John Glatt - One Deadly Night: A State Trooper, Triple Homicide, and a Search for Justice

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The book you are about to read is the latest bestseller from the St. Martins True Crime Library, the imprint the New York Times calls the leader in true crime! Each month, we offer you a fascinating account of the latest, most sensational crime that has captured the national attention. St. Martins is the publisher of bestselling true crime author and crime journalist Kieran Crowley, who explores the dark, deadly links between a prominent Manhattan surgeon and the disappearance of his wife fifteen years earlier in THE SURGEONS WIFE. Carlton Smiths COLD-BLOODED details the death of a respected attorneyand the secret, sordid life of his wife. In Edgar Award-nominated DARK DREAMS, legendary FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood and bestselling crime author Stephen G. Michaud shine light on the inner workings of Americas most violent and depraved murderers. In the book you now hold, ONE DEADLY NIGHT, veteran true crime author John Glatt details the murder of an Indiana familywas the father guilty?

St. Martins True Crime Library gives you the stories behind the headlines. Our authors take you right to the scene of the crime and into the minds of the most notorious murderers to show you what really makes them tick. St. Martins True Crime Library paperbacks are better than the most terrifying thriller, because its all true! The next time you want a crackling good read, make sure its got the St. Martins True Crime Library logo on the spineyoull be up all night!

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St. Martins True Crime Library Titles
by John Glatt

For I Have Sinned

Evil Twins

Cradle of Death

Blind Passion

Depraved

Cries in the Desert

Twisted

Deadly American Beauty

One Deadly Night

Never Leave Me

Forgive Me, Father

A State Trooper, Triple Homicide,
and a Search for Justice

By John Glatt

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this stripped book.

For Chiquita from Split

ONE DEADLY NIGHT

Copyright 2005 by John Glatt.

Cover photo credit: the Camm Family.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

ISBN: 0-312-99309-9
EAN: 80312-99309-2

Printed in the United States of America

St. Martins Paperbacks edition / May 2005

St. Martins Paperbacks are published by St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

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The long, labyrinthine saga of whether ex-Indiana State Trooper David Camm did or did not kill his wife, Kim, and two young children, Jill and Brad, is anything but a clear-cut case. In Summer 2004two-and-a-half years after a jury found him guilty of their murdersthe Indiana Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the verdict, declaring much of the evidence used against him inadmissible. The three appeals judges ruled that although the handsome former policeman may have been a serial adulterer that did not make him a killer.

In March 2005, while Camm was out on bail awaiting his second trial and his family members continued their fight to clear his name, an ex-con named Charles Boney was arrested and charged with Kim, Brad and Jills murder. More than four years after the murders, investigators finally discovered that some mysterious DNA found on a sweatshirt at the scene was Boneys.

Now prosecutors plan to try David Camm and Boney together as co-conspirators.

At his first trial Camms uncle and employer Sam Lock-hart, as well as ten other witnesses testified under oath he could not have committed the murders, as he was playing basketball with them at the time. It appeared to be the perfect alibi but a prosecution blood spatter expert found eight microscopic drops of his daughter Jills blood on his shirt, helping to persuade a jury he was guilty.

Out of the eight true crime books I have written this was undoubtedly the most challenging one. Is David Camm guilty of one of the most horrible crimes imaginable, or is he an innocent man wrongfully convicted by overzealous detectives and prosecutors after having made the horrifying discovery that his wife and children had been murdered? As events unfold, this seems more of a real possibility than ever.

But one things for certainKimberly Camm, her seven-year-old son, Brad, and daughter, Jill, aged five, are all dead and someone is responsible.

I am indebted to the Lockhart and Camm families for their help and generosity, during my stay in New Albany in March 2004. I spent many hours with David Camms brother Donnie, his sister, Julie, and their parents, Susie and Don, who shone some light into his troubled life. I would also like to thank his uncle Sam Lockhart and aunts Phyllis Rhodes and Debbie TerVree for their help and insight. Unfortunately, despite repeated attempts to interview Kims parents, Frank and Janice Renn, and her sister, Debbie Karem, they declined, saying they were too upset to reopen old wounds.

I also met with Sean Clemons at ISP Post 45, but under strict orders from his superiors he declined from discussing his former boyhood friend David Camm.

My thanks also go to Floyd County Prosecutor Stan Faith, with whom I shared a memorable lunch at his club in Louisville, Kentucky, and Sheriff Randy Hubbard, whose insight into Davids character was invaluable. Much gratitude also goes to Mat Herron of Snitch, whose unique and colorful coverage of the nine-week trial was exemplary.

As always I would like to thank my longtime editor at St. Martins Press, Charles Spicer and his excellent team of Joseph Cleemann and Michael Homler. Also my literary lion of an agent, Peter Miller and his staff, Julie, Scott and Lisa for all their help.

Thanks also goes to: Gail, Jerry and Emily Freund, Debbie, Doug and Taylor Baldwin, Walter Nonnsen and Charlotte, Annette Witheridge, Jerry, Edie, Joanne and Stan at the Belleayre Plaza, Pine Hill, New York, Roger, Daphna and Lianna Hitts, Don, Doug and Bernie MacLeod, Doc and Gotham Gayley.

Perched on his commode in a tiny six-by-eight-foot jail cell, David Camm stared down a fly on the ceiling. Then, slowly aiming his catapult, he fired, dispatching a soggy paper missile to score a bulls-eye. And as the fly fell dead to the ground, he raised his shackled wrists and gave himself a celebrative high-five.

In better days the former highly decorated Indiana State Trooper and expert marksman had been an avid deer hunter. But now, chained up in solitary confinement in a southern Indiana maximum security jail, David Ray Camm had invented a sport he called pretend hunting. In place of a bow and arrow he used a rubber band, with chewed-over candy wrappers as ammunition.

So far on this cool mid-March morning in 2004, the boyish-looking, muscular six-foot-tall ex-policeman had killed three flies. It was a new record and he had triumphantly asked his father to mount their bodies on a plaque as a trophy.