Does A Cheater A Killer Make? State Trooper David Camm and The Murder of His Wife and Children

Most women love a man in uniform, which no doubt explains why policeman, fireman, and soldiers are the top professions in statistics on adultery.

No, not all of the men in these professions cheat but too many of them can’t resist the flirtations of the women to whom the uniform and wedding ring is the ultimate turn-on.

Everyday in America, men who have sworn to protect and serve find themselves in a sea of aggressive gals who make their wedding vows secondary thoughts. While some men begin their profession with good intentions of making the world a safer place, others apply for the jobs with the easy seduction of women being the job’s biggest benefit.

But when the wife and/or children of one of these uniformed men end up brutally murdered, suddenly those indiscretions become motive for murder. Such is the case of Indiana State Trooper David Ray Camm.

The Beginning of the End

When Kimberly Star Renn married David Camm in May 1989, she believed she was marrying the man of her dreams, the man she would grow old with.

And he was. Until the summer of 1992.

It was early in 1992 when David met Stephanie McCarty, a young woman who worked at the Fitness Zone health club where he was a member. The relationship remained platonic, even through the birth of Kim and David’s son, Bradley Ray Camm, in 1993, until the summer of 1994.

After Stephanie broke up with her boyfriend, David wasted no time making his move. David never attempted to hide his affair with Stephanie, taking her out to dinner and nightclubs, even to NASCAR races, while Kim was home taking care of their infant son, believing her husband was working.

When Kim announced she was pregnant again, Stephanie told David the relationship was over but it didn’t last, and soon the lovebirds were back to sneaking around.

This go ’round, however, Kim suspected her husband was being unfaithful and questioned him about it. David, who had decided he wanted out of the marriage, confessed his sins and told his five-months pregnant wife that he wanted a divorce because he was in love with his mistress.

Kim was, understandably, devastated. That same night she packed up her and baby Bradley’s things and went to her parents home. By the next morning, however, anger had set in and she returned to their Edwardsville, Indiana, home and told David to get out.

If only Kim had never gone back…

Forgiving and Forgetting

When David Camm learned his mother wouldn’t allow him to move into her home during the divorce, he went berserk and began destroying the kitchen in the Camm home. His own mother, hearing the insanity over through the telephone, called for help from his fellow troopers who helped keep David’s “incident” under wraps.

The marriage was over, and David and Kim each got their own apartments. Although Stephanie was officially a renter on a lease with a friend, she was, for all intents and purposes, living with David.

David’s family was disgusted with him while remaining supportive of Kim. When Kim gave birth to David’s daughter, Jill Camm, on February 28, 1995, her parents and her in-laws were there but David was not.

The affair between David and Stephanie would come to an end in March after Stephanie agreed to meet with her ex-boyfriend to discuss how they could continue to work together at the gym, despite her affair with David. David, who was obviously watching Stephanie’s every move, was outraged when the meeting went longer than he believed it should and called Stephanie home. When she arrived, David pulled his 9mm service revolver from his jacket and threatened to kill himself. After Stephanie talked him “off the ledge,” she told him it was over, gathered up her things, and left the apartment.

Within just a few hours, David called Kim and said he wanted to talk about a reconciliation. Being that Kim still loved David and was now the mother to two of David’s children, it didn’t take much for David to talk his way back into Kim’s heart. Both her family and David’s was surprised that Kim had so readily taken David back, but vowed to support her in her decision.

But as Kim and David would start anew, even building their dream home, David’s desire for “greener pastures” would rear its ugly head once again.

History Repeats Itself

When David and Kim moved into the new home at 7534 Lockhart Road in Georgetown, Indiana, it felt like a new beginning. She was very proud of her new home, but she was more pleased with David and how he had really seemed to change. He was spending so much more time with Brad and Jill; that is, when his work hours permitted it.

But if anyone took a closer look, they’d find that David, while presenting himself as a devoted husband and wife, had returned to lying about his work hours and was chasing anything in a skirt.

In June 1997, David was seeing an old friend, Michelle Voyles. It wasn’t so much dating as it was meeting for sexual escapades in the back of David’s cruiser. But before that relationship was even over, after Michelle learned her “friend with benefits” was married, David was pursuing Lisa Korfhage, who, along with her fireman fiancé, was friends with the Camms.

That relationship petered itself out, however, after Lisa married Peter Carter, but it did little to slow David down nor did a couple of women who refused him. David got angry, threw a temper tantrum when they declined to have sex with him, but he kept right on moving to the next one.

