Crime Junkie - MURDERED: The Camm Family

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

In 2000, David Camm, a former Indiana State Trooper, came home from playing basketball to find his entire family had been murdered in their garage. It was only days before he would be charged with the crime and it would take three trials and thirteen years to get close to the truth. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-camm-family/    

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and... I'm Brit! Yes, I'm Brit! I'm here! You're back! So we decided to commemorate Brit's return with a story that is local to us, a crazy case that took over a decade to work its way through the judicial system. Are you ready, Brit?

Yes. All right, let's do this. MUSIC Our story starts on September 28th of 2000 in a very small town near southern Indiana. That evening, a man named David Cam was playing basketball with nine to ten other buddies in a gym that was just minutes from his home. David was living a pretty normal life, like at least in the 2000s. He was married, he was a father of two, one boy, one girl, and from the outside, like

it always does, it seemed like he was living an idyllic life. He had worked for the state police for some time, but in the months before this, he had actually finally left to pursue a career in his family's business. He had more time at home, he had better hours, and he had more money. It seemed like everything was working out for him. But on this night, just before 9.20, David leaves and heads home, expecting that when he gets there, he's going to see his wife Kim, who's 35, their son Brad, who's seven, and his daughter Jill, who's five.

But when David pulls into the driveway, he immediately knows everything is wrong. And from that moment on, his entire world is turned upside down. When David pulls into the driveway, he sees the garage door open and a body laying on the floor with a stream of blood coming from that direction. And that's when he sees his wife Kim. Right away, he hops out of his truck and just starts yelling for her, Kim, Kim. But he said that he could tell as soon as he got to her that she was gone. And that's when it hits him, the kids.

Where are the kids? Oh my God, I'm so, oh, this is hitting close to home now at this point. Well, yeah, I mean, you now are a mother of two. And so he gets home, he sees his wife dead. He looks around and realizes that Brad and Jill are still inside the SUV. Brad is in the back, almost stretched over the seat, and Jill is still sitting there, as if she never even had a chance to move with her head slumped over into her lap. David reaches over Jill and tries to see if Brad is alive, but he isn't.

His entire family is non-responsive. This is when David's expertise as an officer kicks in and he phones into police asking to speak directly to the command post. Can I say please radio, Patrice, can I help you? Patrice, it's Dave Kim. Let me talk to the postman right now. Okay, he's on another one. Right now, let me talk to the postman.

Hold on. You're my only juice, I need you like water, like water. Dave? Get everybody out here to my house now. Okay. All right. My wife and my kids are dead. Get everybody out here to my house.

I'll go to Dave Kim's house now, see if we're good. Okay, David, we're good. We've got people on the way, okay? Get everybody out here. Come here. Everything's gonna be okay, all right? Remember, everything's not okay. Get everybody out here now.

They're coming. Go to Dave Kim's house now. Okay. Do you know what happened, David? No. I'm dead. I just don't want to play basketball with you. Oh my God, what am I gonna do?

David, they're on their way right now, okay? I got everybody coming. I'm gonna let you talk to Patrice while I get people coming. I got to get some help. Okay, David, do you need an ambulance? Do you need an ambulance? Get everybody out here. I'm going.

Do you need an ambulance? Go! Dave, he hung up. I mean, you can hear how he's definitely distraught, but what he says doesn't make a ton of sense based off of a lot of the other 911 tapes we've heard, right? So, I kind of have a different reaction. I'm glad that we don't agree. I think, I mean, he just sounds to me like totally panicked, and I know you are actually,

like, I know you don't know anything about this case, but I sent you a link that I wanted you to look at because you have an obsession with this guy who has a statement analysis blog, who like breaks down every 911 call, like media statements, and this guy actually broke down this 911 call. And from his point of view, Brett, do you want to like break down what I guess you heard and what he heard as well that you thought was wrong with this call? Yeah, so like you said, I'm kind of obsessed with this like anonymous guy who blogs literally just breaking down statements from people who are in question, basically.

Is that a good way to put it? Not even in question. I always feel like it's the husband. Like, I just feel like it's everyone's husband. Okay, but also like, that's usually the person in question. Fair. But he breaks down a lot of statements for people who are even like closely associated with the case.

Right. So he broke down a couple of things that I thought was really interesting. So in this call, he David says uses I a lot in a way that like I didn't I don't I like it's just very odd. Okay. And he also doesn't necessarily say like, this is what's happening. Help me. This is what's happening.

