatisfaction with her marriage, or
her state of mind at the time of the statement. If we assume the statement was not introduced for the
truth of the matter asserted, which is doubtful, See footnote the State technically is correct that the
statement was not hearsay. A statement, the substantive content of which does not directly assert the
declarant’s state of mind, is not hearsay if it is admitted only to show the declarant’s state of mind.
Angleton v. State, 686 N.E.2d 803, 809 (Ind. 1997).
However, this does not relieve the burden of establishing that the declarant’s state of mind is relevant
under Indiana Evidence Rule 402. See Willey, 712 N.E.2d at 444. Evidence of a victim’s state of mind is
relevant and admissible “(1) to show the intent of the victim to act in a particular way, (2) when the
defendant puts the victim’s state of mind in issue, and (3) sometimes to explain physical injuries
suffered by the victim.” Hatcher v. State, 735 N.E.2d 1155, 1161 (Ind. 2000) (emphasis added). Camm
did not put Kim’s state of mind in issue in this case. Additionally, to the extent the State argues the
comment was admissible “as reflecting Kim’s assessment of the marriage,” Appellee’s Br. p. 33, our
supreme court has expressly refused to allow “the admissibility of a victim’s state of mind to show the
nature of the relationship between the victim and the defendant.” Hatcher, 735 N.E.2d at 1161. We
conclude that the statement “History is repeating itself” was inadmissible. Tr. p. 2991.
The trial court also allowed the State to introduce evidence, through the testimony of three police
officers, of a 1994 incident in which Camm lost his temper and caused some minimal property damage
to his house and household furnishings. The outburst was apparently prompted by a confrontation, with
either Kim or Camm’s mother, regarding the separation and his affair with Stephanie Neely. Camm’s
mother called police to Camm’s house, but they filed no report regarding the incident. There was no
evidence that Kim was even present at the house when Camm had lost his temper or that he had
threatened her with any harm. In Spencer v. State, our supreme court stated that evidence of the
defendant battering his girlfriend three years before her murder was of low probative value because of
the time lapse between the prior incidents and the murder. 703 N.E.2d at 1056. The court said it was
“inclined to think this evidence should not have been admitted, but cannot say that the trial court
abused its discretion” in doing so. Id.
Here, we are faced with an incident occurring six years before the murders in which the only evidence is
that Camm took out his frustrations on household furnishings in Kim’s absence. With the Spencer court’s
holding that evidence of a battery occurring three years before the victim’s murder was of low probative
value, we believe it was clearly wrong here to admit evidence here of a non-battery occurring six years
before the murders. The probative value of this evidence was too miniscule and its potential prejudicial
effect was too high to be admissible.
The State also introduced evidence that Jill had possibly been molested hours before her death. It
argued that Camm was likely the culprit and that he murdered Jill and the rest of his family either to
escape detection or after a confrontation with Kim regarding the alleged molestation. The medical
examiner who conducted Jill’s autopsy testified that there was trauma to her genital region consistent
with either molestation or a straddle fall; there was no penetration of the hymen, however. The State
also presented evidence that Jill had complained of vaginal irritation on at least two prior occasions, the
last time being a few days before the murders. Finally, it presented evidence that some of Jill’s DNA was
found on Camm’s bedspread, which could have come from saliva or vaginal secretions. However, none
of Jill’s DNA was found in the two locations where seminal material from Camm was also found on the
bedspread. In fact, at one of those locations Camm’s seminal material was mixed with Kim’s DNA. See
footnote
Camm did not object to the introduction of this evidence at trial. Therefore, we need not definitively
resolve his claim of error on this point. We would note our agreement that evidence Camm had
molested Jill would be relevant as proof of motive under Evidence Rule 404(b). The closer question, it
appears to us, is whether the evidence the State presented on this point was sufficiently probative to be
admissible. The United States Supreme Court, in analyzing Federal Rules of Evidence 404(b) and
104(b), has held that in order for “other misconduct” evidence to be admissible, there must be sufficient
evidence from which the jury could reasonably find the defendant’s misconduct proven by a
preponderance of the evidence. See Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681, 690, 108 S. Ct. 1496,
1501 (1988). Our supreme court has said, “Indiana law is in accord with this requirement.” Clemens v.
