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Jury finds ex-cop guilty of murdering ex-girlfriend in Portage
Chicago Tribune
January 30, 2018
Former police officer Kevin Campbell was found guilty Tuesday in the 2015 murder of the mother of his children.
The jury deliberated for less than three hours Tuesday in Campbell's murder trial at the Porter County courthouse in Valparaiso.
A burst of emotion came from family and friends of Tiara Thomas as Judge Roger Bradford read the verdict. Most let out sighs and cried, and one woman wept into her lap.
"We were just praying that he didn't get away with it," Herbert Smith Jr., Thomas' uncle, said.
Campbell, 33, was convicted of fatally shooting 30-year-old Thomas, his ex-girlfriend, Nov. 18, 2015, at her Portage apartment she shared with her fiance, Marqtell Robinson.
Smith said he and his family were "relieved" and filled with "happiness," thanking the jury for its verdict.
"This did not need to happen," Smith said.
Campbell is set to be sentenced April 6. Susan Marie Severtson, one of Campbell's defense attorneys, said they will "absolutely" appeal.
"We think the jury got it wrong," Severtson said.
Campbell was "drowning financially" in the months leading up to Thomas' death, prosecutors said. His car was repossessed, he had 30 calls from bill collectors on his cellphone and he just paid for a wedding to his wife, Alicia Campbell, Matthew Frost, prosecuting attorney, said.
To add on to all that, Campbell's child support payments to Thomas "nearly doubled" to roughly $1,500 a month in June 2015 when he left the Gary police force to work for a better paying job with Hammond police, Frost said.
"The problem has one solution, and that solution is the murder of Tiara Thomas," Frost said.
Campbell was "working like a dog" with overtime and side security jobs to pay his bills, Severtson said.
"Was it hard financially? You bet," Severtson said.
But she said her client " was working as hard as he could, as best as he could, while still being a good father."
"It was not about the money to Kevin," Severston said.
The defense's primary argument was that there were no eyewitnesses or evidence linking Campbell to the murder. No one saw him near Thomas' home and no trace was found of him inside the apartment, Severtson said.
"There isn't any evidence implicating Kevin Campbell to be found," Severtson said.
But prosecutors walked jurors through a timeline that they said shows "everything's consistent" with Campbell killing Thomas.
Thomas' last text to Robinson was at 4:48 a.m., Frost said. Just before 3:30 a.m., Campbell left his home in Hobart, and he returned around 5:55 a.m., as shown by his home alarm system and frequent locations on his iPhone , Frost said.
Between that time frame, Campbell's iPhone pinged a cellphone tower near Thomas' apartment at 5:34 a.m., Frost said.
At 7:27 a.m., Robinson called 911 after finding Thomas shot in her bedroom when he returned home from working a midnight shift, Frost said.
While dropping off his children at school that morning, Kevin Campbell reportedly stopped at a park. The defense said he was throwing away a plastic bag of used tissues, but prosecutors said he was disposing of evidence. No bag was ever found, attorneys said.
In the weeks before the shooting, Campbell asked his son about Robinson's work schedule and told his son to be sure to bring his key to Thomas' apartment with him to Campbell's home. Prosecutors questioned why Campbell did this, while the defense said Campbell was just a concerned parent who wanted to make sure his children could get home safely.
Campbell had his children with him Nov. 17, 2015, at his home in Hobart, the night before Thomas died. It was unusual for Campbell to have his children on a school night, Frost said, but it was "important" to do so that night because "he had to have the kids there to solve his problem."
"How does he do that? He kills the mother of his three children," Frost said.
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