He says his name, let me talk to whoever's in charge, which is immediately calling upon his authority. Right. I mean, I get what you're saying. Go on. And again, he never asks for help. He never says like, this is what I'm seeing. This is what I'm serving.

You know, so and so doesn't have a pulse so and so isn't breathing. He just keeps saying everyone you need to get everyone out here, everyone, everyone, what you assume is like emergency personnel, the entire force, who knows? And just very broad in my opinion. Okay. So yeah, and the way at least I read the statement analysis is it comes off as like very guilty ish. And it's the one thing that I kind of find interesting about those statement analysis.

I always find them very interesting and I can't lie. I always read them, but I think they're a little bit biased because I've never read one that points to anyone making a statement, being innocent. Like I feel these statements are like the poster child for every reason you shouldn't talk to the media. If someone you know is missing or murdered, they're always picking the statements apart and like looking for the things to point to saying that you're lying. Have you ever read one where it's like, yeah, this person's totally on the up and up thumbs

up? I to a certain extent agree with what you're saying, but I also ash, you know me. Am I not a defense attorney at heart? Yeah. No, I get it. But like, I just feel like it's a great example of ways that possibly guilty people in many ways, whether it's criminally or not, can expose themselves without even realizing it. I get it.

But I'm saying, at least I just don't think this is like, I don't think this one does a really good job because in and no, this is a very weak. Case. I'll give you that. In a 911 call. Like was his call awesome? No. But was it close to other calls that maybe another trooper would have made if it isn't

a confession? No. No, but what I'm saying is I feel like other people in the same situation might even make a similar call. Like you and I, how many, how many 911 calls have we seen where the operator has no idea what they're doing? If something actually bad happens to me, you better believe I'm getting on the phone and being like, let me talk to the supervisor now.

I don't have time for you to not understand that I'm not the social worker. I mean, I think in general, what we can say, it's what we've said about everything. And what I especially lean on for this case is I totally understand the way he's reacting. You obviously don't, but I think that's like the beauty of this is nobody understands how anybody is going to react. Nobody has the same background. So I personally am not taking that 911 call to be anything but legitimate. And that's kind of like the mindset I have moving forward.

But it'll be interesting for you to hear the story knowing that you think something different. Definitely. So it was clear when police arrived that David was right. His entire family was dead. But as they looked more, the crime scene was strange to say the least. It was very clean and the murders were almost execution style. Kim and Jill had each been shot once in the head and Brad had been shot in the abdomen.

Then there were Kim's shoes, not on her feet, but placed neatly side by side on the top of the car. You know where they're supposed to be. Right. And nobody seemed to know why. This is not something she normally did. The kids were still in the car. You don't get out of the car and take off your shoes.

As they processed the scene more, and for as clean as it was, they did find two very important pieces of evidence. The first was a palm print on the SUV door. And the second was a gray sweatshirt tucked away near Brad's body. And the sweatshirt had multiple blood stains on it. And in the collar was written the nickname backbone. Now police didn't know what it meant right away, but they collected all the evidence and put their investigators to work.

And it will be no surprise to anyone that the first person they look at is David Cam himself. David insists that he could not have done this. Not only could he like not have physically done it, because according to him, there were 11 other witnesses that he was at the gym with, and every one of those people say that they saw him. But besides that, even if he could defy the laws of physics and be in two places at once, he said he could never, ever hurt his family.

He said, I loved them so much, and we were so happy. But investigators learn a couple of things that he left out. Police learned that when Kim was pregnant with their second child, Jill, David had had an affair. Now, David says this was just him being stupid. It never meant anything. It shouldn't have happened, but it also wasn't the one and only time that it happened. David was very flirty, and they found a number of women who said they had some type of inappropriate

relationship with David while he was married. And all of these affairs, this is what police and prosecution believed to be his motive going into the first trial. And shortly after the Cam family is murdered, David was charged. And at first, Kim's family was shocked. They couldn't even believe that David would have done this. They knew him. They spent time with him, and it didn't seem possible.

OK, but he has a super solid alibi. There is, what, 10 or 11 people who can say he was there at that time? Yeah, it's crazy to me because the theory that they come up with is that they played a series of games that night in the gym, and they say, we know for sure that David played the first game and the last game. And the prosecution is saying, oh, he was just being really strategic and making an alibi for himself. And they think that he played the first, then left, killed his family, came back, and played

the last. Oh, that's dark. It is really dark, but everybody says that he was there the whole time. There was even a guy who said that he talked to David while the other guys were playing. But police believe that Dave was either really sneaky or his friends were covering for him. OK, so, Ash, if this were you, 100% I would cover. We're right or die, right? Oh, yeah, police can never believe us ever.

