Laura Glesby Photo
Carmon's attorney, David Keenan, in court.
“No one was with me — Adam Carmen — Adam Carmen.“
To Adam Carmon’s lawyers, the first dash of that line in a police interview transcript is not just a punctuation mark: It suggests that police manipulated statements connecting Carmon to the gun used to murder baby Danielle Monique Taft.
An analysis of that dash — and a separate discussion about a click heard on a tape recording — took place in Courtroom 5A of the Church Street courthouse as a civil trial continues, in which Carmon’s attorney try to convince a judge to give him a new trial.
The lawyers argued that the dash offered one possible answer to the question of why a key witness switched his story within the span of nine words.
Carmon has served 28 years of an 85-year prison sentence for killing 7‑month-old Danielle and paralyzing the baby’s grandmother, Charlene Troutman, in their 810 Orchard St. living room on February 4, 1994. Carmon has maintained his innocence for the notorious murder throughout his decades in prison. With a new team of lawyers, he’s arguing his fourth habeas petition, a civil case against the State of Connecticut that could garner him a new trial if he finally succeeds.
Police began investigating Carmon for the Taft murder after questioning a victim of a separate shooting. That victim, Anthony Stevenson, told police that he and Carmon had attempted an armed robbery of people involved in a drug transaction in Dixwell on February 7, 1994. In the middle of the robbery, however, one of the targets fired shots at Stevenson, injuring him in the hand and groin.
Detective Leroy Dease questioned Stevenson about the shooting. on Feb. 10, 1994.
“Mr. Stevenson, when you got shot can you tell me who was with you?” Dease asked.
That’s when Stevenson replied, “No one was with me — Adam Carmen [sic] — Adam Carmen,” as written in a transcript of the interview.
There’s no surviving audio recording of Dease’s interview with Stevenson, who had been a classmate of Carmon at Hillhouse High School.
In a courtroom nearly 30 years later, Carmon’s lead attorney, David Keenan, Thursday questioned a supervising detective on the case who has since retired, Michael Sweeney, about this moment in the interview.
Keenan noted, and Sweeney agreed, that police often pause recording devices at various points in the interview, and that recordings rarely capture the first interactions between police and suspects or witnesses.
Keenan zeroed in on the gap, noted in the form of a dash, between Stevenson’s assertion that “no one was with me” and his naming of Carmon.
“How can we know that the recording wasn’t stopped before [Stevenson] said, ‘Adam Carmon’?” Keenan asked.
We can’t, Sweeney conceded from the witness stand.
It’s possible, Keenan suggested, that Dease could have instructed Stevenson to name Adam Carmon as a co-conspirator in the robbery. The statement minimized Stevenson’s own responsibility in the robbery.
“Mr. Stevenson, what part did you took place in attempt to take the drug from [the robbery target]?” Dease asked later on in the recorded interview.
“I didn’t take no part,” Stevenson answered. Carmon “asked me to stand there with the gun.”
Keenan noted that Stevenson was found with a gun that would later be connected to the 810 Orchard shooting, beside a ski mask that matched the description Charlene Troutman gave of the man who had lurked outside her window before shooting the family. In the interview, Stevenson told Dease that Carmon had asked him to hold the handgun.
“At that point, don’t you think to yourself, ‘Maybe Stevenson is a suspect?’ ” Keenan asked Sweeney.
“Every name is considered a suspect,” Sweeney replied.
“Where in this statement is he being questioned like he’s a suspect?” Keenan pressed. “It’s giving him an opportunity to implicate Mr. Carmon.”
“I was not present for the statement,” said Sweeney.
State prosecutor Craig Nowak questions former Detective Michael Sweeney.
Keenan directed Sweeney to a subsequent interview that Dease conducted with Stevenson five days later, on Feb. 15. Sweeney read the portion aloud.
“Uh Mr. Stevenson, uh is it a true fact that you did give me a taped sworn statement on February the 10th, 1994? In this statement, did you uh tell me um everything and everything was true?”
“Yes Sir,” Stevenson said, according to the transcript. “I forgot to tell you. I told you everything but one statement that I forgot to tell you.”
Dease soon asks Stevenson, “prior to you um getting shot, while you were in this car with um Adam Carmon, did he have a pistol in his um possession?”
“Yes he did sir,” Stevenson said.
“Can you tell me what Adam was doing with this pistol?” asked Dease.
“He was scraping the inside of the barrel with a screwdriver,” Stevenson replied.
Police later concluded that Carmon had been trying to manipulate the inside of the gun so that it wouldn’t be easily identified by the specific marks that its bullets bore. That would explain any discrepancies between the gun and the ballistic evidence at 810 Orchard St. Keenan pointed out that in this exchange, and an exchange in the same interview about the car Carmon had been driving, Dease appeared to know Stevenson’s answers while asking the questions.
A recording was available for this second interview with Stevenson. Keenan pointed to a moment in the recording when Dease asked Stevenson when he had previously seen Carmon with the gun.
Click
Baby Danielle.
“I can’t specifically tell you the date it was,” Stevenson said in the recording. A soft click could be heard. “Yes, about 2 or 3 weeks before [the robbery] happened.”
“Did you hear the tape stopped?” Keenan asked Sweeney, referring to the “click” between Stevenson’s two answers.
“Yes,” Sweeney said.
Pressed at another point during questioning about Dease’s integrity, Sweeney stood by his former colleague. “I’ve never known Detective Dease to ever lie,” Sweeney said.
Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Craig Nowak had an opportunity to cross-examine Sweeney. In the only portion of his questioning to address Stevenson’s interviews, Nowak asked why it was common for police to re-examine witnesses during an investigation.
“Everyone lies to us…” Sweeney said. “It’s very hard at the beginning to ascertain who’s telling the truth and who’s lying.”
Click here to read articles published at the time of Danielle’s murder about the circumstances both in the case and the surrounding neighborhood, as well as an interview with the man who owned the gun stolen to commit the killing. Click here for a story about how the family and neighborhood were faring 20 years after the murder, and here for an account of Danielle’s posthumous 21st birthday birthday.
Previous coverage of Adam Carmon habeas trial: