Events Prior to Fifth Interview

About an hour after the team of Gary Gilbert and Wayne Kessinger left Charles Boney late on the evening of March 4th at the Floyd County Jail, Gilbert officially arrested Boney on three counts of murder, possession of a firearm by a violent felon and for being a habitual offender. There was no conspiracy charge filed against him at that time.

On Saturday afternoon, March 5th, Kessinger and Gilbert met with Boney in the Floyd County Jail. According to Gilbert's report, they met Boney at 4:30PM and Boney told them that he had spoken with an attorney and had an hour meeting with her earlier that day. Gilbert noted in his report, "There were no questions asked of Boney." If there were no questions asked of Boney, then why was he contacted and what was he told?

What happened next was intriguing, to say the least. Gilbert's report reflected that he was called at home, on Sunday evening, March 6, 2005 at 6:30PM. The person making the call was ISP Detective Myron Wilkerson, a distant relative of Boney's mother. According to Gilbert, Wilkerson said that Boney "indicated that he was ready to talk."

This naturally begs the question of what Boney wanted to talk about and who initiated contact between Boney and the police. Was it Boney or was it the police? He had already given the authorities a story and had already incriminated David Camm. His story, after his last interview, however, was labeled as a "story of convenience" and a "crock of shit." Clearly, something was afoot that Sunday.

Gilbert, assigned to the Evansville Post, or approximately 100 miles from New Albany, travelled that Sunday evening and met with Wilkerson, Kessinger and Henderson. According to Gilbert's report, Wilkerson said that he had "spoken to Prosecutor Henderson" and further "had been approached earlier and asked if he thought that Charles Boney may feel more comfortable talking to a black officer. Wilkerson said that he will give it a try." Gilbert's report didn't identify the person who had approached Wilkerson (who is African-American), but one possibility was Henderson himself. Who else outside the police and prosecutors knew that Boney hadn't spoken to someone of his own race and who could contact Wilkerson for his help?

According to Wilkerson's later sworn testimony about how he was contacted and by whom, this was his recollection, "I'm just a little gray, and I'm sure I could come up with it, who contacted who, okay, but I know that I eventually ended up talking to Barbara (Boney's mother) before I talked to anyone." As to the whereabouts of their meeting, "I'm having a little trouble with the location, but I had an opportunity to speak with Mrs. Boney."

Boney's mother testified under oath at an October 31, 2005 hearing that it was Wilkerson who contacted her through her daughter, Jennifer, and that she didn't approach anyone, including Wilkerson, about speaking with her incarcerated son.

What was the purpose of Wilkerson wanting to speak with Boney? Barbara Boney recalled that Wilkerson met her and her daughter, Jennifer, in her house and that, "… in order to keep him from getting the death penalty, he thought either my daughter or myself should come down and ask my son about signing the conspiracy note." She then followed up that comment of Wilkerson's by adding the following, "because he said if he waited too long, Keith Henderson was not going to make any deals…now was his best time to do this if he wanted to save his life."

Based upon that information, Wilkerson and Henderson had a conversation prior to meeting Barbara and her daughter as well as Gilbert later that day.

Barbara Boney also testified that Wilkerson had told her some additional things about the attorney, Lisa Harris Thalman, whom Gilbert and Kessinger knew to have visited Boney on March 5th. According to Boney's mother, "he (Wilkerson) and Lisa Harris had a confrontation down here and he said that I really didn't need her, that she would be more trouble than she would be good to my son and that she was a black woman going to make a name for herself."

(Note: It's obviously very difficult to get a new (and better) story from an individual who is charged with serious crimes if that individual has legal representation. Boney's attorney would withdraw her representation as his attorney on Monday, March 7th, thus helping to clear the way for Wilkerson's interview later that day.)

Wilkerson asked Barbara to speak with her son on that Sunday, which was not a normal visiting day, but Barbara wasn't up to it physically or emotionally. Nonetheless, Boney's sister was also encouraged by Wilkerson to speak with her brother and she was later allowed to visit him in the jail. According to Jennifer, Wilkerson asked her to get Boney to confess to her. The following exchange then took place between defense attorney Liell and Jennifer in her Jennifer's later deposition under oath:

Liell: "I mean, you're supposed to go down to get Darnell to confess what?"

