CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The trial for William Roger Campbell, charged with the 2010 murders of his parents, William “Bill” and Ina Campbell, ended Monday with a guilty verdict by the jury after about four hours of deliberation.
Campbell, 66, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder. His adoptive parents were 82 and 81 when they were found by a neighbor, dead in their beds from gunshot wounds to the head.
State: ‘They weren’t dying fast enough’
The state led a compelling closing argument this morning with comments from Assistant District Attorney Marianne Bell and Assistant District Attorney Crystal Morgan.
“They weren’t dying fast enough,” said Morgan. “That’s why he killed them. He needed money and they weren’t dying quick enough.”
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Bell told the jury that the state had to prove three specific actions in order to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. One, they had to prove it was Campbell who did it. Two, they had to prove malice. And lastly, they had to prove the defendant acted without a justifiable reason.
The time of death was estimated at around 6:20 a.m. on Jan. 28, 2010. The defendant told detectives he had left his parents’ home at 7 a.m. that day, and that they were still in their nightgown and pajamas when he left.
The Campbells were creatures of habit. Based on the medicine log found at the residence, the meticulous entries stopped on the 27th. A neighbor testified that Bill Campbell always got up, grabbed his daily newspaper, and drank his coffee, but that the newspapers for the 28th and 29th were still in the mailboxes.
Bell raised the question of whether it would be possible for the Campbells to have been killed Thursday night or Friday morning after the defendant left.
“So, for the sake of argument, let’s assume they were awake,” Bell said. “In order to have been killed by someone else in their sleep, they would have gotten up on Thursday morning, not recorded any medicine, not gotten the newspaper, not call the vet to take care of Lucky, not use Bill’s cell phone, not contact anyone, go back to bed, put their oxygen on, go back to sleep, not get woken up by Tino when glass broke in the basement and an intruder came inside Bill’s bedroom.”
Defense questions evidence
The defense, took a different stance, calling the arguments “spaghetti sauce.”
“A lot has happened since then. Exactly 13 years ago from tomorrow. … We still have no explanation for why it took 11 years to charge somebody in this matter. The question is, does the state even know?” said defense attorney Joseph Allen Price. “First, I want you to think of this case as a pot of cooked spaghetti. To figure out this case, all the state is asking you to do is take that pot of spaghetti and throw it at the wall. Whatever sticks? That’s their case. What doesn’t stick are the red herrings.”
They argued that all the state had provided was more doubt. No new DNA was pulled from the degraded stains found on the sheets in Roger Campbell’s truck, and the blood found in the bathroom sink was too degraded to find any DNA.
Price then went on to talk about the valuables still found in the house.
“Truthfully, we don’t know what was taken. Only one person here knows how many guns Bill Campbell owned. Only one person knew of a log that existed keeping a record of all Bill Campbell’s guns, and that was Shawn Campbell.”
“He (the defendant) got the inheritance,” Morgan said in a rebuttal. “And only he got the inheritance. Shawn didn’t get anything. Shawn wasn’t even named in any of the wills that were eventually provided in the probate case. His parents weren’t dying quick enough, and he was that desperate that he put a bullet into each of their brains, and he killed them while they slept in their own beds.”
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