Wrongful conviction of David Camm

David Ray Camm (born March 23, 1964) is a former trooper of the Indiana State Police (ISP) who spent 13 years in prison after twice being wrongfully convicted of the murders of his wife, Kimberly, and his two young children at their home in Georgetown, Indiana, on September 28, 2000.

Police were summoned to the Camm residence shortly after 9:30p.m. on September 28, 2000, to find Kim, Bradley, and Jill Camm shot to death in the garage of their home.

Camm told police that he returned home from playing basketball at a nearby church and found his wife shot to death on the garage floor.

He then saw his daughter, Jill, sitting upright in the backseat, still strapped in her seatbelt.

Brad was draped over the driver's side of the backseat as though he had been trying to get away from the assailant.

Since both Kim and Jill had been shot through the head, Camm stated that he thought his son, who had no head injuries, might still be alive, so he entered the passenger front of the Bronco, went through the two front bucket seats and grabbed his son, taking him out, putting him on the garage floor, and giving him CPR.

In the process, Camm had placed his left knee in the middle of the back seat, causing Jill's head and body to slump forward and to the left, contacting Camm's T-shirt.

Bradley Camm was found lying on the garage floor and a later autopsy found he had been shot through his torso, severing his spine.

Unseen in the darkened garage and not collected by evidence technicians was a gray sweatshirt bearing the name of BACKBONE in the collar.

An ISP lab analyst later found unidentified female DNA on the front of the shirt and a private lab, hired by Camm's defense attorney Mike McDaniel, found unidentified male DNA in the collar.

The blood and DNA of Kim Camm had also been discovered on that same sweatshirt.

Many false leads hampered the investigation of the murders.

The theory of the crime at the time of the arrest was that Camm returned home from playing basketball, shot his family, and attempted a clean-up before abandoning this and calling the Sellersburg State Police post for help.

Rob Stites, a crime scene photographer who was believed by the police to be a blood-spatter analyst, told police there was a clean-up at the crime scene and high-velocity impact spatter on the shirt Camm was wearing.

Another piece of seemingly incriminating evidence was a phone bill indicating Camm had made a phone call from the residence at 7:19p.m. on the evening of the murder.

He claimed to be playing basketball at the church from 7:00p.m. to approximately 9:30p.m. that evening.

Camm also had a history of infidelity, which police believed was the motive for the murders.

Before long, the erroneous nature of several pieces of evidence was revealed.

While the infidelity accusations were credible, it was discovered that most of the rest of the evidence on the probable cause affidavit was either inaccurate or unreliable.

Based on the autopsies and other evidence, the time of death was determined to be around 8:00p.m., far earlier than the original estimate of 9:30p.m. giving Camm an alibi.

The phone call that seemed to prove Camm was lying about his alibi was disproven.

The phone company discovered the inaccuracy stemmed from the confusion regarding Indiana's complicated time zones.

The call was made an hour earlier, at 6:19p.m.

The clean-up at the crime scene and the blood spatter on David's shirt were also questioned.

It was discovered that there was not, in fact, a crime scene clean-up but the usual separation of blood when exposed to air for a while.

Several other areas that Stites had claimed to be high-velocity impact spatter found at the crime scene were inaccurate interpretations, calling into question Stites' abilities.

Investigators stated that they investigated the foreign DNA on the sweatshirt found at the crime scene.

However, there were no matches when it was run through CODIS.

The discovery that the time of the murder was over an hour earlier than previously thought meant that Camm now had an alibi.

Eleven witnesses told police he was with them playing basketball from 7:00p.m. until after 9:00p.m. The police changed their theory of the crime from a murder following the basketball game to one in which he sneaked out of the basketball game, committed the murders, and then slipped back in without being noticed.

The case went to trial in the spring of 2002, with the blood spatter as the main forensic evidence and the affairs listed as the motive.

The prosecution argued that the bloodstains on Camm's shirt were the result of a high-velocity impact spatter, proving he was the shooter.

Defense experts assert that the pattern was caused by transfer when his shirt had contact with Jill's hair as he was removing his son from the vehicle.

Bart Epstein, a bloodstain analyst for the defense, stated that there's some overlap between the appearance of different types of stains of blood spatter, and analysts need to consider other aspects of the stain to determine the cause.

In this case, the number of bloodstains is as relevant as their size and shape.

"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," said Epstein.

During the trials, Epstein and another blood analyst demonstrated how the blood stains could have gotten on the shirt by running T-shirts over wigs containing blood.

Similar patterns to the one on Camm's shirt were produced.

He was released from custody in 2013 after his third trial resulted in an acquittal.

Charles Boney is currently serving time for the murders of Camm's wife and two children.