Published: January 26, 2008 11:08 pm            

David Scott’s family seeks legal counsel

Scott remains behind bars awaiting transfer to Vigo County for hearing

TERRE HAUTE — David L. Scott remained behind bars in the Miami Correctional Facility on Saturday evening, still awaiting transfer to Vigo County where a petition for his release is to be heard next week.

Scott was convicted and sentenced to prison for a 1984 murder that authorities now claim he never committed. Kevin Mark Weeks, 44, of LaGrange, Ky., remained in the Shelby County Jail, awaiting extradition to Indiana where he faces allegations of murder, felony murder, and robbery resulting in serious bodily injury in the crime for which Scott is still serving this morning.

Weeks was arrested at his place of employment Friday afternoon for the murder of 89-year-old Loretta Keith by members of the Indiana and Kentucky state police. An officer at the Miami Correction Facility in Bunker Hill confirmed that Scott was still in custody there Saturday evening.

A spokeswoman for the Scott family said they were meeting with a private attorney Saturday and had no further comment.

On Friday, Carol Smith, Scott’s sister, said that a civil suit would be considered by the family.

“He’s already done 23 years for something he did not do. It’s not all about the money. It’s about getting my brother cleared,” she said.

Scott is expected to appear Monday before Judge Michael Lewis in Vigo County Superior Court Division 6, who will decide on a petition for release jointly filed by Prosecutor Terry Modesitt and Scott based on a re-investigation into the killing of Keith in West Terre Haute.

Weeks, according to a report by the Indiana State Police, was a 21-year-old resident of West Terre Haute at the time of Keith’s death.

An analysis done on Weeks’ DNA matches blood samples found at the scene of Keith’s murder, according to the probable cause affidavit filed in his arrest.

According to that document, a recorded interview with former Vigo County Public Defender investigator Sam Mail taken on May 2, 1985, states that Thomas Abrams then named Weeks as the murderer of Keith.

In that 1985 interview, Abrams told Mail that he had driven Weeks to Keith’s home, dropped him off, and that Weeks took a tire tool from his trunk as we went inside the house.

Abrams said he “drove around the block a few times as per Weeks’ instruction” before parking the car and approaching the house.

At the house, Abrams told Mail he could hear “a struggle and faint screaming” so he went back to the car and drove around the block for another five minutes.

When he returned, Abrams said Weeks exited the house with a trash bag full of items from the home, and a bloody finger from where he had broken into the house.

Abrams told Mail that two days later he looked at the tire tool in his trunk and that it still had hair and blood on it.

A DNA test conducted by the ISP showed Abrams’ blood was not on the samples from the murder scene, and an interview with him on Nov. 27, 2007 conducted by the Missouri and Indiana state police provided the same information as from 1985.

“That DNA’s sat up in that courthouse for 23 years,” Smith said Friday, emphasizing that she and members of both his and Keith’s family have been “banging on doors” for a re-investigation for more than 23 years.

A secretly-taped conversation with Scott, then identified as a special needs student, made by Clifford “Sonny” Allison, in which he said he had killed Keith, was used in his trial, according to the affidavit. Allison was a contributor to the investigation.

Although DNA testing was not available in 1984, court records show that Scott’s blood type did not match that of the samples found in Keith’s home.

Scott maintains he did not know the tape was being made, and has said for many years he made the confession to impress Allison.

According to court documents, Abrams has been a resident of St. Charles, Mo., and Weeks was living in LaGrange, Ky.

Why the 1985 interview with Abrams was not included in the original case, or in any case until 2007, will be a topic on which the Scott family continues to demand answers.

“But that’s something we have to deal with,” Smith said Friday, also crediting Lt. Chris Wilson of the ISP for his work in the recent re-investigation.

“He really dug into it,” she said. “We made a lot of progress in the last year.”

Smith declined to say where Scott would be living once released, but was adamant that “it won’t be in West Terre Haute.”

But for the moment, he’s still in the custody of the Indiana Department of Corrections.

Brian Boyce can be reached at (812) 231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.

        

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