Chapter 1: What does freedom feel like for David Camm after his trials?
What does freedom feel like? It's amazing. It's hard not to find me with a smile on my face. It's just an overwhelming happiness that I can't and don't want to ever lose. eight weeks' worth of testimony, dozens of witnesses. This jury deliberated roughly 10 hours. We can only imagine the emotion that must have been going on. Off to the sidewalk, please.
David Kamm immediately erupted into tears when that verdict came down, a verdict they have waited 13 years for. Stay back. Stay back, please. Stay on the grass or you're not going to pass. David Kamm not guilty on all three counts of murder in this case. In some aspects, it's like I was never gone. With the exception of the fact that nieces and nephews and cousins are all grown.
You're taller than I thought you were. You're really tall. Seeing people I haven't seen in a long time. Giving them hugs and kisses is just a real joy. I want my babies back and I want my wife back.
Chapter 2: What were the key events leading up to David Camm's arrest?
You saw a body on the floor of the garage. Yeah. And I get down in her face and I'm yelling at her, Kim, Kim, Kim. In her eyes I could tell she was gone. And it just hit me. Where are the kids? Where are the kids? We're not going to get David Cam to ever tell the truth. This guy is a murderer. He killed his wife. He killed his two beautiful children.
My name is Charles Bonnet, and I'm linked to David Cam because I'm the individual that sold him the weapon that he used to kill his family. Did you know Charles Bonnet? Had you ever met him? No. Never laid eyes on him? No. So you think the prosecutor helped Charles Bonnet come up with the story? I know that the investigators helped Charles Bonnet to create a story.
The government hid evidence, lied to me about the evidence. The time the crime was wrong, elements of the crime scene were incorrectly portrayed, and David Cam gets arrested. How just was that? Justice is a very hard thing to define, and justice is a very hard thing to do.
It took three trials, two convictions overturned by the Court of Appeals before the truth finally came out and established David is totally innocent of the murder of his family. Charles Bonnet is the person that killed my family. He thinks he's won by being free. But really, we have unfinished business. He's a psychopath. He's a liar.
My assessment of the justice system, specifically in southern Indiana, is that at the trial court level, it's a disaster. These people that represent the state are incapable of doing the right thing. Oh, no. I have earned the right to have that opinion, Richard. I've earned that right. Good to see you. Richard Schlesinger. David Cam. Nice to meet you.
For 12 years, David Cam has been talking to 48 Hours about the one night when his life was forever changed. Get everybody out here to my house now! Okay. All right. My wife and my kids are dead! The way David Cam tells it, on September 28, 2000, he returned home from playing basketball and discovered a scene that is still hard to imagine, let alone look at.
His wife, Kim, was on the floor of the garage. Her pants had been removed. His five-year-old daughter, Jill, and his seven-year-old son, Bradley, were slumped inside the SUV. They had been shot dead with one bullet each, like an execution. It's Dave Cam. Let me talk to post command right now. Months earlier, Cam had quit the Indiana State Police to work at his family's business.
But within three days of the murders, his former colleagues, his buddies, concluded he was the killer and charged him with three counts of homicide. And from our first interview in 2002, as he was in jail awaiting trial, he has insisted he is innocent. What about Cam and Brad and Jim? And what about the son of a bitch that's out there that did this?
And what about the fact that I'm sitting in this jail? What about those questions? I want some answers. But Frank and Janice Wren, Kim's parents, Brad and Jill's grandparents, have all the answers they need. They know who killed their family. There's no way he's going to bring the kids back and my daughter back, no matter what they do to David. But he'll have to suffer.
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Chapter 3: How did Charles Bonnet become involved in the Camm case?
It's sheer stupidity on my part. I allowed myself to get caught in something that never should have happened. And, you know, I take full responsibility for that. It shows motive, exactly. Stan Faith was the lead prosecutor.
From a legal standpoint, we're showing what was going on in this man's mind prior, considerably prior to the murders, and how long it was developing and growing up into the hateful fruit that we saw on September 28th. I think that's utterly ridiculous.
When the medical examiner, Dr. Tracy Corey, thought she found signs that Jill had been molested within 24 hours of her death, prosecutors suggested that might have been a motive. The jury may believe that, yeah. I said, what are you talking about? So this is my five-year-old daughter, and I did not molest her, and I did not kill her.
David Cam had never been accused of molesting Jill, and he was never charged with it in this case. Cam's family, led by his uncle, Sam Lockhart, who was also one of those basketball players, never once doubted his innocence. He was arrested three days after the murders. How thorough of an investigation can you do in three days? I think once they got beyond the path of no turning back,
Now their egos become involved, and their political aspirations become involved. And as the Cam jury spends another night in the motel, they will be back in town. But the jury convicted Cam after deliberating for three days. They're wrong! You all know they're wrong! Cam was sentenced to 195 years for the murder of his family. 11 witnesses said he was at the basketball game. Guilty. Guilty.
But while this was the end of the trial, it was far from the end of this case. This is just a delay. We're not quitting. I want to find out who killed those kids and Kim. I want to find that out, Richard. And we're not going to quit until we do or we die. One key to this case was in front of everyone's eyes, right there, next to Bradley's body, a sweatshirt.
