TRANSCRIPTION 🔗
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[SPEAKER_01]: To get this episode of forensic tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com slash forensic tales.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Forensic tales discuss this topic that some listeners may find disturbing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Listener discretion is advised.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine being accused of a crime you didn't commit.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now imagine that crime was the brutal murder of your wife and two young children.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that became David Cam's reality.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Within days of discovering his family's bodies, the former Indiana State Police Trooper went from grieving husband and father to primary suspect.
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[SPEAKER_01]: At the center of the case was a tiny pattern of blood on his t-shirt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Evidence prosecutors claimed could only have been created when he pulled the trigger.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But the forensics didn't tell just one story, and as new evidence emerged,
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[SPEAKER_01]: The case against David Cam and the man investigators had ignored would begin to unravel.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is forensic tales, episode 350, the wrongful conviction of David Cam.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Forensic Tales.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast with a Forensic twist.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Each episode features real stories, highlighting how Forensic science was used to uncover the truth.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Before his name became associated with one of Indiana's most controversial murder cases, David Cam was a husband, a father, and a longtime Indiana State Police Trooper.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He was born on March 23, 1964 in New Albany, a southern Indiana town located just a bridge crossing north of Louisville, Kentucky.
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[SPEAKER_01]: David married his wife, Kim, in 1989.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She worked as an accountant while he became an Indiana state police trooper, a job he would hold for the next 11 years.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Together they had two children, a boy named Brad and a girl named Jill.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Several years in, while Kim was pregnant with their second child, David began having an affair with a woman he had met at the gym.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was sheer stupidity on my part, he would later say, I allowed myself to get caught in something that never should have happened.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I take full responsibility for that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When Kim found out, they separated and David temporarily moved out until they eventually reconciled and he moved back in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But that was just the beginning of his unfaithfulness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: David would later be accused of having affairs with, or making advances toward, approximately a dozen women.
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[SPEAKER_01]: by the fall of 2000 David switched careers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He quit his job with the Indiana State Police after more than a decade to work for his uncle's construction business.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And according to David's own words, this was a really happy time for him and his family.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He was making good money and spending a lot of time with Kim and the kids.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That brings us to the night of September 28th, 2000.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That day, Kim and the kids were out and about until a little after seven, when she and Jill picked up Brad from swim class and headed home.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Around the same time, David headed to a weekly pickup basketball game with friends and relatives, where he said he stayed until 9.15.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But when he arrived home later that night, he walked into a scene that would change everything.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That ordinary Thursday evening had ended inside the cam family's garage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Based on David's account of that night, he arrived at the church gym for the basketball game, sometime around 7 o'clock, and he wasn't the only one who could vouch for his whereabouts.
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[SPEAKER_01]: At least 10 other people said they saw him there until about 9.15.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When he arrived home at approximately 925, he said he opened the garage and immediately saw Kim lying on the ground in a pool of blood next to her Ford Bronco.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It would later be determined that she had been shot in the head at close range.
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[SPEAKER_01]: David then claimed to have looked inside the car and found Jill and Brad.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Five-year-old Jill was sitting upright in the backseat and had been shot once in the head.
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[SPEAKER_01]: While seven-year-old Brad was positioned across the rear portion of the car and had been shot through the torso.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A later autopsy revealed that the bullet had entered near his left shoulder and chest area before exiting out his right side, completely severing his spinal cord.
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[SPEAKER_01]: David said he initially thought Brad might still be alive, so he reached in over Jill, removed him from the Bronco, and placed him on the garage floor next to Kim.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But when he realized there wasn't anything he could do, he called the seller's burg 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.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Life as he knew it was over.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One of the first officers on the scene was detective Sean Clemens, who ironically was a good friend of David's.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But that friendship would quickly turn to suspicion after learning David had tried to revive Brad.
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[SPEAKER_01]: 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 are footprints detective Clemens said to ABC News.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't see footprints.
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[SPEAKER_01]: but it wasn't just the lack of bloody footprints that quickly drew suspicion to David Cam.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Detectives also thought the scene just looked a little too neat.