I mean, I don't even know what you did. Yeah, you were with me. But I'm not sure. I even know 11 people, let alone convince 11 people to cover for me. So I totally agree. That's the crazy part to me, too, like getting 11 people to have the exact same story. And over the course, you'll see, like I said in the beginning, this plays out over a decade and nobody changes their story, but that's a long time for a lot of people.

I agree. But police were confident that they knew what happened and all these 11 people were lying. They were confident because they thought they had something else besides motive. They felt like they had physical evidence. When they processed everything at the scene fully, that included David's clothes that he was wearing the night when he said he found his family and called police. When they tested his sweatshirt, they found eight microscopic splatters of blood and it was Jill's blood.

An expert later hired by the prosecution said this was clearly the pattern made by high velocity blood spatter. And this was proof that he was the one who pulled the trigger that night. Now they also found something else when doing the autopsies. When the medical examiner was undressing Jill, she said that she was taking off her underwear and saw blood and she said she knew immediately that the case was going to be so much more complicated than she originally anticipated. She said the exam showed that Jill had suffered blunt force trauma to her genitals, which is

consistent with molestation. So not only did police believe David had motive for murder because of his infidelity, but at the time they went to trial, they also had a theory that he'd been molesting Jill. I'm kind of surprised by that. Those theories seem completely different. I agree. I don't know if they were just trying to overwhelm the jury or it was like a double whammy or they're just trying to come up with every little piece of evidence that kind

of mounts into this bigger case, but they fully believed both. They had evidence. They had women testifying that they were having affairs with him in the past. And then they had this speculation of molestation, which they felt just kind of compiled on top of it. Did they tell if this blunt force trauma was recent and was that the only trauma her body had endured and was it something they could maybe put a timeline on? Yeah, you know, I think it's actually an important point to hit on.

The medical examiner said in her personal opinion, it couldn't be anything else. It had to have been sexual assault. But she said in her professional opinion, she can't rule out other forms of trauma. She just didn't know what they could have been. Also this medical examiner says that the window of when this trauma could have happened was anywhere between 12 and 24 hours. Now this is really important because if it happened within 24 hours, David would have been around Jill at the time and could have been the one to have molested her.

But if it happened within just those 12 hours, David hadn't been around the kids for over 12 hours because he left the house for work around seven in the morning and wasn't back home until after 9pm when they found the bodies. So either way, yes, this was the only sign of Jill having been molested. They never found any physical evidence like underwear or bed sheets that would support this. And no one said they ever suspected anything or even heard Jill say anything that would make them suspicious of David or anybody.

Nobody even thought this was like something going on. There was no chance that this was like systematic abuse. Well, yeah. So normally if you were in David Cam's shoes, I think you might be saying, okay, good, everybody is going to think this is a crazy accusation and realize I had nothing to do with this. But kind of the opposite thing happens. What? By now, Kim's family is on board thinking that David did it.

After all, police have arrested him. He's gone to trial. Now presumed innocent isn't a real thing, unfortunately, because everyone assumes you're coming in and you're on trial because they have something against you. At least in the US, other countries have other standards. Yeah. Maybe they're better at it. But a lot of the times like we had the idea of presumed innocent, but a lot of people

think like the police must have something if you're in this position. So Kim's family has kind of turned and they now believe when he goes to trial that he has done it and is the murderer. So their family actually kind of takes all of this evidence that, you know, never heard anything from Jill or never suspected it because they said, you know, Jill was a fighter. She never would let someone do this to her. She was really tough. She would never not say anything.

The only way we can imagine this happening and somebody getting away with it is if it were David, because he was her dad and she trusted him. I know it doesn't seem fair, but at some point you're going to stop being surprised with this case because not fair seems to be the theme. So in 2002, the case against David Cam goes to trial. The prosecution parades a number of women in front of the jury testifying to their affairs with David. They bring in their blood spatter expert who says he has done a recreation and there are

eight splatters that were found on David Cam's sweatshirt that are so unique and separate that nothing else could have caused it. Nothing but being within four feet of a victim when they are shot and you are the shooter. Oh, wow. That's specific. Let's point out that if you are four feet from a gunshot victim, whether you were the shooter or not, you would have more than like microscopic evidence on you, right? Right.

