Murder On Lockhart Road

Bizarre Twists And Evidence Keep Turning Case On Its Head

(CBS)  Boney’s attorney Patrick Renn, who is no relation to Kim’s family, argues his client had no idea why Camm wanted the gun. "Charles Boney sold a weapon to David Camm. He did it for financial gain. Period. He never asked David Camm what he was gonna do with the weapon," he says.

And while Renn says Boney was at the murder scene, he says his client is a witness, and not a co-conspirator.

"He hears an altercation," Renn says. "And then he hears the female voice say, 'No' and then there’s a shot and then he hears a young male voice saying 'Daddy' and then there’s a second shot."

And, according to Renn, Camm turned the gun on Boney and tried to kill him. But the way Boney tells it, the gun jammed, and he pursued Camm back into the garage.

"After tripping over the shoes, he picked up the shoes, placed those shoes on top of the Bronco and then looked inside the vehicle. Saw the children. Saw they had been killed and then he left," Renn says.

Camm insists Boney’s story is fiction. "He just makes this stuff up on the fly, trying to put things together, what he knows and what he doesn’t know to make it fit to give them what they want," he says.

The murder investigation would lead authorities from rural Indiana to the Carribean island of Trinidad and a young lady named Mala Singh Mattingly.

She was Boney's girlfriend at the time of the killings. Their "romance" was short, so Mala was surprised when the police came looking for her five years later, trying to match that unknown female DNA on Boney’s sweatshirt.

It turned out Boney still remembered her. "She would be the perfect, second perfect alibi," he told police.

Boney may have believed Mala would help his case, but he was very wrong. She tells Schlesinger she saw Boney leave on the night of the murder. "He told me he was going to help a buddy," she says.

Investigators say that "buddy" was David Camm.

At the time, Mala didn’t think much of it. But a few hours later, Boney came home and woke her. Asked to describe what he was like on his return, Mala says, "Excited trying to catch his breath and panting … I see the scrape on his knee."

She was still sleepy, but she says Boney insisted on showing her a gun. Detectives aren’t sure if Mala saw the murder weapon, which they have never found, but she is the only witness who will say she saw Boney night of the killing.

Boney and Camm would be tried for the same crime at the same time but on different sides of the state: Boney in New Albany, Camm 100 miles away in Boonville.

As the trial began, Boney’s attorney faced every defense attorney’s worst nightmare - a smorgasboard of forensic evidence, not to mention his client’s own words taped and written.

Prosecutor Henderson laid out a devastating case: Mala Singh Mattingly’s testimony about seeing Boney with a gun on the night of the murder, Boney’s DNA and palm print at the crime scene, topped off with his own words, including some he thought he could take back.

After agreeing to write a statement for the police, Boney apparently had second thoughts about a few lines and crossed them out.

Unfortunately for Boney, the prosecution had a powerful weapon: forensic document examiner Diane Tolliver. She has been uncovering hidden messages for 30 years.

Tolliver had low expectations for deciphering the crossed out words but using a high tech gizmo, called the Video Spectral Comparator 2000, she was able to reveal the message.

"The original text was 'David Camm asked me to follow him to a secluded area. He wanted to talk to me about something that could help me financially he said,'" Tolliver read.

It was very strong evidence, even though David Camm says it’s all a lie. "He was writing on the fly. He was making it up as he went along," he insists.

But Boney’s attorney believes the statement helps prove Boney’s claim that all he did was sell David Camm a gun.

It’s was a tough defense to sell to a jury. After three days of deliberations, jurors found Charles Boney guilty on all counts.