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[SPEAKER_01]: To them, it looked like a scene that a former state trooper could orchestrate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then there was the fact that he was the spouse and father to the victims, as well as being the one to discover the bodies.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In many other homicide cases, those are breadcrumbs that can lead straight to the suspect.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and adding to the suspicion were all the rumors surrounding David's extramarital affairs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But while they focused on what they didn't see, bloody footprints, and how neat the scene appeared, they overlooked things that were right in front of them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The first was Kim's shoes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Her socks and shoes had been removed and were found neatly sitting on the roof of her car.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then near Brad's body was a gray sweatshirt with the word backbone, written with black marker on the inside of the collar.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Investigators also found a palm print on the passenger side door of the Ford Bronco.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here's where this investigation gets problematic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The sweatshirt didn't belong to David.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The pomprent didn't belong to him either.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it remained unidentified until investigators finally matched it years later.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time, no one could explain why Kim's shoes had been removed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: or who had placed them on top of her car, but detectives looked past all of that and focused instead on the one piece of clothing they believed mattered most.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The T-shirt David was wearing when they arrived.
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[SPEAKER_01]: On the front of the shirt were eight tiny drops that would eventually test positive for Jill's blood.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Blood was also found on his socks and one of his gym shoes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But those eight tiny stains on his t-shirt would become the centerpiece of the prosecution's forensic case for years to come.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The day after the murders, prosecutors stand faith, brought in Portland-based bloodstain analyst, Rod Inglert.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A name, you'll hear a few more times throughout this story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But Inglert didn't personally travel to Indiana, or examine the crime scene before David's arrest.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, he sent his assistant, Rob Steights, to take photographs and document the scene.
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[SPEAKER_01]: While there, Stite's examined David's T-shirt and noticed the eight tiny drops of blood near the bottom, he then called Inglert and described the stains to him over the phone.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Stite's later claimed that Inglert agreed the stains met the criteria for high velocity impact spatter.
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[SPEAKER_01]: although England would eventually dispute that he ever confirmed that conclusion during the call.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Either way, Stight's return to investigators and told them he was 100% certain.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The stains were high velocity impact spatter, meaning David had been standing within four feet of Jill when she was shot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Bloodstained pattern analysts examine things like the size
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[SPEAKER_01]: shape, placement, and direction of blood droplets to determine how they may have been created.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time,
extremely small, missed-like droplets were commonly associated with a high energy event, most often, a gunshot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, if those tiny drops of Jill's blood landed on David's shirt at the moment she was shot, the conclusion seemed obvious.
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[SPEAKER_01]: David had been standing close enough to be the shooter, and investigators treated States' opinion as forensic fact.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But that conclusion rested on a massive problem.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Rob Steitz wasn't a trained bloodstained pattern analyst.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had never completed a course in bloodstained analysis.
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[SPEAKER_01]: had almost no scientific background, and had originally been sent to the scene simply to take photographs and notes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, Stights' undergraduate degree was in a completely unrelated field, and he had reportedly failed the only chemistry course he took in college.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had also never processed a homicide scene before the cam murders, and his initial conclusion didn't account for another possible explanation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Contact transfer David was the person who discovered the bodies.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had reached across Jill's blood-soaked hair while trying to remove Brad from the Bronco because he believed his son might still be alive.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Defense experts would later argue that
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[SPEAKER_01]: was how Jill's blood ended up on David's shirt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And today, that's exactly what many believe happened.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The blood wasn't there because David fired the gun.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was there because he tried to save his son.
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[SPEAKER_01]: To make things even worse, David's t-shirt wasn't the only place where Stight's claimed to find high velocity blood spatter.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He also claimed he found it on the garage door, a shower curtain, the breezeway siding, a mop, and a jacket.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But when those suspected stains were actually tested later on, none of them were even blood.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For example, the substance on the garage door turned out to be patrolling
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[SPEAKER_01]: Stights also claimed someone had used bleach to clean up the crime scene, but that wasn't true either.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What he believed was evidence of cleaning was actually serum separation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A completely natural process that happens when blood sits and begins separating into different components.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, the man whose opinion helped push this case in the completely wrong direction had identified blood
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[SPEAKER_01]: and that really gets to the biggest problem with bloodstained pattern analysis.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It can help reconstruct what may have happened, but it doesn't always lead to one definitive answer.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In this case, experts looked at the same eight tiny stains and reached completely opposite conclusions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Some saw gunshot spatter, others saw simple contact transfer.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Years later, a federal appellate court described blood spatter analysis as a subjective field that is only partly scientific, and confirmed that states never had the qualifications investigators claimed he did.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Still, those eight stains appeared to give them their shooter.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and just three days after he discovered his wife and children dead, that opinion helped put in behind bars for their murders.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The problem was, the timeline gave David an alibi.