State, 610 N.E.2d 236, 242 (Ind. 1993). Additionally, even relevant evidence may be excluded if its
probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. Ind. Evidence Rule 403.
Given the arguments made on appeal, we anticipate in the event of a retrial that Camm will object to
the introduction of this evidence. If that is the case, the trial court will need to carefully consider
whether the highly inflammatory nature of this evidence substantially outweighs the probative value of
any evidence that Camm molested Jill.
At trial, the State also presented the testimony of William Chapin, an expert in microscopy, who stated
his belief that a very small particle of biological tissue found on Camm’s t-shirt was likely deposited
there by flight, although he could not say whether it was high velocity flight. Camm’s attorney objected
to this testimony, noting that in Chapin’s report the State had disclosed to Camm during discovery,
Chapin had only offered the opinion that the particle in question was biological and described how the
particle was resting on the shirt fibers, but had not stated an opinion as to how the particle had come to
rest on the t-shirt. Camm’s attorney asserted he was not prepared to address this issue; the trial court
responded by allowing counsel to depose Chapin over lunch.
We recently addressed an issue similar to this in Beauchamp v. State, 788 N.E.2d 881 (Ind. Ct. App.
2003). In that case, we held it was reversible error for the State not to disclose that one of its expert
witnesses had changed his opinion regarding the cause of a victim’s injuries. Id. at 893-94. The failure
to disclose the change of opinion violated both the trial court’s standing discovery order and Indiana
Trial Rule 26(E)(1). Id.
Here, it is true, Chapin apparently did not change his opinion regarding any matter. It does appear,
however, that he augmented the opinion given in his earlier disclosed report to reach the conclusion
that the particle had been deposited by flight. It also appears that the State was fully aware of this
opinion and was prepared to examine Chapin regarding it. Here, the trial court’s standing discovery
order through trial required the State to disclose “[a]ny and all reports . . . or statements of experts
made in connection with this particular case,” as well as the subject matter of any expected expert
witness’ testimony. App. p. 82. Indiana Trial Rule 26(E)(1) also requires parties to seasonably
supplement discovery responses with respect to the subject-matter and substance of an expert witness’
expected testimony. Neither the trial court’s standing discovery order nor Trial Rule 26(E)(1) was
complied with here, as was the case in Beauchamp. Obviously, however, in the event of retrial there
should be no surprise regarding Chapin’s testimony, and we need not determine whether this violation
of discovery rules independently would have warranted reversal of Camm’s conviction.
The final issue we address in detail in our opinion today is the trial court’s refusal to allow Camm to
introduce a photograph of Jill taken at the time of her autopsy showing the exit wound in her head and
the hair around it shaved and the accompanying blood, apparently from her hair, that had transferred to
a sheet lying underneath her. Camm’s attorney wished to introduce the photograph in connection with
the examination of his blood spatter expert to demonstrate possible ways in which Jill’s blood could have
been transferred to Camm’s t-shirt by contact.
The State successfully moved to exclude this photograph from admission as irrelevant and misleading
because it did not depict Jill in the backseat of the Bronco where Camm claimed he likely came into
contact with Jill’s blood, and Camm’s attorney could not guarantee that the blood visible in the
photograph had not been dislodged when she was removed from the Bronco, placed in a body bag,
transported to the medical examiner’s office, and removed from the body bag.
We begin by noting that in this case, unlike so many others, it is the defendant, not the State, who was
attempting to introduce an autopsy photograph of the victim. Generally, photographs depicting a
victim’s injuries, including showing a victim’s wounds from different angles, or demonstrating a witness’
testimony are relevant and therefore admissible. Kubsch v. State, 784 N.E.2d 905, 923 (Ind. 2003). To
be admissible, a photograph must also be a true and accurate representation of what it is meant to
portray. Martin v. State, 784 N.E.2d 997, 1007 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003).
