Camm jurors hear details new since 2002 trial

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January 28, 2006 01:54 pm

— Camm jurors hear details new since 2002 trial

BOONVILLE — For the first time since David Camm’s murder trial began two weeks ago, the jury on Friday heard the name Charles D. Boney.
The jury is not allowed to know about Boney’s conviction this week in the Camm murders, but they did hear testimony that a palm print and sweatshirt found at the murder scene were positively matched to him.
Friday morning’s testimony by State Police Detective Gary Gilbert — who took over as lead detective in the investigation in 2004 — marked what prosecutors call the next phase of their case.
Up till now, most of the testimony and evidence presented has been regurgitated from Camm’s first trial in 2002. Camm was convicted of murdering his wife Kimberly, and children, Bradley, 7, and Jill, 5, but the conviction was reversed in 2004.
With that reversal, the county’s new prosecutor, Keith Henderson, had to decide whether to refile charges against Camm. He assigned Gilbert to re-investigate the case with a “fresh set of eyes.”
One of the first things Gilbert said he discovered was a DNA profile that had been taken from a sweatshirt found at the scene. Apparently, no one ever ran that profile through the law enforcement databank, because when Gilbert did it came back with a match to Boney, whose DNA was in the system because of his criminal history.
Defense attorney Katharine “Kitty” Liell disputed that police discovered the DNA link to Boney on their own, saying it only happened after her team repeatedly pushed the matter.
Although the jury can’t hear about it — unless Liell can convince the judge to change his mind — Boney has a long, violent criminal history.
After his March 2005 arrest, Boney told police, in one version of events, that he met Camm on a basketball court a few months before the murders. He claims he provided an untraceable gun to Camm and was outside the Georgetown home when Camm murdered his family. The state alleges Camm molested his daughter and the murders occurred when his wife found out.
Camm’s defense team contends Boney acted alone. They theorize that Boney, who was living with his mother in New Albany at the time of the murders, saw Kim Camm when she was shopping at one of the stores she regularly visited near Boney’s house. Because of his foot fetish — which had driven him to attack other women — Boney set his sights on Kim, sexually assaulted her and killed the family, they claim.
To prove there was no connection between Camm and Boney, Liell pointed out that there were no phone records, computer records or bank records linking the pair, and no one has ever reported seeing them together.
Deputy Prosecutor Steve Owen quickly had his witness testify that such calls would have been local and there were no records kept of such local calls at the time.
All week, Owen has been hinting to reporters about new evidence that will prove Camm and Boney knew each other, but he has declined further comment.
Meanwhile, he predicted, “We’re really going to gain a lot of ground next week with our (blood stain pattern) experts. I think their testimony is going to be very persuasive.”
He also said physical evidence the state’s going to present will prove there were two people at the scene when the murders occurred.
The defense continued its attack on the state’s investigation, which they claim was led by political ambitions and botched by inept detectives.
On Friday, Liell criticized investigators for never searching the home Boney was living in at the time of the murders and for not taking proper fingerprints from the victims to match against unknown prints found at the scene. State witness John Singleton, a fingerprint analyst for the State Police, testified that the fingerprints taken were “the worst set of post-mortem prints” he had ever seen, which made it hard to rule out other prints at the scene.
The trial resumes in Warrick County Superior Court at 10 a.m Monday.