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[SPEAKER_01]: From the very beginning, he said he was playing basketball from around seven o'clock until after nine o'clock that night.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And he wasn't the only one there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: 10 other people said he was at the church gym playing basketball with them all night.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that seems like a pretty strong alibi.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But according to detectives and prosecutors, the murders occurred closer to the time he returned home.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And they claimed to have the evidence to prove it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Records from a phone bill that were turned over to the police initially showed that David had placed a call from the house at 719 that night, which would have completely contradicted his story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But that time stamp turned out to be inaccurate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because of Indiana's different and sometimes complicated time zones, the phone company later corrected the call time to 619.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Not 719, which better aligns with David's alibi about playing basketball than there was the issue of time of death.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Initially, the murders were reported in the arrest affidavit as having occurred around 930, but that was eventually adjusted to around 8 o'clock, which again was when he was at the game.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But instead of viewing this evidence as proof of David's innocence,
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[SPEAKER_01]: prosecutors simply change their theory about what they thought happened.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They said he probably slipped away from the game without anyone noticing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Drove home, committed the murders, then returned to the gym.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He then drove back home, sometime after nine o'clock to stage the scene and call for help.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Prosecutors never stopped to consider how difficult that really was.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Given the short time frame and the number of witnesses who were with him that night, none of the witnesses recalled seeing him leave the gym long enough to drive home, commit the murders, and return unnoticed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They also kept coming back to one key piece of forensic evidence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The tiny blood drops on David's T-shirt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Those tiny stains became powerful enough to override
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[SPEAKER_01]: In many cases, a suspect only has one or two alabies.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Some don't have any, but in David's case, he had 10 people who would eventually testify at trial, saying he was there the entire time the murders took place.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That alone shows how important forensic evidence can be in a criminal investigation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Even when that forensic evidence is completely misinterpreted,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Another key piece of evidence that never fit with the prosecution's theory was the mysterious gray sweatshirt found at the scene.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But the strange part was that it didn't belong to David or anyone else in his family.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It would later be discovered that it was an Indiana department of corrections issued sweatshirt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that alone should have prompted investigators to seriously consider whether someone else had been inside the garage because no one in the Cam family had any connection to the state prison system.
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[SPEAKER_01]: However, Stan Faith and Detective Clemens claimed the writing could have said rack one, and no one contacted the Indiana Department of Correction to see whether the name matched a
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[SPEAKER_01]: Before David's first trial, his attorney, Mike McDaniel, had an independent lab in Minnesota tested.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And the results indicated an unidentified male DNA profile from the collar, along with DNA from an unidentified woman elsewhere on the sweatshirt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So at this point, David's attorney asked prosecutor Stan Faith to submit the unknown male profile to the National Database and Faith allegedly agreed to do it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But after McDaniel repeatedly called for an update, the prosecutor eventually told him the search was done, and there was no match.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The DNA profile had never been submitted to the National Database at all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So David went into his first trial without knowing who had worn that sweatshirt, or why clothing connected to an unknown man had been left underneath his son's body at the murder scene.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here's what makes that failure so difficult to understand.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Years later, when the DNA was finally entered into the database, investigators received a match in just two hours.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That sweatshirt didn't belong to some random person who's clothing had accidentally ended up in the garage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Its owner had a criminal record, a documented connection to the nickname written inside the collar, and as investigators would eventually discover, had left another piece of physical evidence on Kim's Bronco.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But police wouldn't connect those dots until years after David had already been convicted.
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[SPEAKER_01]: will get to the man behind the sweatshirt a little later in the episode.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But for now, as David prepared to stand trial for the first time for the murders of his family, that unidentified DNA and the person who left it behind was essentially ignored.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And remember that unidentified palm print on Kim's car?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, years later, it would be matched to the very same man whose DNA was found on the sweatshirt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the next logical question becomes how could an unknown man leave his clothing, DNA, and palm print inside a triple murder scene, and still not become the focus of the investigation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And don't worry, we will also talk about why Kim's shoes and socks were taken off a little later as well.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've talked a lot about David's first trial, so let's now go through all of them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: His first trial began in early 2002, with the blood spatter as the main forensic evidence and the extramarital affairs listed as the motive.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So prosecutors said he killed his entire family, then staged the scene.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They even had several women take the stand and testify about alleged affairs or advances David had made toward them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: but they were never able to establish a connection between the affairs and the murders.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Achieving husband doesn't always equal a murdering husband.
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[SPEAKER_01]: David's attorneys had experts demonstrate how the stains could have gotten on his shirt through contact transfer.
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[SPEAKER_01]: By brushing t-shirts against
blood-covered wigs, they were able to produce marks that looked almost identical to the ones found on David's shirt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They also had all the other witnesses who played basketball with him that night, testify in support of his alibi.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But none of that was enough to convince a jury.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He was convicted of all three murders, and on April 11th, 2002, the judge officially sentenced him to a total of 195 years in prison, essentially three consecutive 65-year terms for each member of his family.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't even able to attend his family's funeral because he was already in custody.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But this was just the very beginning of David Cam's long journey through the system.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In August 2004, the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned his conviction, ruling that testimony from a dozen women who claimed they had affairs with him had unfairly biased the jury.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Especially since prosecutors never established any connection between those relationships and the murders.