To the extent the State argues the photograph was not a true and accurate representation of what it was
intended to portray because it does not portray Jill as she was found in the backseat of the Bronco,
there is no dispute in this case that the photograph accurately depicted Jill at the time of her autopsy,
which is sufficient for the purpose for which Camm sought to introduce the photograph. See id. Police
apparently took no photographs in which Jill’s exit wound as she lay in the Bronco is visible, thus Camm
sought to introduce this photograph for the purpose of demonstrating another possible contact source of
Jill’s blood that was not visible in any other photograph; Camm did not seek introduction of the
photograph as an accurate portrayal of the crime scene. How Jill’s blood came to rest on Camm’s t-shirt
was the central issue in this case; the photograph was relevant to that issue.
Additionally, this case is factually similar to Martin, where a defendant claimed there was an inadequate
foundation for the admission of photographs of the victim of a battery that resulted in the victim’s death
because the doctor who identified the victim and his injuries in the photographs had last seen the victim
alive several hours before the pictures were taken at a coroner’s office.
The defendant contended the State failed to lay an adequate foundation for the photograph because it
could not account for what might have happened to the victim during the several hours between when
the doctor last saw the victim alive and when the pictures were taken. We held that this argument went
to the weight that might be given the photographs, not their admissibility. Id. We believe the same is
true here with respect to the State’s claim that Jill had been handled and transported from the Bronco to
the medical examiner’s office before the photograph was taken. If admitted, the State would have been
free to challenge the weight to be given the photograph as it related to depicting a possible source for
Jill’s blood on Camm’s t-shirt.
We need not address any more issues in this case in detail. However, we do trust that some of the
claimed instances of prosecutorial misconduct were unintentional and will not be repeated in any retrial,
such as (1) questioning the defense blood spatter expert as to why his opinion conflicted with five other
experts, when only two experts had testified for the State; (2) asking Camm why he did not think
domestic violence was “a big deal” when there was no evidence that Camm had ever battered Kim, Tr.
p. 6750; and (3) representing that a certain witness would be called later and could be questioned
directly by defense counsel, then failing in fact to call that witness and protesting when defense counsel
sought to do so. See footnote
Conclusion
Camm was unfairly prejudiced by the introduction of extensive evidence and argument regarding his
poor character, where the evidence regarding his philandering was not reasonably related to any proper
purpose under Indiana Evidence Rule 404(b), including proof of motive. We reverse his three
convictions for murder.
Reversed.
CRONE, J., and BAKER, J., concur.
*****
Footnote: Several other claims in the probable cause affidavit were later deemed to be unsubstantiated
and were not used against Camm at trial, including that the crime scene had been cleaned with a “high
Ph cleaning substance,” and that a neighbor heard “three distinct sounds that can be interpreted as
gunshots” between 9:15 and 9:30 p.m. App. pp. 55-56.
Footnote: This is apart from cases addressing “heat of passion” killings where the victim was engaged in
adultery and the spouse killed the victim upon discovering it.
Footnote: The Mississippi rule expressly allows introduction of “bad acts” evidence as proof of
“opportunity,” while the Indiana rule does not.
Footnote: Camm allegedly told one of the women who testified that Kim was a “bitch” on a few occasions
between 1996 and 1998. Tr. p. 2873. This alone cannot be construed as a threat to harm Kim.
Footnote: Evidence Rule 608 clearly limits evidence regarding a witness’ credibility to opinion or
reputation evidence only; specific instances of conduct such as were explored in this case are generally
inadmissible, and always inadmissible on direct examination of a witness. Camm’s argument, however,
focuses primarily on Evidence Rule 404(b).
Footnote: It is not entirely clear that Camm’s pretrial statements directly conflicted with the women’s
testimony in any event, or at least most of their testimony. In those statements, Camm admits having
been unfaithful to his wife in the past, with the last relationship he termed an “affair” occurring six years
before the murder, which is when Camm and Kim were separated and he had moved out of the house.
State’s Ex. 20. He also said that his relationship with his wife had been “wonderful,” especially in the
last six months before the murders. State’s Ex. 15. The most recent evidence of Camm having any
physical contact with another woman was six months before the murders.
Footnote: Some of the witnesses were relatives; some were long-time friends; and some knew Camm
only through playing basketball with him.
Footnote: We would also note that aside from the prejudice to Camm, the admission of this evidence
subjected the women testifying, some of whom were married, to potentially humiliating public disclosure
of intimate details of their personal lives, especially in light of the extensive mass media coverage of this
trial.
