It took 13 years and three trials for David Camm to be cleared of his family’s murders. His wife and two children had been shot to death at their home.

It started out like any other typical Thursday evening: A couple of hours playing basketball with friends followed by family time.

But on September 28, 2000, when 36-year-old former State Police trooper David Camm arrived home in Georgetown, Indiana at around 9:20 p.m., nothing was normal. 

His wife, Kim, 35, and their kids, Bradley, 7, and Jill, 5, had all been shot in the garage. Kim was lying half-dressed on the floor near a long stream of blood. She was dead. So was Jill, who, like her brother, was in the backseat of the family’s Ford Bronco.

Brad felt warm to his dad’s touch, so Camm pulled the boy from the car and tried, unsuccessfully, to revive him. 

Officials thus looked for a motive for Camm, seizing upon his past extramarital affairs and flirtations with women. Could Camm have wanted out of his roles as a husband and father so much that he killed his family?

Three days after finding his family shot to death in his garage, Camm was officially charged with their slayings.

Camm, 58, was convicted by two different juries in the shooting deaths of his wife, Kim, 35, and his children, Brad, 7, and Jill, 5, on Sept. 28, 2000, in the garage at their Georgetown, Indiana, home in Floyd County. Both times he won appeals that sent his case back for retrial. The jury at his third trial in 2013 acquitted him.

Camm has always maintained he was playing basketball at a church during the slayings. At least 11 witnesses corroborate his story, but prosecutors said Camm raced home, committed the crimes and returned.

The federal lawsuit alleged several investigators falsified evidence and relied on the opinion of unqualified experts. It named as defendants the lead Indiana State Police investigator in the case and two blood stain pattern analysis expert witnesses.

According to the lawsuit, a state police photographer who had never been to a fresh blood scene determined that the splatter on Camm’s shirt meant he was present when the shots were fired.

Camm was awarded $450,000 in a settlement with Floyd County in 2016. He also has received an undisclosed amount from insurance carriers for expert witnesses who testified against him.

Another man – Charles Boney – was arrested in 2005 and convicted of murder and conspiracy after DNA evidence linked him to the crime scene. Prosecutors maintained that Boney helped with the killings, but that Camm actually pulled the trigger.

Before his arrest in the slayings, Boney had a lengthy criminal record, including attacks on women, and had been represented by Faith in previous cases.

The Indiana Attorney General’s Office, which represented the state, did not respond to a request for comment.

Camm left the Indiana State Police about four months before the slayings.

The defense team seized the second chance to run the DNA found on the gray sweatshirt through CODIS again. This time they got a match. The genetic material belonged to Charles Boney, a convicted felon with a rap sheet for attacking women and stealing their shoes. He had been released from lockup a few months before the Camm slayings.

“He had a foot fetish,” Clutter told producers. The trait was significant because Kim Camm’s shoes had been removed and placed on the top of her car the night she was killed.

Boney also had a nickname: Backbone, which matched the name in the sweatshirt.

Boney changed his story about the gray sweatshirt, which he initially insisted he had donated to Salvation Army. He claimed that he knew David Camm and that the ex-trooper was the mastermind behind the homicides. Boney said he used the sweatshirt to wrap up a gun that he brought to Camm, according to “Framed By The Killer.” Boney added he heard three gunshots the night of the murders.

Camm was arrested again. He was charged with murder and, this time, conspiracy.  

After a trial that lasted around three weeks, Boney, 36, was found guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder on January 26. He was sentenced to 225 years in prison. 

Camm’s second trial began on January 17, 2006. Camm’s conspiracy charge was dropped, but he was once again found guilty of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole on March 29, 2006.

On October 24, 2013, more than 13 years after his family’s murder, Camm was finally acquitted of murder. He eventually won a civil settlement of $450K, the Courier Journal reported in 2016.