So that is all they have on his sweatshirt. Eight tiny microscopic splatter marks of Jill's blood. And I think you are so on the right page. The defense actually called their own expert to the stand who said a lot of the same stuff. He said he's never ever in the history of ever seen someone shoot a gun within four feet of another person and just get eight drops of blood on them. He said a gunshot would produce hundreds of these tiny little droplets or spatters. And he also said the eight drops that are there are totally consistent with David's

story that he actually leaned over Jill to check on Brad. This expert says that when he was leaning over, his sweatshirt likely dabbed against her bloody hair and that's what caused the tiny little speckles. That makes so much sense though. So much more sense than I shot them and only got eight drops of blood on me. After two months of trial, the jury deliberated for only three days and they found him guilty of murdering his family. They believed that he wanted to get out of being a family man.

They believed that he molested his daughter and maybe people were about to find out. And they believed that the blood on his sweatshirt was from the shot when he shot his own daughter point blank range. He was sentenced to 195 years in prison, but the story is far from over. What? Two and a half years after his conviction and after working with an attorney who specializes in appeals, David Cam got his conviction reversed by the Indiana Court of Appeals. Oh my God, please explain to me how that even happened.

So they ended up throwing out the conviction because of all of this stuff about infidelity that was allowed into the trial. They basically said this was totally unfair. It biased the jury, his affairs like none of them were active from everything that they presented. None of them could be like tied to the murder. So they just said, you basically prejudiced the jury and you just made them not like him for being a bad guy and really had nothing to do with the deaths of his family.

So they couldn't use this information about the affairs, but they went in the prosecution just twice as hard saying now this next time when they want to go back and try him again, that the motivation was Jill's molestation. And so then they decide to try David again. There's a new prosecutor who says they're going to take a fresh look at the case and start from scratch. But as soon as David is put on trial again, it's clear they are using the exact same tactics and no real reinvestigation was ever done.

It's easy to see this because when they tried to build their case, they immediately placed their focus on the basketball players and trying to break down their alibis for David. They didn't put a lot of effort into trying to investigate the physical evidence. The physical clues that they had that maybe there was another killer, that palm print on the SUV, that sweatshirt with the name backbone written in the collar. Yeah. None of that came from the first trial, right? Well, it didn't fit into the David Cam theory.

The palm print didn't match him. The sweatshirt had the victim's blood on it, but it also had DNA from an unknown male and an unknown female, neither of which was David Cam. The defense was told that you're going to love this, that the DNA was collected and submitted to CODIS. When nothing was disclosed in the documents that they got for trial, they assumed there wasn't a hit, but wouldn't you know it? The OG prosecutor said, you know, I made the request, but it must have just never gotten

submitted. Oops. Oops. Oops. So obviously this is high priority for the defense as they're planning for their second trial. Get this DNA into the system while they're preparing for the second trial and the DNA is actually getting run.

They actually have some more good fortune and David's case is moved to another county and he's actually let out on bond. Now we are five years out from the murders at this point. The DNA finally gets run through the system and boom, almost immediately there is a match. Who is it? The DNA comes back to a convicted felon who had been released shortly before the murders, a man named Charles Bonet and Britt. Do you want to guess what his nickname was?

I don't even know. Backbone. The hoodie. Yes. So what they learn about Charles Bonet or backbone is from his record. He actually grew up in the same town as David and he started his criminal career in the late eighties at Indiana State University. He was a sophomore there in 1989 studying education when he was arrested for three counts of robbery,

attempted robbery, resisting law enforcement and four counts of battery. Now I'm sorry. He was something education, like to be a teacher, like don't put him near your kids. Oh my God. Now when he was finally caught, the story of him being caught is he was arrested after three women at IU who were all students were basically attacked as they were leaving one of the local bars at like one 30 in the morning. And according to police reports, the women were getting into a car in a parking lot behind

a restaurant when this guy who we now know is Charles Bonet suddenly appeared and tried to take a shoe from one of the women who had just gotten in the car. You know, like guys want to do. Right. And so this guy was wearing a mask. And when they go report this to police, this mask matched to the description from several other women who had been attacked in the same way by this shoe thief. And when he was arrested, it is when he's arrested, he became known as the shoe bandit.