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[SPEAKER_01]: prosecutors refile the charges in November 2004.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then, as the case was being prepared for a second trial, the unknown male DNA from the sweatshirt was finally submitted to the national database.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In 2005, authorities identified the owner of the unidentified male profile as Charles Boney, a convicted felon from New Albany.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And suddenly several pieces of evidence investigators had overlooked began falling into place.
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[SPEAKER_01]: While in prison, Boni had gone by the nickname Backbone, the exact name written inside the collar of the sweatshirt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had also been released from prison just a few months before Kim, Brad and Jill were murdered.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Boni's criminal history made things even more interesting.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had previously committed a series of violent attacks against women, several of which
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had also admitted to having a fixation with women's feet and high heels.
23:29.321 --> 23:37.767
[SPEAKER_01]: Suddenly, Boney's history offered a possible explanation for why Kim's shoes had been removed and placed on top of her car.
23:39.430 --> 23:46.536
[SPEAKER_01]: When investigators first questioned Boni, he denied knowing David and insisted he had never been to the cam home.
23:47.216 --> 23:54.542
[SPEAKER_01]: He said he had donated the sweatshirt to charity, and that somehow it must have ended up at the murder scene through someone else.
23:55.443 --> 23:57.865
[SPEAKER_01]: Boni also agreed to take a polygraph.
23:58.485 --> 24:06.672
[SPEAKER_01]: And according to the examiner, he was deceptive when asked whether he had been present during the murders or had shot anyone in Indiana.
24:07.435 --> 24:09.476
[SPEAKER_01]: even then, the police let him leave.
24:10.396 --> 24:18.459
[SPEAKER_01]: But just a few weeks later, investigators revisited that unidentified pom-print found on the passenger side of Kim's Bronco.
24:19.100 --> 24:25.442
[SPEAKER_01]: And on March 4th, 2005, a latent print examiner matched it to Charles Boni.
24:26.282 --> 24:27.463
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's all adding up.
24:28.013 --> 24:31.377
[SPEAKER_01]: His DNA was on a sweatshirt, found underneath Brad's body.
24:31.837 --> 24:38.385
[SPEAKER_01]: His prison nickname was written inside its collar, and his palm print was on the car where Brad and Jill had been murdered.
24:39.787 --> 24:44.412
[SPEAKER_01]: When authorities confronted him with the palm print match, his story completely changed.
24:45.088 --> 24:47.791
[SPEAKER_01]: He no longer claimed he had never been to the cam home.
24:48.452 --> 24:53.859
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, he admitted he had been there, but insisted David was the one who pulled the trigger.
24:54.519 --> 24:56.282
[SPEAKER_01]: Much more on that in just a moment.
24:57.243 --> 25:03.190
[SPEAKER_01]: The other DNA sample on the sweatshirt was later identified as belonging to Malah Singh Mattingley.
25:03.667 --> 25:05.127
[SPEAKER_01]: Bony's then girlfriend.
25:05.928 --> 25:12.770
[SPEAKER_01]: According to her, on the night of the murders, Charles Bony arrived home late, sweating and breathing heavily.
25:13.530 --> 25:16.731
[SPEAKER_01]: He had a bloody scrape on his knee and then showed her a gun.
25:17.891 --> 25:24.173
[SPEAKER_01]: The next morning, Bony asked Maddingley and his mom to sit down and watch the news coverage of the Cam family murders.
25:25.373 --> 25:32.537
[SPEAKER_01]: Mattingly said she eventually left the room to take a shower, and while she was gone, she could hear Boney and his mom arguing.
25:33.298 --> 25:37.100
[SPEAKER_01]: None of that proved exactly what happened inside the Cam family's garage.
25:37.781 --> 25:43.424
[SPEAKER_01]: But it certainly didn't match Boney's original claim that he had never been there and knew nothing about the murders.
25:45.872 --> 25:49.673
[SPEAKER_02]: The criminal justice system is broken, but Dr. Arthur Lyons isn't here to fix it.
25:49.893 --> 25:51.493
[SPEAKER_02]: He's making the cracks more visible.
25:52.154 --> 26:03.917
[SPEAKER_02]: Written by a veteran forensic pathologist, the Dr. Lyon series is forensic fiction with an emphasis on exact science, taking cases from the headlines and bringing them into a world where curiosity and compassion can make a difference.
