Still So Many Unanswered Questions

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JUSTICE DENIED!


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Still So Many Unanswered Questions

	Who killed Viktor Gunnarsson and Catherine Miller and what was the true reason behind their deaths?
	Was Gunnarsson killed by Brandon Shelton and Michael Blackwelder over the affair the victim had with Shelton’s wife?
	If Shelton and Blackwelder didn’t kill Gunnarsson, why did Shelton make repeated admissions to the murder to his friend Robbie Smith and others, while sober, that he killed Gunnarsson over an affair Gunnarsson had with his wife?
	Why did Shelton have all of the articles about Gunnarsson’s death in two scrapbooks at his home that he showed to the police on July 25, 1995 when they interviewed him?
	Who was the man observed coming out of the wooded area by witness Shannon Tedders on December 4, 1993 at the time the police said Gunnarsson was killed, which has been established was not me?
	Could this man observed by Shannon Tedders have been either Brandon Shelton or Michael Blackwelder?
	Was Gunnarsson killed over what took place in Sweden in 1986 when the Prime Minister was assassinated?
	Why did Gunnarsson brag to others that he did in fact kill the Swedish Prime Minister if he did not commit the crime?
	Who were the men observed outside Gunnarsson’s apartment by Kay Weden on the evening of December 5, 1993 and could these men have been Gunnarsson, Blackwelder or Shelton?
	How did items get missing from Gunnarsson’s locked and secured apartment between December 15-17, 1993 which was eleven days after the state claimed Gunnarsson was killed?
	Where is the key Michael Blackwelder had to Gunnarsson’s apartment that was never accounted for, that Brandon Shelton admitted Blackwelder used to let them into the victim’s residence on the night of the murder?
	How did Gunnarsson’s clothing he was last seen wearing on the night of December 3, 1993 get moved from the floor and chair in his bedroom to the bed in a locked and secured apartment between January 7, 1994 and January 13, 1994?
	Why were the answering machine tape and the gold watch taken from Gunnarsson’s apartment between December 13 and December 15, 1993?
	Why take the answering machine tape and the gold watch but leave other items of value untouched?
	What was on the answering machine tape that someone would risk going into Gunnarsson’s apartment to take it?
	How did Jason Weden’s left palm print get onto an item of evidence that had been moved at the time of Miller’s murder if he was not involved, yet his prints are not found anywhere else inside Miller’s home?
	How did Jason Weden know facts about the time frame when Miller was killed and where he was during the murder, when a time frame had not yet been established by investigators when he was interviewed on December 10, 1993, a day after Miller’s body was found?
	Why did Agent Joyce Petzka swear under oath that Jason Weden had been eliminated as the source of any fingerprints found at the Miller crime scene when her official laboratory report showed Weden’s left palm print had in fact been identified on an item of evidence from the crime scene three and one half years after the Miller murder and just six days before the start of my trial.
	Did no one find it strange that not one of Kay Weden’s fingerprints were ever found inside her mother’s residence, when the trial evidence showed she was in and out of Miller’s residence on almost a daily basis?
	If I was such a suspect in Miller’s death, why was Jason Weden the only person investigators asked “Did you kill her”? Why was I never asked this question when I was interviewed on two separate occasions?
	How did Jason Weden know facts about the condition of Miller’s body and the condition of the inside of Miller’s home, facts that were only known by investigators since the evidence showed that he nor his mother Kay Weden ever went inside the residence the day Miller was found?
	Was the motive for Miller’s death money and greed?
	Who were the only two people that actually benefited from Miller’s death?
	Why has Kay Weden never visited her mother’s grave?

If I had actually been making the comment to Beth Pitts a total of twelve times, “If I had not been such a good police officer, I would have been arrested a long time ago for the murders,” as she testified to under oath, which the state claimed was a confession, how could she possibly have “believed everything I told her and she simply believed I was innocent” as she told investigators in her statement on August 19, 1995?

