Published: March 07, 2006 01:42 pm      

Camm gets tougher sentence second time around

Jury recommends life

BOONVILLE — The same jury that found David Camm guilty of killing his family recommended Monday that the former Indiana State Police trooper spend the rest of his life in prison, without the possibility of parole.

The sentence — recommended by the jury and expected to be handed down by Judge Robert Aylsworth March 28, — is harsher than the 195-year sentence Camm received following his 2002 conviction on the same charges.

Defense attorney Stacy Uliana said getting a longer sentence for the same charges is a due process violation, which will be one of the several issues defense attorneys name in the appeal they intend to file.

Another basis for the appeal, defense attorney Katharine “Kitty” Liell said, is the exclusion of evidence regarding Charles Boney’s alleged foot fetish and sexual compulsion. An earlier court ruling prevented that evidence from being admitted in this trial.

Liell hinted at evidence the jury wasn’t aware of during her closing argument at the sentencing hearing.

“For reasons I have been forbidden to talk about, we believe you have made a terrible mistake,” she said. Later, she told reporters, “(Boney) has a compulsive sexual appetite to attack women. I will always believe it was a motive of why he was in the garage that night.”

In 2005, a sweatshirt and palmprint found at the murder scene were connected to Boney and he was charged with conspiracy and three counts of murder. He was convicted in a separate trial in January in Floyd County.

Boney told police he sold Camm a gun and was outside of the family’s garage when the former state trooper pulled the trigger. However, the jury wasn’t allowed to hear that evidence because Boney is appealing his recent conviction, meaning he could not be forced to testify at Camm’s trial if doing so would incriminate him in the appeals process.

Camm, 41, is charged with fatally shooting his wife and children in the garage of the family’s Georgetown home in 2000. His first conviction was overturned, and his attorneys believe this one will be as well.

“We already have been writing our appeal,” Liell said, adding that the defense has seven or eight issues it believes could lead to a reversal of the conviction.

Henderson said he wasn’t concerned.

“There’s not going to be a reversal. This was very positive conclusive medical evidence” about the molestation and “this was a very clean trial,” he said.

Liell described her client as “distraught and disappointed” with the jury’s conviction and recommended sentencing.

Henderson said he had one thing to say to Camm: “My message is this: There is no hope. You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“We wallpapered that jury room with all sorts of timelines and possible

motives,” Jury foreman Robert Crowell said.



Camm Jury members comment on their verdict



“After the trial was over, I knew what I felt. Deliberating the evidence

made me more sure,” said juror Daniel Mason, a mechanic.



“I can’t say that there were any jurors leaning toward not guilty, there were some leaning toward not sure,” said juror Daniel Mason.



“It was very difficult to weigh (Camm's) demeanor one way or the other,” Crowell said. The transcripts of conversations between Camm and detectives sounded exactly like an innocent man, and yet exactly like a guilty man, he said.



Answering the question about how Charles Boney’s presence at the murder scene played into the jury’s discussion, Crowell said, “I don’t know that we talked about him a whole lot, other than he was there and had a hand in (the murders).”



Explaining why she shook her head as each guilty verdict was announced Friday, alternate juror C.J. Regin said it wasn’t because she didn’t agree with the jury’s decision. Rather, she said, it was the case itself and the impact on the families that “broke my heart” and caused her reaction.



“I think all of us are interested in getting a clearer picture of the case. We’ve been very dedicated to not listening to the news, reading the papers. So, it is going to be interesting to piece puzzle together now that jurors can read about details they weren’t allowed to hear in court,” said C.J. Regin, an alternate juror.



After reporters told the jury about Charles Boney’s conviction last month and the 225-year sentence he received, Crowell said “That doesn’t surprise me.”