Police/Defense Investigation

At the end of it all, Charles Darnell Boney was labeled a liar. That description came from the police investigators who helped secure his many different stories subsequent to his DNA being identified on the "BACKBONE" sweatshirt and also from the prosecutors.

Over the course of almost three weeks, Boney was interviewed by the Indiana State Police Detectives and a Floyd County Prosecutor Investigator a total of at least six times, was polygraphed once, personally interviewed by the defense investigator on one occasion and gave multiple interviews to the media. (He also met and spoke with the authorities on several more occasions, but there was no written or recorded record of those contacts.)

During those multiple interviews and interrogations, Boney's story about how his sweatshirt arrived at the scene and his involvement changed until he finally gave the police and prosecutors what was later deemed the "prize" by Boney's own defense attorney. And what was the "prize?" David Camm.

Although Boney's story changed repeatedly throughout the process, one thing didn't change and that was he always minimized his involvement. In the end, Boney, the kidnapper, armed robber, and assaulter of women, claimed that he, too, was a victim of David Camm.

Although Boney was proclaimed a liar by all of those involved in the investigation and prosecution of David Camm, they claimed that he told the truth about David Camm.

What follows is a reporting and analysis of the many hours of the known reports regarding Boney's interviews and interrogations. In order to adequately determine Boney's credibility, and indeed his final claim that he was present when David Camm shot and killed his family, it is necessary to understand when his tales were weaved, what he was told, and how he responded to the choice of either being a witness against David Camm or a man facing the death penalty himself.

Boney's stories, as with any story, particularly a story from a person who initially claimed that he merely provided the gun for three murders and who ultimately claimed that he was only an eyewitness to those murders, should also require substantial corroboration. In view of the fact that David Camm was charged with conspiracy to commit murder (that charge was later tossed out by Camm's trial judge based on the State providing no evidence to support the charge) only after Boney weaved his ever-changing and improbable tales, there should be substantial corroboration.