But if you piece it all together, this explains the shoes on the hood of the car. No, definitely. They're right there on display. Yes. So he basically, what we learn about Charles Bonet is he has this weird shoe fetish. He's literally going around just stealing shoes from women. It's not foot fetish, it's a shoe fetish. Yeah.

And it starts pretty, I mean, not innocently, like he obviously got in big trouble for it, but he's scaring women, but it starts where he's just stealing the shoes. But over his career as a criminal, I mean, he's attacking women, he's assaulting women. It's a very clear pattern of him. Well, and if we know anything from like SVU, criminals who have fetishes usually escalate. I mean, I hope SVU is real. We have actual like law enforcement people who listen to his podcast and I can see them just like shaking their head like, oh, okay, but they might also agree.

They might agree. I mean, I believe they escalate, but I literally have nothing to base on. SVU is ripped from the headlines. From the headlines. So if all of this weren't enough, his palm print also matched the palm print on the SUV. So we have his prints. We have his DNA on the sweatshirt, the sweatshirt that's at the crime scene underneath Brad's body, his nickname is written inside the sweatshirt and now we have an explanation for the shoes

being found on top of the car. Some kind of weird foot fetish shoe fetish. This is enough that they bring Charles in to talk to the prosecutors. When they pick him up, they pick him up in Louisville, which is just across the border from Indiana in Kentucky. And he said he knew right away why they were there and what murders they were talking about. Not because he was involved, he said, but because he was from that town and everybody in that town knew about this family that was murdered.

When police got him talking, they almost couldn't get him to stop. He went on and on and said he had nothing to hide, absolutely no involvement in the case. And that sweatshirt, oh, he just said no big deal. Of course it has my DNA on it. It was my sweatshirt from prison. That's why it has my name on it. I had just recently gotten out, but after I got out, I donated it to the Salvation Army and he said that's also why there's another person's DNA on it.

There's that woman's DNA that's unidentified because maybe someone else picked it up and that person committed the murder. Well, I've stopped thrifting clothes, how about you? Yeah. Charles said he never knew David Cam, never knew his family, was never at the crime scene and there's no way evidence would show up proving otherwise. Well, of course, Charles was just digging himself a hole because he was definitely there. We already have his palm prints there.

We know he was there. We have evidence. Exactly. So they arrest Charles Bonnet for the murders and end up dropping the charges against David before he could go back for a second trial. But the story isn't over again. There was a huge twist nobody saw coming. Only minutes after David is told they're dropping charges, he is charged again.

This time, the prosecution has a whole new theory. They say that David and Charles conspired together to kill his family. What? By now, Charles has changed his story and is trying to help the prosecution. So he stopped trying to say that he had nothing to do with it. The evidence is overwhelming. Now he says he met David at a basketball game and when he told him he was a convicted felon, you know, like you do when having a conversation with an ex-state trooper, David

wanted to hire him to get a gun or hire him to help him kill his family. So Charles had like a number of conflicting confessions, eventually the one that he came down to, like the one he stuck with when he went to trial, was that he basically witnessed David Cam shoot his family while he was at the home. He came to the home to sell him the gun. And when he was there, David basically says, you're going to go down for this, shoots his family, tries to shoot Charles, but the gun jams. What?

Yeah, it is the craziest theory I've ever heard, but this is the one he sticks with. Now Charles says that he, when the gun jams, he kind of tries to run and he trips over Kim's shoes and that's when he takes them and places them on top of the hood of the car, which to me is such a weird thing to try to explain. Like you're already there. You're admitting you're there and you're a weird shoe guy, just admit you're a weird shoe guy. Like why is that the part that you're like being weird about?

And like I've never, like outside of things that are like in my own home where I'm like, Oh, this is not worth so speed. I don't necessarily move anything that I trip over like at work, anywhere else, literally anywhere else. Or it'd be like, Oh, I took off these shoes. I should put them here instead, especially if you're like in a rush, like running from a guy who's trying to kill you too, who just killed a 12 and I can't fathom where I'm like, this is the next step.

Like I might die, but these shoes are really in the way of everyone. It was just such a weird thing for him to try and explain. So David ends up being tried as a co-conspirator this time with Charles Bonet, but they're tried separately in 2006. David is found guilty again. This time when they went to trial, they couldn't talk about the affairs. So the motive that they honed in on was Jill being molested. And the prosecution basically said we have proof that she'd been molested.

