NC forensics expert joins call to reverse State College man’s 1980s murder conviction
As they await a decision from Centre County’s top judge, prosecutors and lawyers for a State College man who claims he was wrongfully convicted of murder in the 1980s have sparred after a leading forensic expert joined the call to reverse his conviction.
Ann H. Ross, a North Carolina State faculty member who has doctorate in anthropology, wrote in a report filed earlier this month that she believes a .22-caliber bullet killed Thomas Kinser, not a larger .25-caliber bullet as alleged by Centre County prosecutors.
In ruling out a correlation between the fatal wound and the gun prosecutors said Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam used to kill Kinser, Ross said she examined crime scene and autopsy photographs, trial transcripts and other legal filings.
She wrote she also reviewed the full FBI report into Kinser’s killing, one that Vedam’s defense team claimed prosecutors concealed for more than four decades. Ross wrote she could not have completed her report without access to the newly discovered FBI records.
Vedam’s lead defense lawyer Gopal Balachandran said in a statement that his team is “thrilled to have retained Dr. Ross to testify on behalf of Subu.” She is one of only 70 board-certified forensic anthropologists in the United States.
“She only rarely testifies on behalf of criminal defendants, but does get involved when she sees forensic science distorted in harmful, egregious ways, as happened in this case,” Balachandran said. “Most important, her testimony will show what our filings have indicated all along — Subu is innocent because a .25 caliber handgun could not have been the murder weapon.”
Ross’ report seemingly did little to change the minds of Centre County prosecutors. First Assistant District Attorney Joshua Andrews wrote in response that “nothing in that report establishes any basis for relief, nor any justification for further proceedings.”
Much of the information Ross reviewed was available to Vedam for decades, Andrews wrote. He also described the report as untimely and said it did not contradict testimony that was presented at trial.
“There is no reasonable likelihood of a different trial outcome,” Andrews wrote.
Kinser borrowed his parents’ van in December 1980 to give Vedam a ride so he could buy drugs in Lewistown. It was the last time he was seen alive by his family or friends.
Two hikers found his decomposing remains about nine months later in a sinkhole in Harris Township. A forensic pathologist determined Kinser, 19, of Boalsburg, died of a gunshot to the head.
Vedam was convicted on circumstantial evidence; no weapon was ever recovered and there were no witnesses. The former Penn State student was sentenced in his 20s to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Now 63, Vedam has spent about two-thirds of his life at Huntingdon state prison. If he’s successful in proving his innocence and gaining his release, he would become the longest-serving inmate in Pennsylvania history to be exonerated.
It’s been 41 years, six months and 144 days as of Thursday since his first conviction. The longest imprisoned Pennsylvania inmate to be cleared of guilt spent 40 years, three months and four days behind bars, according to data kept by The National Registry of Exonerations.
It’s not known when Centre County President Judge Jonathan Grine is expected to rule on Vedam’s request for a new hearing. He did not offer a timeline after a July hearing in front of a standing-room-only crowd.
“Mr. Vedam is well into his fifth decade of an unjust incarceration. Instead of honestly engaging with the robust evidence establishing his innocence, the Commonwealth continues to defend the indefensible,” Vedam’s lawyers wrote. “It is past time to correct this outrage.”