Coincidences? You be the Judge

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Coincidences? You be the Judge

There are several facts that I can provide to you, the reader of this story, concerning Brandon Shelton and Michael Blackwelder’s connection to Viktor Gunnarsson and his death that cannot be explained away by the state as mere coincidences. You can be the judge as to what extent Brandon Shelton participated in the murder of Viktor Gunnarsson.

1) Viktor Gunnarsson was found off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Deep Gap, North Carolina in a remote wooded area. Shelton admitted to investigators that he had been on the Blue Ridge Parkway and knew the area well and knew where Deep Gap is. There was evidence presented by the state that I had never been to the area of Deep Gap, North Carolina nor had I ever been on the Blue Ridge Parkway (Volume I, TP. 324-325).

2) Shelton admitted that he borrowed a .22 caliber pistol from his neighbor that he used to shoot and kill Gunnarsson by shooting him in the head. Gunnarsson was shot twice in the head with a .22 caliber weapon. Investigators never attempted to locate this weapon or run any ballistics tests to determine if this was the .22 caliber weapon that was used to kill Gunnarsson. There were no .22 caliber weapons found in my possession.

3) It was the state’s theory that I killed Gunnarsson, a man the trial evidence showed I had never met, out of jealousy. Brandon Shelton admitted to investigators that he was extremely jealous of his wife and he admitted to his friend, Robbie Smith, he killed Gunnarsson because of the affair Gunnarsson and his wife, Heather Shelton, had.

4) A month prior to Gunnarsson’s murder, Brandon Shelton came home from work to find Gunnarsson and his wife together and admitted he threatened to kill them both. There was never one witness or any evidence that showed I had ever made threats to Gunnarsson either directly or indirectly to kill him over the fact he had started dating Kay Weden, my ex-fiancée.

5) Shelton admitted that he hated Gunnarsson over the affair he had with his wife and intended to get him the first chance he got.

6) Brandon Shelton confessed repeatedly to others that he and Michael Blackwelder had killed Gunnarsson and admitted to investigators that he had made statements to others that he killed Gunnarsson.

7) One of the items police investigators were looking for during the search of my home on February 1 and February 2, 1994, which Detective Townsend listed in her search warrant affidavit to be seized if found at my home, was newspaper articles about the murder of Viktor Gunnarsson (Townsend’s search warrant affidavit, January 3l, 1994, Items to be seized, page 3, paragraph 12). Investigators were aware and knew that persons who commit crimes such as murder will keep newspaper articles in order to relive their crimes. No such items of evidence were found in my home. During Shelton’s interview with investigators on July 25, 1995, he showed investigators two scrapbooks with all of the newspaper articles that had been published concerning the murder of Viktor Gunnarsson.

8) Shelton was asked by investigators during his one interview on July 25, 1995 “Did you kill Viktor Gunnarsson?”. Shelton refused to answer until he spoke with an attorney. However, I was interviewed on two separate occasions without an attorney present and not once was I asked “Did you kill Viktor Gunnarsson?” in any interview I had with investigators.

9) Shelton never denied that he killed Viktor Gunnarsson when interviewed by investigators, only that he wanted to speak to an attorney before answering.

10) Brandon Shelton admitted that he and a man named Michael Blackwelder killed Gunnarsson and that they were able to get into Gunnarsson’s apartment with a key Blackwelder had. Trial testimony revealed that Blackwelder had a key to Gunnarsson’s apartment and was Gunnarsson’s roommate just prior to the murder and that Blackwelder still received his mail at Gunnarsson’s apartment. Trial testimony showed that Blackwelder’s key to the victim’s apartment was the only key that was never accounted for (TP. 1380-1381).

11) Strips of masking and electrical tape containing fibers and hairs that were consistent with Gunnarsson’s hair were found at the crime scene in Watauga County but the fibers did not come from the trunk mat of my car, my home or clothing (Volume III, TP. 1231). Shelton admitted that he and Blackwelder used electrical tape and some light colored tape found inside Gunnarsson’s apartment to bind and gag him before carrying him from the residence. During the crime scene search of Gunnarsson’s apartment on January 13, 1994, used rolls of this same kind of tape were found but were never compared to the tape from the crime scene (T., Volume III, PP. 1241-1242).

I have never understood, and probably never will, how a man who had the perfect motive for murder, jealousy, which was consistently the motive presented by the state for the murder, and who had confessed repeatedly, while sober, that he committed the crime as Brandon Shelton did, was never fully investigated by the police or why this evidence was never presented to the jury in my defense.

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