Murder Case Surveillance Video Taped Over With GUIDING LIGHT

Here's an interesting story from the Associated Press:

A panel investigating claims of innocence by two men who pleaded guilty to a murder learned Friday that four minutes of a videotape obtained as possible evidence have been recorded over with scenes from GUIDING LIGHT.

The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission is investigating the innocence claims of Kenneth Kagonyera and Robert Wilcoxsin, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Walter Bowman of Fairview. Bowman was killed during a home invasion in 2000. Two other men sentenced in the case have been released.

The Buncombe County Sheriff's Office obtained the videotape as possible evidence on Sept. 19, 2000, one day after Bowman's murder.

The commission learned that Detective George Sprinkle, who saw the video before it was recorded over, described it as showing three black males coming into the convenience store and gas station at 11:19 p.m. Sept. 18, the night of the murder. From 11:17 p.m. to 11:21 p.m., the tape is recorded over with scenes from GUIDING LIGHT.

“I'm not trying to attach a bad purpose either, but wow, this looks bad,” said Wayne County District Attorney Branson Vickory III, a commission member.

The 911 call about the home invasion came at 11:55 p.m., after the surveillance tape shows the three at the store.

The State Bureau of Investigation enhanced the videotape to show men coming into the store and walking back to the car, which an automobile expert said was a 1971 or 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass. It's the same type of car driven by Lacy Pickens, who was never charged in the case but was named in a Crimestoppers tip early in the investigation. A federal prisoner who confessed to the crime in 2003, Robert Rutherford, also named Pickens as another person who participated in the home invasion.

The chain of evidence for the videotape showed that Lt. John Elkins got the tape on Sept. 19, 2000, and that Sprinkle turned it over to an evidence custodian on Oct. 23, 2000, according to testimony before the commission. That's the same day the soap opera episode aired and the same day that investigators interviewed Shaun Bowman, the victim's son, who identified Kagonyera and Wilcoxsin as invading his home.

Both the current sheriff and Elkins said they weren't aware that the video had been recorded over but said that could have happened inadvertently, commission investigator Lindsey Guice Smith testified. Sprinkle said he didn't record over the video and that it would not have been recorded over inadvertently, Smith testified.