26:04.657 --> 26:08.778
[SPEAKER_02]: Dr. Arthur Lyon's medical examiner has been called fabulous, but not for the squeamish.
26:09.338 --> 26:11.699
[SPEAKER_02]: Volume 2 is now available with three new cases,
26:17.009 --> 26:22.450
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's now circle back to his changing story about David being the guy who pulled the trigger.
26:23.191 --> 26:32.973
[SPEAKER_01]: When confronted with all the forensic evidence placing him at the scene, Boney then claimed that he had met David by chance a few times in the months before the murders.
26:33.773 --> 26:40.395
[SPEAKER_01]: According to him, the two never exchanged phone numbers or left behind any record of their conversations.
26:41.035 --> 26:47.598
[SPEAKER_01]: But somehow, they arranged for Boni to meet David at his home on September 28th to sell him a gun.
26:48.258 --> 26:57.261
[SPEAKER_01]: Boni said he arrived at the cam residence at around 7 and handed David a handgun wrapped inside the gray backbone sweatshirt.
26:57.961 --> 27:02.063
[SPEAKER_01]: Then according to Boni, Kim pulled into the garage with Brad and Jill.
27:02.803 --> 27:07.725
[SPEAKER_01]: David followed her inside, and moments later, Bony heard three gunshots.
27:08.365 --> 27:13.767
[SPEAKER_01]: Bony claimed David then came back outside, pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger.
27:14.247 --> 27:17.308
[SPEAKER_01]: But the weapon either jammed or had run out of ammunition.
27:18.008 --> 27:22.430
[SPEAKER_01]: He said he chased David back toward the garage where David escaped into the house.
27:23.250 --> 27:29.332
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when Boni claimed he tripped over Kim's shoes, which had been removed and were lying on the garage floor.
27:30.012 --> 27:40.576
[SPEAKER_01]: He said he picked them up and placed them on top of the Bronco, not because of his documented fixation with women's shoes, but simply because they happened to be in his way.
27:41.856 --> 27:46.157
[SPEAKER_01]: He also admitted leaning against the Bronco to look inside at Brad and Jill.
27:47.178 --> 27:48.038
[SPEAKER_01]: According to Boni,
27:48.498 --> 27:53.642
[SPEAKER_01]: That innocent act explained why his palm print was found on the passenger side of the vehicle.
27:54.403 --> 27:59.127
[SPEAKER_01]: But, as you might already expect, there were several major problems with his account.
27:59.868 --> 28:09.676
[SPEAKER_01]: First, investigators found no phone calls, messages, witnesses, or other evidence showing that David and Boni had ever met before that night.
28:10.297 --> 28:13.199
[SPEAKER_01]: They had arranged their supposed gun sale entirely
28:15.582 --> 28:16.745
[SPEAKER_01]: that left no record.
28:17.366 --> 28:18.630
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there was the timeline.
28:19.957 --> 28:26.620
[SPEAKER_01]: Boni claimed he arrived at around seven, and that the murders happened almost immediately after Kim returned home.
28:27.280 --> 28:32.922
[SPEAKER_01]: But other witnesses placed Kim, Brad and Jill, at the pool, until at least seven, 15.
28:33.662 --> 28:37.384
[SPEAKER_01]: The medical evidence also pointed to the murders occurring closer to eight.
28:38.144 --> 28:45.827
[SPEAKER_01]: And every time investigators confronted Boni with another
piece of evidence, his story changed just enough to explain it.
28:46.607 --> 28:49.889
[SPEAKER_01]: The sweatshirt was there because it had been wrapped around the gun.
28:50.510 --> 28:53.812
[SPEAKER_01]: His palm print was there because he leaned against the Bronco.
28:54.412 --> 28:58.334
[SPEAKER_01]: Kim's shoes were on the roof because he had tripped over them and moved them.
28:59.715 --> 29:10.902
[SPEAKER_01]: Aside from Boni's own constantly changing story, investigators found no physical evidence proving that he and David knew each other or had planned the murders together.
29:12.428 --> 29:21.930
[SPEAKER_01]: Charles Boney was eventually convicted of murdering Kim, Brad and Jill, as well as conspiracy, and was sentenced to 225 years in prison.
29:22.691 --> 29:31.333
[SPEAKER_01]: But somehow identifying the mystery man who's DNA, clothing, and pomprent were all found at the crime scene, didn't free David.
29:32.153 --> 29:39.595
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, prosecutors simply added Charles Boney to their case and created an entirely new version of
29:42.662 --> 29:44.965
[SPEAKER_01]: his second trial began in January 2006.