Prosecutors knew in 2002 that there was some mystery DNA on it, along with a cryptic name inside the collar, Backbone. But they never investigated. The killer left a calling card there. That's the biggest clue in the case. We need to find out who was wearing that shirt. What if it comes back David Cam was wearing that shirt? It's not David Cam's sweatshirt.
It took five years to find out, but David Cam was right. The sweatshirt belonged to this man, Charles Bonet, an ex-con with a nickname, Backbone. He is the person that killed my family. He's a psychopath. He's a liar. He is the guy that has hurt waves and waves and waves of people, people that I love and care about. Who is that? Charles Bonnet. Okay.
Charles Bonet is the man who turned this case upside down. He is, to be charitable, a man whose honesty can honestly be questioned. Never, ever encountered Mr. David Cam. That's what he said when he was first interviewed about this case. And this is what he said to us a few years later. I lied about not knowing David Cam in the very beginning. I lied about not being at the crime scene.
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Chapter 4: What evidence was presented against David Camm during the trials?
I wish it had come up. What must that have done to you when you learned all of this stuff that you could have had in your trial, in your case? I spoke harshly to Mr. Faith. Harshly? Yes, sir. What'd you say to Mr. Faith? I cursed him like a wet dog. Bonet could have been the answer to the prayers of Cam's first attorney, Mike McDaniel.
Bonet grew up around New Albany, and he soon started getting into trouble. His record includes armed robbery and a history of attacking women. He was just waving the gun at us, hollering. He terrorized Donna Ennis and her two roommates in 1992. Do you think that Charles Bonet was going to kill you that time? Yes. You thought you were going to die right there? Well, yeah, that night, yes. Yes.
And there is one other intriguing aspect of Bonet's criminal background. You know, quite honestly, for anyone who doesn't know the story, I have a foot fetish. In fact, at one point, he was known to the police as the shoe bandit. He would make off with the shoes of his victims. There's thousands of men that have foot fetishes or whatever. There's nothing unusual about that.
But in this case, Kim Cam was barefoot, and her shoes were placed neatly on top of her SUV in the midst of a messy crime scene. And that has always perplexed investigators. Is it logical to make a connection between someone with your interest in feet and shoes to this crime where strange things happen to feet and shoes? That would be a logical conclusion or situation, yes.
But it didn't happen that way. So what did happen? Bonet is now trying to sell the story that all he did was sell David Cam a gun. And Bonet swears that's the truth. I've learned you don't let the highs get too high. Otherwise, you know, you're going to fall off a cliff if you go too far in allowing yourself to presume that you're going to be victorious.
In 2005, things were looking up for David Cam. His convictions had been thrown out. He was out on bond, and Charles Bonnet had been tracked down. And then came word all charges against Cam had been dropped. David, how does it feel to be out from behind bars? Cam was technically a free man. It seemed too good to be true, and it was. I'm looking at the file as we speak.
Prosecutor Keith Henderson had to drop the old charges to file new charges against Cam and Bonet. I didn't want David Cam to flee. I got a guy that's convicted and sentenced to 195 years, a natural life sentence. So a little more than an hour after the charges were dropped, the police showed up to re-arrest David Cam. They informed me that I was being recharged with three counts of murder.
Just sick in my stomach, sick in my gut, heartbroken. In January 2006, Cam and Bonet went on trial, separately and simultaneously, but on opposite sides of the state for murder and conspiracy. After discovering Charles Bonnet, my belief now is that this was planned, you know, well in advance. But one of Cam's lawyers, Kitty Lyle, believed Bonnet would make all the difference in trial number two.
We can answer the question to the jury, if Dave Cam didn't do it, who did? Although a defendant never has the burden of proof, never has to prove they're innocent, the fact of the matter is jurors are human beings, they have natural questions, and they want that question answered. Cam says he never heard of Bonet, but Bonet says the two met on a basketball court a few weeks before the murders.
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Chapter 5: What was the significance of the blood evidence in the Camm case?
And were you ready to go through this again? Absolutely. He would have to wait three years in maximum security for trial number three. Do you have a dark curiosity? Heart Starts Pounding, Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries is a weekly podcast hosted by me, Kaylin Moore.
Each week, I'll take you on a dark journey through terrifying true urban legends, bizarre true crime cases, chilling tales of backwoods horror, and more. So if you're looking to join a passionate community of the darkly curious, check out Heart Starts Pounding on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay curious.
The third trial was based upon fact and evidence, and that's what trials are supposed to be about. That's what the courtroom is supposed to be about. For David Kam's third trial, he has a third new lawyer, Rick Kamen, who is convinced he's innocent. What kind of pressure does that put on you as a defense lawyer? Huge.
Kamen is joining Stacey Uljana, who helped defend Kam in his second trial and argued his second appeal. I wanted to make sure I was the person who stayed on the case, who got that opportunity to correct it. We're putting on the evidence as best we can. This time, the defense will be up against a special prosecutor, Stan Levko, who had to familiarize himself with a 13-year-long investigation.
