A detective’s sleight of hand

Detective Scott Smith was the lead detective in the Pembroke triple homicide. He spent over two years trying to solve the crime. Everything about the crime pointed to more than one individual being involved. But Smith couldn’t find any connections between his prime suspect and any other person. He had no DNA. He had no fingerprints. No hair. Not even a ballistics match with the bullets. He had no case.

But that didn’t stop Lt. Smith from fabricating one. The first step in the process was to give false grand jury testimony claiming that Kit Martin’s phone was at both crime scenes. He then gave additional false testimony stating that one of the victim’s phones and the defendant’s phone were traveling together at the same time. Despite his testimony being proved false, Judge Atkins allowed the case to move forward.

Anyone familiar with the case knows that the three murders occurred at different times of the day. Calvin Phillips was murdered in the morning before 10:50 am. His wife, Pam Phillips, and neighbor Ed Dansereau were murdered sometime between 5:30 pm to 6:00 pm on November 18, 2015.

As it turns out, Kit had security camera footage that proved he could not have committed the crime. The only way into and out of the house was through the back door. The front door was jammed shut. It could only be opened if you applied a lot of force and effort, but that would make so much noise that anyone in the house could hear it. No one in the house ever used the front door.

Knowing this, Detective Smith scrutinized Kit’s security footage. Nothing on the security footage showed Kit leaving the house during the times of any of the murders. So, they left the idea of Kit using the front door as the most likely scenario.

In an effort to prove that Kit had other means of entering and leaving the house, Detective Smith, with the help of Assitant Prosecutor Barbara Whaley, set up an elaborate sleight of hand. They had security footage showing Kit entering his house at 4:17 pm. A few clips later, Smith shows a clip of Kit entering the house from the backyard some three hours later. Wait a second. Where is the clip showing him going into the backyard? That is very suspicious. The mysterious missing clip leaves plenty of time for Kit to commit two additional murders across the street.

Here’s the problem with how they presented this evidence. Detective Smith, with the help of prosecutor Barbara Whaley, deliberately tried to create suspicion where none existed. They had security footage from a different camera showing Kit entering the backyard through a side door a few minutes before the clip showing him entering the house from the backyard. They chose to not show it. It didn’t help their case.

There’s more to the story. They did the same thing a few clips later showing Kit leaving the house through the back porch and walking towards South Main. They never showed him returning. There is a four-plus hour-long gap before you see Kit again. That was plenty of time to go across the street, clean up the crime scene, and place two bodies into Pam’s car.

It wouldn’t be for another six days before Smith’s deception would be uncovered in front of the jurors. His excuse was that there were many hours of video and he didn’t go through all of it. He only went through the video from one camera. You decide for yourself.