Jennifer: "Some type of involvement that he had with David Camm pertaining to this case."

Jennifer was also alarmed by Wilkerson with what her brother was facing in terms of punishment:

Liell: "Did Myron express to you or your mother or in front of you why it would behoove Darrell to confess his involvement?"

Jennifer: "The only thing he said was that the sentence might be lighter or he would avoid the death penalty."

Jennifer did as Wilkerson asked and told her brother later that Sunday that he was facing the death penalty and his reaction was, "He just looked at me, he just stared at me." She also visited her brother the next day and reinforced with him what he was facing and further that the police wanted him to confess his involvement with Camm.

(Note: Jennifer spoke with her brother twice prior to Wilkerson later interviewing him on March 7th. As noted, one of those visits included a Sunday visit when visitation wasn't allowed and on the other visit she was allowed a contact visit which was highly unusual; the public is allowed only visitation through glass windows. Days later, after Boney's final "confessional," Jennifer visited her brother and he told her that he thought that he might get out of prison and further that he was writing a book, hoping to make money and asked her to be the author so he could circumvent the "Son of Sam" laws denying criminals the ability to make money off of their crimes.)

That Sunday evening, March 6th, after Wilkerson called Gilbert and after Jennifer had spoken to her brother, Boney was approached by Wilkerson in the Floyd County Jail and Gilbert monitored the attempt by Wilkerson to get him to talk. Boney told him that he wanted to speak to his attorney. Boney then called his attorney (Harris) who advised him not to give a statement. Boney then refused to continue to speak with Wilkerson. Something apparently had gone awry and Boney obviously wasn't "ready to talk" as Wilkerson had reported to Gilbert.

During a pre-trial hearing for Boney on October 31, 2005, however, Wilkerson, under oath and answering questions from Steve Owen, said of Boney's being represented by an attorney, "I didn't know whether he had asserted it or the fact that this attorney had attempted to come forward. Like I said, I was very limited on my knowledge…" That representation by Wilkerson, however, doesn't square with Gilbert's report and it contradicts what Barbara claimed she was told by Boney about the motives behind attorney Harris representing Boney. Wilkerson himself, during his later interview with Boney, deemed attorney Harris as "no longer a diversion."

Wilkerson wrote a report on March 15, 2005, or eight days after his interview with Boney on March 7th and there was no mention of him meeting with Boney at the jail on March 6th and Boney calling his attorney in front of Wilkerson. Wilkerson, later under oath, responded to the question of ever having met Boney prior to March 7th:

Owen: "Had you ever met Mr. Boney prior to March the 7th, 2005?"

Wilkerson: "No, I had not."

Wilkerson's response is in direct contradiction to Gilbert's report where Gilbert himself actually monitored the meeting between Wilkerson and Boney on Sunday, March 6th.

The point of all of this is that it was obvious that the police had initiated the contact with Boney through his mother and sister and that the purpose of the contact was to get him to "sign a conspiracy note" about "the involvement that he had with David Camm."

One has to ask why the filing of conspiracy charges was so important to the prosecution. That question was answered on March 9th when Henderson filed new charges, including conspiracy to commit murder charges, against Camm and Boney. He then filed a motion to drop Camm's case in Warrick County which would enable him to move the "new" case back to Floyd County where it would remain for the next three months. Remain in Floyd County, that is, until the Indiana Supreme Court overturned Henderson, in a 5-0 ruling, sending Camm's case back to Warrick County.

After Wilkerson had met with Barbara and Jennifer, and after Jennifer had twice spoken with her brother, telling him that he was going to face the death penalty, Gilbert's report then reflected that he and Kessinger met with Wilkerson on Monday afternoon, March 7th and further that "Wilkerson had requested to speak to Boney, and Boney agreed to be interviewed."

You had to give the prosecutor and investigators credit. They were relentless in their attempts to get to interview Boney one more time, since they were still sitting on a "crock of shit" and a "story of convenience." Their purpose, as Barbara Boney said, was to get her son to sign a "conspiracy note."