Dateline has highlighted several cases of false incarceration where people have suffered in jail for crimes they have not done. However, this case will blow your mind as it raises alarming questions about the justice system. David Camm was wrongfully convicted not once but two times for murdering his wife and two children in 2000. David is a former Indiana State Police trooper and spent 13 years in prison, convicted twice during his trials all these years.
After a lot of trial and error, Charles Boney was sentenced to 225 years for killing David's wife and children. Read on to learn five harrowing details about the case, as explored in Dateline NBC.
Here are the 5 harrowing details about David Camm's wrongful conviction, as shown in Dateline
David's wife, Kimberly, and two children, Bradley and Jill, were murdered in their home in Georgetown, Indiana, on September 28, 2000. The police, when they arrived later in the day, found their bodies in the garage. The events that unfolded further are no less than a plot of a crime thriller movie. Here are the five harrowing details about the case, as shown in Dateline.
David had just returned from basketball practice when he saw his family dead
David came home from a game of basketball to discover his wife, Kimberly, and their two children, Jill and Bradley, shot and killed in their garage. Kim, who was on the floor, and Jill, sitting in the backseat of the car, were shot in the head. Seeing that Bradley had no injuries on his head, David thought his son might be alive. Taking him out of the car, he performed CPR on his son.
Misinterpretation of blood evidence
The authorities heavily relied on the results they got from analyzing the patterns of the bloodstains at the crime scene. Bradley's blood got on Camm's clothing while performing CPR, which confused the authorities, who believed David was at fault. The misinterpretation of the blood evidence led to David Camm being wrongfully accused of the murders of his wife and children. Later the experts questioned the method scientifically and disregarded it completely.
Camm’s trial and conviction
Camm was convicted first in 2002, largely based on the blood spatter evidence. He was sentenced to 195 years in prison. However, his conviction was appealed multiple times. During the 2nd trial, several women came forward and confessed to having an affair with him. he was also accused of molesting his daughter Jill as there was suggestion of forced trauma in her private part.
It was only in 2013 that the new DNA technology helped find the real culprit.
The DNA evidence
The grey sweatshirt with the 'Backbone' label was a crucial piece of evidence that was initially overlooked during the investigation, as it was lying at the extreme corner of the garage. A lab analyst from the police later discovered unidentified male DNA on the front of the shirt, and it was not Camm's. This DNA evidence in 2013 led to the acquittal of David in his third trial and brought forward Charles Boney into the picture. Backbone was Charles's nickname, who is an 11-time convicted criminal. His fingerprint also matched the prints the investigators got in the car in which the family was found dead.
Boney tried his best to evade the crime
Charles Boney came up with various theories to evade the crime scene. He said that he met Camm on the day of the murder at 7 pm to sell him a weapon, and he gave him the gun wrapped in the sweatshirt they had gotten from the crime scene. He also claimed he had three alibis, and one of them also testified at 7 pm during the day of the murder. Over 20 hours of interrogation spread out over several sessions, Boney's story shifted dramatically, and he finally admitted to the crime, as per the Dateline episode.
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Later, Camm got $4.6 million as a settlement; however, he says that "money cannot make up for personal loss," as per Dateline. The Dateline episode aired again on Oxygen on March 5, 2024.
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