In the meantime, David’s career was on a downwards slope following several complaints about the trooper and his involvement in a high-profile lawsuit wherein a nineteen-year-old claimed he was assaulted by David and two other troopers during an arrest. The state investigation into the allegations had cleared David of wrongdoing, but his superior told him he was being assigned to casino duty. David fought against being assigned to the Caesar’s Riverboat Casino, which he saw as a demotion.

His career in decline, David threw caution to the wind and in September 1999, he bedded the wife of a friend and former state trooper in the backseat of a car being driver by one of David’s fellow troopers.

Next, David tried to strike up a relationship with twenty-nine-year old Tammy Rogers, who was in the process of divorcing her husband. The two talked for several weeks but then Tammy decided she no longer desired a relationship with David and left him a message instructing him to never call her again.

Realizing that he was probably going to be forced into the working the Riverboat, David decided to go to work for his uncle full time in a sales position. He turned in his notice with the Indiana State Police, but had about three months that he was required to complete before his contract was finished.

During one of his last shifts as a trooper, David came to the rescue of Emily Sheperd, a beautiful exotic dancer at PT’s Show Club in Louisville, Kentucky, who was parked on the side of the interstate because her car hood kept coming open and blocking her view. David fixed the problem for the dancer then he invited her back to his patrol car and soon began trying to seduce her. Although they kissed and did some heavy petting above the waist, that was as far as Emily was willing to go after David made the odd comment, “I feel like I’m doing this with my daughter.”

With his career as a cop behind him, David’s days at United Dynamics, Inc., seemed to curb his extramarital activities.

It had been six years since David had left Kim for his mistress Stephanie and everything seemed to be going okay. David had a better paying job, the Camms had a beautiful home, and Kim was making good money as a corporate accountant.

Yes, indeed, everything on the surface seemed fine. Perfect, as David would later describe it.

If only.

A Horrific Discovery

There was trouble brewing in the Camm home. Big, big trouble.

Recently Jill had been complaining of pain in her vaginal area. Kim was aware of it, a couple of mothers of Jill’s dance classmates had witnessed Jill’s crying and complaints, and Jill had complained to her maternal grandmother.

In the last conversation Kim would have with her lifelong friend Marcy McLeod, Kim told her friend, “History is repeating itself,” but was never in a position to explain further. Marcy had invited her friend to come visit her in Florida. Kim said she thought that was a great idea and said she would explain everything then. Marcy later said she found it odd Kim was willing to take the kids out of school for a week to come to Florida and she felt things must be pretty bad between Kim and David for her to agree to such.

Unfortunately, Kim would never have the chance to elaborate on her troubles with her friend.

On the night of September 28, 2000, Kim picked up her children from their activities and headed home. Upon arrival, at approximately 7:35 p.m., according to the testimony of a neighbor, Kim pulled her car into the garage but before she could enter the house, she was shot in the head. The killer then turned to Brad who, having witnessed the attack on his mother, had unbuckled his seatbelt and was trying to escape into the rear storage area of the SUV when he was shot. Lastly, Jill, now having been witness to the attack on her mother and brother, remained strapped in but was covering her little eyes in an effort to, as only a young mind can do, black out the horrific images and did not see the bullet that would claim her life.

Around 9:45 p.m., after playing basketball with friends and family at the Georgetown Community Church, David Camm returned home to find his slaughtered family and frantically called called for help; oddly from a distant agency. His former co-workers and other emergency personnel rushed to the scene and there they found a distraught David standing in the driveway.

Was the man standing in the driveway – the man who had cheated so frequently and so brazenly on his wife, the man who was a former state trooper sworn to protect and serve – a victim of a violent crime? Or was he a perpetrator with superb acting skills?

Piecing Together The Puzzle

The first thing detectives realized is that this was no robbery gone wrong. There were no attempts to enter the house. The shots fired had been concise and very much intended for their targets; in other words, the shots weren’t frenzied. Whoever the killer was, it was his (or her) intent for Kim, Brad, and Jill to die.

An autopsy performed the next day confirmed what investigators already expected: all three had been killed by gunfire. But what they hadn’t expected the autopsy to reveal was Jill had recently been forcibly held down and sexually abused within 24 hours of her death.

Two days later, David called former co-worker and friend Shelly Romero threatening to commit suicide. It was ironic that this day was also the day David’s former mistress Stephanie was getting married. David had called Stephanie to congratulate her on her upcoming nuptials when he’d learned she was engaged but she would later say that he was very formal and didn’t sound sincere; not necessarily insincere either, just cold.

Detectives were well aware of David’s numerous affairs, the stories of his skirt-chasing was a common topic among officers within the jurisdiction. Now these indiscretions were a matter of the investigation as weighted as evidence for motive.