He had been molesting her and somehow it was going to come out or he was afraid that it was going to come out. So instead of that shame and, you know, fearing prosecution, he just decided to take out his entire family. When he gets convicted, David appeals again and again. His conviction was overturned because the court said you can't talk about Jill being molested without actual proof of her being molested because remember the medical examiner said her professional opinion is that, yeah, it could have been caused by something else.

And what the court said is that basically if you're going to go in with this being his primary motive, we need more proof that not only was she for sure molested, some kind of corroborating evidence, but you have to also prove that David was the one to do it. Oh, and when they go back, do you want to know what else they found that gave me total staircase flashbacks? Do I? The guy who was the original like prosecution blood expert who swore up and down that those eight little stains they found could only be from a gunshot.

Wait, let me guess. That's not what actually happened. Oh, how did you know? Well, it turns out actually that this guy had falsified all of his credentials or most of his credentials. Oh. And every other person that they get to come into this courtroom actually is like, hey, that's not right at all.

Right. All the experts are siding with the defense and saying like this guy is loony tunes. He's like making up his own stuff. And this is like something that I always think about where I know it's such a conflict. I think if I was ever a juror, because I know as a juror, you are supposed to take the people on the stand. It's like the Bible, what they're saying is supposed to be real. They're supposed to have been vetted.

It's a vow. Like it's perjury to lie, right? Right. But like what's so crazy to me and something that I obviously have noticed from doing so in many of these cases is you can find somebody pretty much to say anything if you're paying them. And, you know, I think they believe it and I don't think they're perjuring themselves. I think they're going up there saying what they believe is the God's honest truth, but

you can find two totally separate people who can look at the same evidence and find something completely different. No, totally. Yeah. What are you supposed to do? How are you supposed to judge that? You and I both served on a mock jury one time. Oh my God, it was awful.

It was. It was traumatic. Like one, you're putting yourself in the hands of, technically here appears, but not really. And also their interpretation of whatever is presented and it's very, very conflicting sometimes. It is. And so David goes in front of these people and even though the second time, like everything gets overturned, you would think by now, you know, he's had two convictions overturned

twice, you would think maybe at some point the prosecution like takes a step back and was like, wow, our evidence was whack. We have this other guy now who we didn't have before, but they decide to go after him a third time. No. Yes. Okay. So at this point, the affairs are off.

The molestation of the daughter is off. So what's the motive? So now they're going with like the most basic motive. They're saying that he wanted her life insurance, which I think her, I think the life insurance in the 401k was like $600,000. I mean, okay, so I'll have the money. Don't get me wrong, but not like kill your two children kind of money. Yeah.

So in this third trial, Charles even testifies this time sticking to his last story that David basically lured him out there to like buy the gun from him. He killed his family, tried to kill Charles, tried to make it look like Charles did it, but the gun jammed and the plan went awry. This third trial is the only time everyone got to hear all of the DNA evidence, which wasn't just the sweatshirt. It turns out that Charles's DNA was also on Kim's underwear. It was also on the arm of her shirt and it was on a broken fingernail and on the stomach

of Jill's shirt. This again shows that Charles was lying up and down even after he said he was there. His story in both trials is that David did everything and was trying to set him up. But this evidence clearly shows that he had contact with the victims. This guy cannot stop lying. The defense said, look, there is no story anyone has presented that matches Charles attacking the family, which is clearly what happened because the DNA proves that, and then David's shooting them like none of this makes sense.

None of this fits into, you knew you had three times to present this case and this still doesn't fit. So the trials seem to be going in their favor, but at the last minute, the judge made a shocking ruling before the jurors deliberated. The judge said, listen, I'll give you guys another option. It's not all or nothing. Maybe if you think David just helped Charles in some way, but wasn't like actually the shooter, I'll let you have that option.

And David's defense team is fuming because this is insane. The prosecution still had no evidence that the two ever even met. I mean, outside of Charles saying that they did, and we know Charles is a liar. So now the judge is giving them out of nowhere this third option, like, yeah, they do a really great job of like proving their case. But if you want to say that, like, you just don't feel good about him, I'll give you that option too. So I have curiosity.

So if they think Charles did it, which seems very possible, and they want to connect David to it, how would that happen? Like what would that charge look like? And are they both on trial? So at this point, Charles has already been convicted. Remember, they had two separate trials. Charles was convicted to 225 years in prison, and David's trial is going on after that. So they would basically try him as a co-conspirator, which is what he was on trial for before,

but kind of a lesser charge because he wasn't the one that actually pulled the trigger. He would, in this new theory, just have assisted Charles. So it still doesn't really answer the question of now, now if Charles doing all of the killing, like, I don't know, none of it really fits, right? Yeah, it's, it's like a puzzle that's very close, but it's not all of the pieces that make sense. Does that make sense? It does.