29:46.661 --> 29:56.869
[SPEAKER_01]: and with his extramarital affairs ruled in admissible, prosecutors now argued that he was molesting his daughter and killed his wife and children to cover up the crime.
29:57.830 --> 30:05.296
[SPEAKER_01]: That shocking theory stemmed from one piece of controversial evidence, a blunt force injury to Jill's private area.
30:05.977 --> 30:13.123
[SPEAKER_01]: However, a defense expert argued that it was one of several blunt force injuries Jill suffered during the fatal attack.
30:13.884 --> 30:18.149
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, there was no independent evidence that David had ever abused Jill.
30:19.270 --> 30:24.876
[SPEAKER_01]: Still, prosecutors argued that, number one, David abused Jill.
30:25.317 --> 30:28.620
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, Jill would tell or had told Kim.
30:29.141 --> 30:34.107
[SPEAKER_01]: And number three, David murdered the entire family to prevent the disclosure.
30:35.655 --> 30:41.760
[SPEAKER_01]: Charles Boni was presented to the jury as David's accomplice or simply the man who supplied the weapon.
30:42.400 --> 30:49.786
[SPEAKER_01]: But jurors weren't allowed to hear about Boni's history of attacks involving women's shoes, because that evidence was excluded.
30:51.247 --> 30:58.453
[SPEAKER_01]: To make things worse for him, prosecutors also presented alleged jailhouse confessions, which David denied making.
30:59.243 --> 31:03.388
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, the bloodstain evidence on his shirt remained front and center.
31:04.269 --> 31:08.334
[SPEAKER_01]: So on March 3rd, 2006, David was convicted again.
31:08.915 --> 31:12.980
[SPEAKER_01]: He was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
31:13.681 --> 31:17.005
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you thought that was the end of the story, you'd be wrong.
31:18.650 --> 31:29.634
[SPEAKER_01]: David appealed his conviction, arguing that the molestation allegation had been highly prejudicial, and that prosecutors had never actually presented evidence connecting him to Jill's injury.
31:30.355 --> 31:32.575
[SPEAKER_01]: And that allegation clearly mattered.
31:33.336 --> 31:40.999
[SPEAKER_01]: After the trial, jurors publicly acknowledged that the suspected molestation had played a major role in their decision to convict him.
31:41.779 --> 31:42.859
[SPEAKER_01]: So on June 26th, 2009,
31:44.800 --> 31:49.382
[SPEAKER_01]: The Indiana Supreme Court overturned David's convictions for a second time.
31:49.962 --> 31:53.924
[SPEAKER_01]: The court found that prosecutors had built their motive around speculation.
31:54.564 --> 31:59.786
[SPEAKER_01]: Essentially, they argued that David must have killed his family because he had molested Jill.
32:00.367 --> 32:05.249
[SPEAKER_01]: But they also implied that he must have molested Jill because they already believed he was the killer.
32:05.909 --> 32:07.210
[SPEAKER_01]: It was completely circular.
32:08.150 --> 32:15.333
[SPEAKER_01]: The court wrote, missing from this record is any competent evidence of the premise that the defendant molested the child.
32:16.033 --> 32:27.078
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, there may have been evidence that Jill suffered an injury, but there was no evidence proving David caused it, or that it had anything to do with the murders.
32:28.018 --> 32:32.020
[SPEAKER_01]: The court also found that jurors had improperly heard a statement
32:32.528 --> 32:37.111
[SPEAKER_01]: Kim made to a friend about when she expected David to return home that night.
32:37.752 --> 32:48.280
[SPEAKER_01]: Because Kim couldn't testify or be questioned about what she meant, the statement shouldn't have been used as evidence that David planned to be at the house during the murders.
32:49.060 --> 32:56.446
[SPEAKER_01]: With those two major issues, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed David's convictions and ordered another trial.
33:02.450 --> 33:12.055
[SPEAKER_01]: And both convictions had been thrown out, because prosecutors were allowed to present highly prejudicial claims that were never properly connected to the murders.
33:12.956 --> 33:16.117
[SPEAKER_01]: But the state still wasn't ready to let the case go.
33:16.798 --> 33:24.462
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, they prepared to try him for a third time, with another version of what they believed happened inside that garage.
33:26.329 --> 33:30.893
[SPEAKER_01]: At the beginning of the third trial, prosecutors introduced yet another possible motive.
33:31.353 --> 33:33.815
[SPEAKER_01]: Life insurance policies Kim had purchased.
33:34.395 --> 33:38.699
[SPEAKER_01]: And throughout everything, David remained in custody awaiting each new trial.