	How could Beth Pitts have possibly forgotten to mention this alleged comments she testified I made to her at least twelve times in her fist three statements in August 1995 which totaled fourteen typed pages, yet just “miraculously” remember the comment on September 5, 1995 when Agent Gale called her on the telephone?
	Why did Agent Don Gale fail to question Ms. Pitts why she had failed to inform him of the alleged comment she testified I made at least twelve times in her first three statements to him on August 19, 22 and 26, 1995?
	Why did the District attorney Tom Rusher turn over to the defense Ms. Pitt’s first three statements of August 1995 where she never mentioned anything about me making the alleged comment in November 1995, yet, withhold Pitt’s statement of September 5, 1995 for nineteen months and only turn over this statement to defense attorneys twelve days before the start of my trial?
	How could a t-shirt be found hanging in Gunnarsson’s bathroom that was still “wet” on December 15, 1993 by the landlady Bonnie Whitley, which was eleven days after the state claimed he had been killed?
	Why didn’t my defense attorneys ever cross examine Beth Pitts about her three prior statements in August 1995 that were so inconsistent and contradicted her trial testimony and which would have cast doubt on her veracity when they knew the three prior statements existed?
	Why did my defense attorneys never call one witness in my defense, not even a man who had confessed repeatedly that he killed Viktor Gunnarsson over an affair Gunnarsson had with his wife?
	How could investigators have observed a “shoe print” on the trunk lid of my vehicle when it was consistently the state’s theory that Gunnarsson was kidnapped from his apartment in the nude?
	How could investigators have observed a “shoe print” on the trunk lid of my vehicle during the search on February 1 and February 2, 1994 yet the state’s own expert in latent identification, Joyce Petzka, clearly testified she could not tell what the impression was, how long the impression had been there or even if it had been made by a shoe?
	Who was the person observed outside the Miller home just prior to her death investigators considered a suspect in her murder?
	Why would Agent Gale swear under oath in a court order affidavit on January 5, 1994 that the composite drawing of the suspect observed near Miller’s residence prior to her death resembled me when he knew that it did not?
	Was there sufficient evidence if it had been used by my defense attorneys that pointed directly to Kay and Jason Weden in the death of Catherine Miller?

But the biggest questions I ask myself daily deals with the only piece of evidence the state claimed connected me to Gunnarsson’s death, the seventeen hairs from the trunk mat that investigators claimed to have found.

How was it possible that a trained scientist could search the trunk mat taken from my vehicle six or more times methodically in two inch grids for twenty-two months specifically looking for trace evidence, hairs, fibers and repeatedly miss seventeen hairs on a mat 1/8” thick, that were all supposed to be in a one square foot area, yet just casually notice them as he was folding the mat up to place it back into an evidence bag?

How was it possible that Agent Bendura found those seventeen hairs on that mat on Sunday October 8, 1995 when the S.B.I. Laboratory would have been closed?

How could an expert write a laboratory report that he certified as true and accurate just nine months before the start of my trial that showed he turned the hairs from the trunk mat over to the F.B.I. for testing forty nine (49) days before the evidence showed these hairs were found on the mat?

Who planted those hairs on that mat?

Seventeen hairs – the needle in a haystack of circumstantial evidence that led to my arrest on October 12, 1995 and on July 25, 1997 condemned me to life plus 40 years in prison for the death of a Swedish Citizen who had come to America to escape a sinister past.

Seventeen hairs – that destroyed my life and took away my freedom.

I have so many more questions about these two cases that still remain unanswered and may never be answered. I am sure after reading this story that you will also have questions. However, you the reader have the facts and the documented evidence and you can judge for yourselves if you could have found me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt if you had been a juror at my trial. You have facts and evidence now that the jury at my trial did not have because two defense attorneys were not prepared to defend me.

Since October 12, 1995 I have sat in jail or prison for crimes I know I did not commit. Everyday for almost eight years now, I have thought about my case. I wonder if the truth will ever be known about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Viktor Gunnarsson and Catherine Miller. I wonder if the real killer or killers of these two people will ever be found or brought to justice. I wonder if I will ever find justice at the end of the living nightmare or if I will ever be free again. I wonder it I will die in prison for crimes I know I did not commit.

I want you, the reader of this story, to always remember that what happened to me could as easily happen to you. I pray to God it never does.

No matter what happens to me in the future, I have finally had my say and my chance to present the other side of this case - a side that should have been presented to the jury almost eight years ago but never was.

I cannot make many promises at this point in my life due to the circumstances of where I am. But I can promise the District Attorney of Watauga County, and the investigators in the Gunnarsson and Miller cases, Detective Paula Townsend of the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office, Detective Terry Agner of the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office and specifically Special Agent Don Gale of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation this much. If I ever get the opportunity of another trial, my side of this story will be presented, with evidence and witnesses mentioned in this story, and I will have a defense. I will have a prepared attorney who will destroy your case and witnesses, one by one, and expose them for what they are. Each of you may think you have won, and you have destroyed my life, which you have, for now. I am sure this was your intention all along because of your sloppy investigation of these cases, which is very apparent from the documented evidence presented in this story. But know this. You will never break my spirit to fight this unjust conviction, or my fight to prove my innocence, and prison walls will not break my will to fight for my freedom.

Another chance is all I need in that courtroom in Watauga County, and I promise you, I will walk out of that courtroom with a “Not Guilty” verdict, as a free man. That I can promise all of you.

Last, I want to thank one person in particular, who has worked on my case and has helped me for over eight years. He has uncovered a lot of the information and evidence presented in this story. That person is Mr. Charlie Frick, a private investigator, of Southeastern Investigative Services, Inc. in Salisbury, North Carolina. He has worked tirelessly on this case from the start, and continues to do so. Charlie, for that I will always be grateful. No one could ask for a better private investigator to work on their case to gather facts. But most of all I want to thank him for being my friend and believing in my innocence. Thanks pal, you are the greatest.

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