Well, and luckily, this jury ate their Wheaties that morning, and they were sharp. Oh, finally. On October 24, 2013, after only 10 hours of deliberation, they found David Cam not guilty. And for the first time in over 13 years, David was a free man. And this case has come under some insane scrutiny for prosecutorial misconduct. And rightfully so, I think the prosecution was accused of errors in investigating, witness tampering, evidence tampering, poor evidence collection, just like, bad stuff. Like for an example, something we couldn't even get into, because I can't get into like

all of the details between every single trial and how they kind of manipulated everything. It actually kind of reminds me of the Adnan Sayed trial, because a lot of people believe that the prosecution kind of fed this story to Charles Bonet. They think he actually did it, but they, the prosecution kind of led him in this like, well, maybe he helped you kind of thing. Well, one thing that they did that I can tell you about is there's this allegation that surfaced about a distant relative of Charles named Myron Wilkerson, who was actually a police officer, but wasn't actually assigned to this case specifically.

Apparently, he met with Charles privately at the police station following his arrest. Two months later, people found out that this relative officer, Wilkerson had removed Kim Cam's phone from the evidence room without signing it out, and he took it back to his personal residence. Like, totally, totally cool, right? Totally sketchy, right? So I have to wonder if maybe Charles met Kim and followed her or maybe set this up, because that's something I can't shake.

I don't think David did it at all. No part of me thinks he like even conspired, at least that's just what I believe. But I know Charles did, we have the evidence, but why? His MO back in the days when he was younger with college girls was obviously just to take their shoes as he's getting older, he's assaulting women. I'm kind of shocked he would just spontaneously attack a woman with her two children. So I don't know if he saw her somewhere. A lot of people believe he saw her, followed her because he wanted her shoes or something.

And I don't know if he even knew the two kids were there, but it seems like such an escalation even from attacking women to then executing two children. In December of 2013, David gave his first interview following the verdict. And he even had stuff to say about Charles Bonet's criminal history. He said, quote, the thing that people need to know about Bonet, 11 previous felony convictions for assaulting women, that's what he's done his whole life, assault women. These three girls that he took hostage in Bloomington, Indiana, he had a gun to the girl's head and threatened to blow their heads off.

It's exactly what he did to Kim. He just went one step further. So I think he's even pointing out like it's not even that surprising to him. Like there was clear signs of what was coming. And unfortunately, David Cam's family was just there when it escalated to the point of murder. Now, David actually ended up suing Floyd County and the state of Indiana for $30 million, but his lawsuit was dismissed by the U.S. court districts because they said there was

actual probable cause to charge him. So they're saying he didn't have a case. After his release, he did end up collecting a little over half a million from Kim's life insurance and her 401K, but I heard the family was suing him for it, which makes me think that her family still thinks he's guilty. There was a lot of stuff in 2013 after the conviction of them coming out and saying that they 100% believed that he got away with it and they still thought he did it. They thought he was like doing something in conjunction with Charles Bonet.

They didn't really know why, but at least in 2013, they thought he was very guilty. I don't know where they stand today in 2018. Charles is still sticking to his story like a freaking crazy person. He's serving 225 years in prison, but just still saying that all he did was buy the gun. Even when he was confronted, 48 hours did a follow-up and they're like, your DNA was in her fingernails. He's like, I haven't heard that and return whatever his face is, is like, no, I'm telling you that, you're hearing it right now.

I'm telling you, your DNA was there, so what do you want to say to me? This is actually true, so there's that. He's just looking ahead like a crazy person. I 100% think he did it and he's crazy. He's lying through his teeth and that's just who he is. He tries to be very charming, but he's totally not. David is finally getting to move on with his life and live his life. The last I heard, he was working with the investigating innocence group to help other

wrongfully convicted people like him. If you guys want to connect with us, you can always go to our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com or connect with us on social media. You can follow us on Twitter at crimejunkiepod or on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. And we will be back next week with a brand new episode. This week's episode of Crime Junkie was written and hosted by me. All of our editing and sound production was done by David Flowers and all of our music including our theme comes from Justin Daniel.

Crime Junkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?