33:39.459 --> 33:45.664
[SPEAKER_01]: Even after both convictions were overturned, he was never released while prosecutors prepared to try him again.
33:46.645 --> 33:51.953
[SPEAKER_01]: Because of the massive media coverage, the third trial was moved to Boone County, Indiana.
33:52.714 --> 33:58.202
[SPEAKER_01]: And this time, the defense focused on what should have been at the center of the case from the beginning.
33:58.703 --> 33:59.845
[SPEAKER_01]: The forensic evidence.
34:01.328 --> 34:06.613
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, Rob Steitz, the man whose bloodstain opinion helped get David arrested.
34:07.454 --> 34:13.520
[SPEAKER_01]: During the third trial, Steitz admitted that he had previously given false testimony about his credentials.
34:14.301 --> 34:21.729
[SPEAKER_01]: Jurors now knew that the man behind the original bloodstained conclusion had never taken a bloodstain analysis course.
34:22.198 --> 34:25.381
[SPEAKER_01]: or processed a homicide scene before the cam murders.
34:26.222 --> 34:35.631
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, his conclusion that the blood on David's shirt was high velocity impact spatter had been treated as forensic fact from the very beginning.
34:37.258 --> 34:43.421
[SPEAKER_01]: Even 13 years later, qualified experts still couldn't agree about those eight tiny stains.
34:44.241 --> 34:48.103
[SPEAKER_01]: Prosecution experts continued to call them gunshots batter.
34:48.743 --> 34:52.705
[SPEAKER_01]: While defense experts said they were consistent with contact transfer.
34:53.401 --> 34:58.444
[SPEAKER_01]: likely from David brushing against Jill's blood-soaked hair while trying to reach Brad.
34:59.304 --> 35:02.886
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there was even more physical evidence pointing to Charles Boney.
35:04.187 --> 35:10.250
[SPEAKER_01]: Beyond the sweatshirt and palm print we've already discussed, the defense presented new touch DNA evidence.
35:11.150 --> 35:16.113
[SPEAKER_01]: A defense expert testified that profiles consistent with Boney were found
35:21.019 --> 35:25.103
[SPEAKER_01]: prosecutors challenged the reliability and meaning of those findings.
35:26.023 --> 35:32.009
[SPEAKER_01]: But the results directly contradicted Boni's claim that he never touched any of the victims.
35:33.150 --> 35:37.113
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot of DNA evidence for a guy who claimed to be innocent.
35:38.575 --> 35:44.340
[SPEAKER_01]: But the defense argued that investigators had done the same thing from the beginning, instead
35:47.297 --> 35:51.798
[SPEAKER_01]: They kept changing the theory to preserve their belief that David was guilty.
35:52.559 --> 35:58.040
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a very dangerous thing to do, especially when a person's entire life is on the line.
35:59.641 --> 36:03.602
[SPEAKER_01]: After hearing weeks of testimony, the case went to the jury.
36:04.382 --> 36:07.683
[SPEAKER_01]: And on October 24, 2013, after approximately 13 years behind bars,
36:16.845 --> 36:26.752
[SPEAKER_01]: By this point, he was 49 years old, and finally walking free after spending over a decade behind bars for a crime he didn't commit.
36:27.453 --> 36:31.596
[SPEAKER_01]: A case in which the forensic evidence had been misinterpreted from the very beginning.
36:33.135 --> 36:39.296
[SPEAKER_01]: David's attorneys described the verdict as complete vindication, but it could never erase the past.
36:39.976 --> 36:43.037
[SPEAKER_01]: An acquittal could never return the years he lost.
36:43.637 --> 36:46.717
[SPEAKER_01]: It also couldn't bring back Kim, Brad, and Jill.
36:48.558 --> 36:55.019
[SPEAKER_01]: Following the verdict, some of Kim's family members came out and said they still thought David was somehow involved.
36:55.779 --> 36:58.199
[SPEAKER_01]: And Charles Boney, who was separately convicted
37:03.572 --> 37:06.273
[SPEAKER_01]: Today David Cam's life looks much different.
37:06.933 --> 37:15.057
[SPEAKER_01]: He started working with investigating innocence, a national non-profit that provides criminal defense investigations for inmates.
37:15.823 --> 37:20.565
[SPEAKER_01]: He also became friends with a few people who served as jurors at his third trial.
37:21.766 --> 37:29.389
[SPEAKER_01]: He later filed civil lawsuits against the investigators, prosecutors, and agencies involved in his case.
37:30.090 --> 37:36.953
[SPEAKER_01]: And he eventually received more than $5 million through settlements with Floyd County and the State of Indiana.