Footnote: No limiting instruction was given regarding the use to which the jury could put this statement.
Additionally, the State is inconsistent on this point, as it states as part of its argument that the
statement was not hearsay, “The statement also suggested that the reason Kim was dissatisfied with
the marriage was that she suspected that the Defendant was once again cheating on her.” Appellee’s Br.
p. 33. That would seem to be using the statement for the truth of the matter asserted – Camm was
again being unfaithful.
Footnote: Camm also mentioned in one of his statements to police, before being informed that there was
evidence Jill had been molested, that his children often got into bed with him and Kim.
Footnote: Defense counsel was cross-examining one of the State’s blood spatter experts about whether
another expert had changed his mind regarding some of the blood spatter evidence, when the State
objected and said “I think when Mr. Bevel [the uncalled expert] gets here, Mr. Bevel can speak for
himself.” Tr. p. 4956. Defense counsel then agreed to limit his cross-examination “if representation is
he’s going to testify . . . .” Id. The State did not verbally respond to this comment.
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WE CONTINUE TO FIGHT FOR:
THE ADMISSION OF EVIDENCE
JUSTICE FOR KIM, BRAD & JILL
FREEDOM FOR DAVID CAMM
THE TRUTH...THE SIMPLE TRUTH
On September 28, 2000, Kimberly, Bradley,
and Jill Camm were shot to death in the
Camm family garage, located in Georgetown,
Indiana, just a few miles from Louisville,
Kentucky. The Indiana State Police (ISP)
responded to the scene, as did the local
prosecutor, Stanley Faith, who called for the
assistance of a blood stain and crime scene
re-constructionist.
Three days after the crimes occurred, the
husband of Kim and the father of Jill and
Brad, David Camm, was arrested. In early
2002 David Camm was convicted of their murders and sentenced to 195 years
in the Indiana Department of Corrections. Case solved. Case closed.
In August, 2004, the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned Camm's conviction.
Camm got a new trial.
In November, 2004, Prosecutor Keith Henderson recharged Camm after having
a "Fresh Eyes" team re-investigate the crime. Camm was re-charged.
In March, 2005, another man, Charles Darnell Boney, was charged with murder
and conspiracy to commit murder. Camm was re-charged with Boney.
Developments
Comments
In February, 2006, Boney was convicted and sentenced to 225 years in prison.
Camm was convicted in March, 2006, and sentenced to life in prison without
parole. Case solved. Case closed.
Those are the facts of this case. Well, at least a few facts. Most people in the
metropolitan area of Louisville are convinced that David Camm is a molester
and murderer. They are convinced that Charles Boney helped him in some
shape, manner, or form. There are those who know many more facts that are
thoroughly convinced of David Camm's innocence and continue to fight for him
and his family.
Some additional facts:
11 eyewitnesses were with Camm playing basketball during the time the
family was murdered; they have never wavered that Camm did not leave
the gym where they were playing.
http://www.justicefordavidcamm.com/index.shtml[10/31/2013 9:00:21 PM]
The blood "expert" and crime scene re-constructionist had never
processed a homicide scene before, had never taken an elementary
course on blood stain patterns and was supposedly only present to take
photographs and make notes.
That same "expert" identified high velocity blood stains on the garage
door; they were later confirmed to be oil spots.
The first probable cause affidavit was inaccurate, misleading, incomplete,
and based in large part upon false deductions and speculations, as well
as critical information provided by the "expert."
Prosecutor Faith’s own investigators had no police training or experience,
yet they collected and retained evidence at the crime scene and
conducted interviews of witnesses. Critical evidence was lost.
There was never any evidence that Jill's injuries, whatever they were, had
been caused by her father. In fact, after two trials, the Indiana Attorney
General, in arguing against the current Camm appeal, admitted that
there was no connection between him and Jill’s injuries.
The first prosecutor changed theories three times as to when Camm killed
his wife and children.
The second prosecutor stuck with the third theory, but was forced to
change to a fourth theory.
The only physical evidence that put Camm at the shooting was the opinion
of some blood stain experts; other experts said the stains were contact
or transfer stains and not the result of blowback from a gunshot.
