"Backbone" Sweatshirt

Partially lying underneath the body of Bradley Camm was a grey sweatshirt unnoticed by Dave Camm as he was laying his son on the garage floor before he gave him CPR. That sweatshirt was also either not noticed or ignored by most of the police personnel at the crime scene. It was only the next day that it was obtained and placed into evidence at the Kentucky Medical Examiner's office after it was placed with Brad in his body bag the night before.

The sweatshirt grew in importance in the days before Dave's arrest with Detective Mickey Neal, in Dave's interview on October 1, 2000 falsely claiming that all of the other basketball players had been interviewed and had stated that Dave was wearing a grey sweatshirt at the ball game. Neal even claimed that the basketball players weren't lying. The detective was the only one lying, of course, about all of the players having been interviewed and the alleged sweatshirt comments made by them.

The police and prosecution, rather than trying to determine the origination of the grey sweatshirt which clearly bore a handwritten black ink inscription of BACKBONE in the inside rear collar, instead repeatedly tried to link the sweatshirt to David Camm.

(Note: The police didn't check the Indiana Department of Corrections for any inmates with the moniker or nickname of BACKBONE. Had they done so, they would have discovered that the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana kept such a list of nicknames and that BACKBONE was the nickname used by Charles Darnell Boney.)

The ISP laboratory subsequently tested the sweatshirt for DNA and discovered that 11 areas tested presumptively positive for blood, including Kim's blood in multiple areas on the left sleeve and multiple areas of Brad's blood on the front of the sweatshirt. Additionally, unknown female blood was discovered on the front of the sweatshirt.

Of perhaps greatest significance, however, was the fact that there were also areas where blood from Brad, Kim, and the unknown female were mixed.

(Note: The unknown female blood was matched, over four years later, to that of Charles Boney's girlfriend, Mala Singh.)

The original defense team, headed by Michael McDaniel, subsequently sent the garment to an independent and highly regarded certified private laboratory which has been used by many different police agencies. The results, obtained in October, 2001 revealed that there was unknown male cellular DNA which was discovered in the collar of the sweatshirt, indicating that the donor of the DNA had recently worn the sweatshirt.

In a subsequent affidavit, McDaniel swore under oath that the DNA profile was provided by him to prosecutor Faith but that Faith told him that there was no match with CODIS, which is the database run by the FBI which contains the DNA profiles of serious, violent offenders (see FAQ re DNA,"BACKBONE" sweatshirt and 'BACKBONE" sweatshirt in Fresh Eyes Investigation).

During the initial investigation Detective Clemons, after not being able to link the sweatshirt with Dave, asserted that it was merely an "artifact" and that it wasn't pertinent to the investigation.

Clemons also later asserted that he wasn't even sure that BACKBONE spelled BACKBONE. He claimed that he thought that it might even spell RACKONE. Investigator Clemons didn't reveal how he thought that BACKBONE, which contained eight letters, might be the same as RACKONE, which contained seven letters.