There was also the recent substantial increases in the couples’ life insurance policies. Kim was aware of the increases, had even signed for them. But considering the ink was hardly dry before the murders, this too was something to be taken into consideration during the investigation.

Investigators had taken David’s clothing on the night of the murders and now they asked if he would be willing to submit DNA for a suspect kit so that he could be eliminated as the killer. At the request, David became very irate, but did later agree to submit only after declaring, “If that expert puts me in jail, I’m going to come back and kill you two!”

“That expert” would note a mop bucket with a strong odor of bleach at the crime scene. However, he would later have to admit that he was mistaken about dried white spots on the garage when he had declared them to be bleach.

A set of unidentified fingerprints were found on the exterior of Kim’s Ford Bronco but since she parked in a public parking area each day at work, investigators dismissed them.

When investigators arrived at the scene, Kim’s shoes were on top of the Ford Bronco. Detectives wondered why a killer, even a hired hitman, would take time to remove Kim’s shoes. They concluded that either Kim had driven home with her shoes off and had exited the vehicle and placed them on the roof or this was a very personal act in the course of murder.

And then there was David’s clothing. A fine mist, so fine it was invisible to the naked eye, of Jill’s blood was found on her father’s sweatshirt. The recovery of a shirt bearing the name “backbone” was also recovered, but David denied any knowledge of how the shirt came to be in his home.

A few things aside, David was looking very much like he was the murderer of his family, but what about those eleven witnesses who claimed that David was playing basketball with them on the evening and at the time of the murders?

Round 1

Three days after he had discovered the murders of his wife and children, David Camm was arrested.

All of the foregoing evidence was what the prosecutor was relying on for a conviction. David’s defense team, however, felt strong about an acquital with their client’s eleven alibis.

Prosecutors, however, were prepared to argue that David had slipped out of the basketball game unnoticed, returned to his home, made a phone call, then killed his wife and children – Verizon phone records would prove such. But when the defense was able to prove that Verizon’s records were an hour ahead of the actual time the call was made, it would seem that the case, for the most part, against David was crumbling.

Regardless, the prosecution pressed forward, believing that they had the right man. After nine weeks of testimony and twenty nine hours of grueling deliberations, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all three counts just after midnight on Monday, March 18, 2002. The following month David was sentenced to a total of 195 years in prison.

But if anyone thought that the was the last they’d heard of David Camm, they were sadly mistaken.

Round 2

On Tuesday, August 10, 2004, the Indiana Court of Appeal reversed David’s convictions on the grounds that his extramarital affairs should not have been allowed as evidence.

But before an official date could be set for David’s second trial, a man named Charles D. Boney was arrested after DNA from the “backbone” sweatshirt resulted in a hit from the national DNA database which is made up of samples from, among others, prison inmates.

At first, Boney denied any knowledge about the murders of Kim Camm and her children. But after a few hours of interrogation, he finally admitted he had met David during a basketball game in June 2000. After they had gotten to know each other and David became aware of his criminal past, he said David asked Boney if he could get him a “clean gun.”

Boney went on to say that he was inside the Camm home on the night of the murders. When David went into the garage and shot his wife and children, Boney said he rushed outside which is how his fingerprints were left on Kim’s SUV. He was also responsible, he said, for taking Kim’s shoes off and placing them on top of the vehicle.

It was then, with a little research, investigators learned Boney had been arrested in 1989 for attacking several young women for the sole purpose of stealing their shoes. During questioning about the Camm murders, Boney would claim these were just fraternity pranks and nothing more.

David Camm and his family thought Boney’s arrest would finally be the exoneration they had been seeking. With Boney’s history, how could investigators believe his story about David being involved?

But, indeed they did. After Boney’s arrest, prosecutors dropped the charges of murder against David and refiled them with an additional charge for conspiracy.

In 2006, Boney was convicted on three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to 225 years in prison.

Later that year, following a second trial (first on the new charges), David was again found guilty of the murders of his wife and children and of conspiracy. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Round 3, Coming Soon

On June 26, 2009, the Indiana Supreme Court overturned David’s conviction saying prosecutors should not have allowed testimony that David molested his daughter without evidence to back up the claims. Additionally, the justices said that testimony of one of Kim’s friends who said Kim was expecting David home between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. was hearsay and should not have been permitted in testimony.

In November 2011, the Indiana Court of Appeal ordered prosecutor Keith Henderson to remove himself for David’s third trial which is expected to begin in August 2013.

The latest information says David Camm is incarcerated at the Wabash Correctional Facility, however a search of Indiana Department of Corrections inmates database returns no results for David nor any information about his being released on bond pending a new trial or a dismissal be found.

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Last updated by Kim Cantrell on June 30, 2012.