A sweatshirt was found at the crime scene which contained the name of
BACKBONE. Unknown male DNA and female DNA, mixed with the blood
of Kim, was found on the sweatshirt.
Prosecutor Faith claimed he told the ISP to run the DNA on the sweatshirt;
the ISP claimed that never happened.
The sweatshirt was ignored for over four years, including by the new
"Fresh Eyes" investigation.
The "Fresh Eyes" investigation conducted but 20 interviews prior to Camm
being re-charged and conducted no forensic testing on mountains of
evidence.
The DNA on the sweatshirt was finally run, but only after the threat of a
motion to compel them to do so was filed by the defense.
The DNA was that of Charles Boney, an 11 time convicted felon who had
assaulted and robbed women at gunpoint and who had kidnapped three
college coeds.
Boney was a shoe freak, having assaulted women for their shoes; Kim’s
shoes were off and had been placed on the roof of the Bronco.
The unknown female DNA was that of Boney's girlfriend.
Prosecutor Henderson claimed in a press conference that Boney’s story
about how his sweatshirt got to the scene had checked out, yet didn’t tell
the public of Boney's failed polygraph and alibi witnesses (that didn't alibi
him).
Deputy prosecutor Steve Owen said in that press conference that it didn’t
make sense to him that Boney would have just gotten out of prison,
brutally murdered three people and then left his sweatshirt at the scene
of the crime; Boney, who had left evidence at several other crime scenes,
previously said that his "escape plan" involved removing a sweatshirt so
he would look different if any witnesses reported his description to the
police.
Boney was threatened with the death penalty but then was told that he
was an "opportunist" and that his "best scenario was to be a witness. He
seized the opportunity to be that witness and wasn't charged with the
death penalty. He was also provided information that he incorporated into
his stories.
No part of Boney's ever-changing and inconsistent stories was ever
verified by the authorities.
Boney claimed that he was at the crime scene and that after Camm tried
to kill him, he walked into the garage, tripped over the shoes, placed
them on top of the Bronco, and then leaned against the side of the car
because he was "curious;" his left palm print was found at the same
location on the Bronco where a right-handed shooter would have steadied
himself.
Prosecutor Henderson charged Boney and Camm with conspiracy to
commit murder even though there was no evidence of any such
conspiracy; that conspiracy charge was later summarily dismissed by the
Camm trial judge.
Three inmates/informants who had been convicted of drug dealing,
escape, and murder, testified for the prosecution even though their
stories didn't match the facts; they benefited from their stories; one,
after having his 25 year sentence modified was allowed to be on house
arrest; he fled and is now a fugitive.
A witness was found by the defense who testified that Boney bragged
about having three murders on his conscience; he was used in Boney's
trial but in Camm's trial prosecutor Henderson fought vigorously against
his testimony.
Boney, prior to his palm print being matched at the crime scene,
confessed to a former FBI Agent that it would be "obvious" that he killed
the family if any of his prints were there.
Prosecutor Henderson, who charged Boney and Camm with conspiracy,
fought hard against allowing any of Boney's stories, confessions, criminal
signature, and leg and foot fetish which would have allowed the defense
to mount a 6th Amendment defense as guaranteed by the Constitution.
The judge in Camm's second trial allowed the prosecutor to allege that
Camm had molested his daughter even though he later admitted that
there was "on the surface... (no)thing other than a natural father and
daughter relationship between the defendant and his daughter."
The possible source of the murder weapon was discovered by the
defense; the "Fresh Eyes" investigators ridiculed that possibility and
didn't take it seriously.
And on, and on, and on......................
This investigation was one wherein speculation became fact and perception
became reality. There will be those that don't care about any facts because
they simply are tired of hearing about this case and want to move on. For
those intimately connected with this case, however, that's impossible. The
many victims in this case demand to be heard, and our system of justice
should also demand that every piece of real evidence be shared with the
public.
The Overview Section will give the reader a more basic understanding about
this case. There are other sections which provide more detailed information
about the victims, the accused, the investigators, and the investigations. This
website will inform many, anger some, and sadden many more. This is a story
about the justice system in Indiana going madly awry and but only a few
people trying to stop it.

David Camm - BonPasse Exoneration Services

Transcription

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