How does this rate with the number of boxes, I guess, that you have on a normal case? Oh, this is, I personally never tried a case with this much. It was a familiar scene, but a different courthouse on August 22nd, 2013, this time just outside Indianapolis. Frank and Janice Wren, who lost their daughter and their grandchildren, have been in court for almost every day of every trial.
Your mind's spinning a lot, and my stomach turns sometimes on certain things, and I I guess I just wonder why is this happening, you know? David Cam's sister, Julie, came with their uncle, Sam Lockhart. They've been at Cam's side since day one. Emotionally, financially, physically, all those things just taking a toll, not only on me, but on our family.
Once again, the jury would hear about the 11 basketball players and the eight drops of blood. But this time, David Kam's lawyers had a different strategy and different experts. What the defense hoped would be a major turning point in this case came from here, a most unlikely spot, 10,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains at this DNA lab. So this is where you tested some of the evidence? Yes.
Scientists Richard and Selma Eichlenboom are originally from the Netherlands. In Holland we do truth-finding. We work for the courts. As they showed us in this demonstration, their specialty is locating what's called touch DNA, using a very sensitive technique to find skin cells. And this time they found DNA that would change everything. So you found Bonet's DNA on all the victims? Correct.
All over that crime scene? Correct. What does that tell you? That he was active on this crime scene. But Bonet says if his DNA is spread over the crime scene, David Cam put it there. David Cam and I shook hands, for example. Your DNA ended up all over that scene because you shook hands with David Cam. Well, once again, my DNA is not all over the scene.
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Chapter 6: How did David Camm's defense strategy change in his third trial?
This area right here would have been exposed. The defense brought in crime reconstructionist Eugene Lisio, who prepared a 3D demonstration to show how that is not possible. If Jill's here, what's stopping the blood? The actual vehicle itself. I believe those bloodstains came from transfer. It was a lot for the jury to consider.
Eight weeks of experts battling experts and witnesses contradicting each other. They deliberated 10 hours and then they delivered the words David Cam had waited 13 years to hear, not guilty. That beginning of not with the N, that was Extraordinary. The truth is going to prevail. But I had to hear three nots. You know, the first not wasn't in and of itself sufficient.
I wailed, I cried, I bent over, I stood up, I praised God, I thanked the jury over and over and over again. When I heard not guilty, my gosh, did I hear that right? What went wrong? What made this jury believe he's not guilty? And that was the question everybody was asking. I honestly believe that there wasn't one person that sat on that jury that won't remember this case for as long as we live.
You feel good about what you did? Yes. Yeah, we all did. In the weeks after David Cam was finally acquitted of killing his family, he began exorcising remnants of his 13-year nightmare by burning them, including his old prison uniform. His family taped it with our camera. Did you watch them burn? I did. And you thought what? Good riddance. It's over. It's gone. It was therapeutic.
You're smiling a lot more than you ever have in the time that I've known you. I told you, Richard, it's hard not to smile. It just really is. I'm just so thankful. Oh, honey, I can't believe it. I'm here. I'm here. After three trials, 12 jurors finally saw things Cam's way. We spoke to one juror who asked that we not use her name. It felt so badly for him.
I mean, here's a man who has been persecuted for 13 years for a crime I don't believe he committed. So you said persecuted. Persecuted. You meant to say persecuted. Yes, I meant to say persecuted. In this juror's mind, the state's case fell apart almost as soon as it began. I was put off by the third witness. She's talking about the state police crime scene investigator.
He stated that this looked like a Dave Cam crime scene before he ever stepped foot into the garage. We all felt that he definitely was looking for evidence to support the conclusion he'd already come to. And that's not the way you should investigate a case. That's just what Cam's lawyers argued.
They said all the state's investigators ignored evidence that showed Cam as innocent, especially when Charles Bonnet entered the picture. Defense attorney Stacey Uliana. When they got him in that interrogation room, they didn't say, you're a violent convicted felon who attacks women. You did this. Tell us what happened. They said, well, it's better to be a witness than actually a defendant.
Tell us what you saw. Give us David Cam. Tell us the connection. We don't think you shot anyone. They're not searching for a murderer. They're searching for evidence that David did it. Of course, Bonet is now the only man convicted in these murders, and he defends the state's case against David Kamm.
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Chapter 7: What new evidence emerged that implicated Charles Bonnet?
You wiped away at here. This really means something to you. Throughout all three trials, the faces and the memories of three innocent victims, Kim, Brad, and Jill Cam, were on the minds of everyone, David Cam's family and Kim's parents, Frank and Janice Wren, who still believe to this day that David Cam is guilty. I can't imagine what they'd be like today if they was alive.
Bradley would be 20 and Jill would be 18. I just remember it as, you know, five and seven year old kids. Tell me some of your favorite memories of Kim and of Brad and of Jill. Kim was the best thing that ever happened to me. She had extraordinary love for me. And I know that Kim knew that I loved her. You must replay scenes in your mind of happy moments with these kids.
Can you tell me some of those? I respect your position and the fact that you would want to ask that question, but it's all I got left, and I don't really want to share. You don't want to share the memories? They're mine. They've taken everything else from me, and I'm holding those for myself.