37:38.371 --> 37:44.479
[SPEAKER_01]: Charles Boney remains convicted of murdering Kim, Brad and Jill, and is serving a 225-year prison sentence.
37:48.071 --> 37:51.213
[SPEAKER_01]: The David Cam case wasn't a case without physical evidence.
37:51.693 --> 37:53.594
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, there was evidence everywhere.
37:54.275 --> 38:00.618
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem was which evidence investigators chose to believe and which evidence they chose to ignore.
38:01.639 --> 38:07.002
[SPEAKER_01]: Eight tiny stains on David's t-shirt were treated as definitive proof that he fired the gun.
38:07.882 --> 38:14.326
[SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, a sweatshirt containing another man's DNA, prison nickname, an identifying information,
38:18.013 --> 38:21.516
[SPEAKER_01]: an unidentified palm print sat unmatched for years.
38:22.097 --> 38:30.605
[SPEAKER_01]: And an alibi supported by nearly a dozen witnesses was reshaped to fit a theory investigators had already decided was true.
38:31.266 --> 38:40.574
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, when one supposed motive was ruled unfairly prejudicial, prosecutors replaced it with another, even more inflammatory allegation.
38:41.375 --> 38:49.605
[SPEAKER_01]: And when Charles Boney was finally identified, investigators didn't step back and reconsider whether they had accused the wrong man.
38:50.386 --> 38:54.071
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, they expanded their theory to make room for him.
38:54.571 --> 38:57.234
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the real forensic lesson of this case.
38:57.995 --> 38:59.756
[SPEAKER_01]: Evidence doesn't speak for itself.
39:00.376 --> 39:05.718
[SPEAKER_01]: It has to be collected, tested, interpreted, and ultimately explained to a jury.
39:06.258 -->
39:09.179
[SPEAKER_01]: And every one of those steps involves human judgment.
39:09.839 --> 39:16.722
[SPEAKER_01]: Bloodstained pattern analysis can help reconstruct a crime, but it can't always provide one definitive answer.
39:17.522 --> 39:23.684
[SPEAKER_01]: In this case, experts examined the same eight stains and reached completely opposite conclusions.
39:24.532 --> 39:30.098
[SPEAKER_01]: What one person called gunshot spatter, another called contact transfer.
39:30.999 --> 39:39.769
[SPEAKER_01]: But investigators presented one interpretation as certainty, and that interpretation helped cost David 13 years of his life.
39:41.138 --> 39:47.342
[SPEAKER_01]: Once investigators decide they know what happened, every new discovery can be made to fit that story.
39:48.143 --> 39:51.805
[SPEAKER_01]: An alibi becomes a secret trip away from a basketball game.
39:52.406 --> 40:00.792
[SPEAKER_01]: Another man's DNA becomes evidence of an accomplice, and facts that should change the theory are instead forced into it.
40:01.572 --> 40:06.656
[SPEAKER_01]: David Cam lost his wife, his children, and 13 years of his freedom.
40:07.336 --> 40:16.080
[SPEAKER_01]: His case is a reminder that forensic evidence can help uncover the truth, but only when investigators are willing to follow it wherever it leads.
40:16.740 --> 40:23.843
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when protecting a theory becomes more important than questioning it, the search for justice can create another victim.
40:25.633 --> 40:30.417
[SPEAKER_01]: to share your thoughts on this week's story, follow forensic tales on social media.
40:31.037 --> 40:38.603
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you'd like to support this independent, one-woman podcast, you can join us on Patreon for as little as $3 a month.
40:39.324 --> 40:46.130
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40:46.770 --> 40:51.454
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40:52.115 --> 40:56.058
[SPEAKER_01]: You can learn more at patreon.com slash forensic tales.
40:58.100 --> 41:01.063
[SPEAKER_01]: Forensic tales is a Rockefeller audio production.
41:01.523 --> 41:05.026
[SPEAKER_01]: The show is written and produced by me, Courtney Fretwell.
41:05.947 --> 41:14.194
[SPEAKER_01]: If you'd like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.
41:15.178 --> 41:21.081
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41:21.682 --> 41:25.964
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41:26.764 --> 41:31.207
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41:31.727 --> 41:40.536
[SPEAKER_01]: Vicki, Aiden, and Emily H. And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review, really helps others discover it.
41:41.176 --> 41:46.121
[SPEAKER_01]: For a full list of sources used in this episode, visit forensictails.com.
41:46.541 --> 41:48.963
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next week.
41:49.524 --> 41:53.528
[SPEAKER_01]: Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.