A Christian County Circuit Court judge denied a motion to dismiss the indictment against Christopher Martin who is accused of murdering Calvin and Pam Phillips and their neighbor, Ed Dansereau, in Pembroke in November 2015.
Martin’s defense attorney Tom Griffiths and Assistant Attorney General Barbara Whaley appeared before Judge John Atkins Thursday afternoon.
Griffiths called two people to testify about evidence in the case; Lt. Scott Smith who was with Kentucky State Police and investigated the triple murders, and Jonathan Reeves, who said he was an expert witness relating to cell phone towers and records.
After nearly a two-hour hearing, Griffiths asked Judge Atkins to dismiss the indictment against Martin based on his belief Lt. Smith provided the grand jury with false testimony regarding the FBI’s report pertaining to Martin’s and Pam Phillips’ cell phone pings on the day of the murders.
During a summary of Griffiths’s position, he says the FBI didn’t reach any conclusions but provided reports in the case, which were used as the basis for Lt. Smith’s testimony to the grand jury which he added was false.
Whaley asked the judge to dismiss the motion because Lt. Smith did not provide false testimony. She added the conclusion is that in order to find any grounds to dismiss it would have to be shown to the prosecutor and witness that both intended to offer false testimony that would have influenced the grand jury’s decision. However, she says Lt. Smith gave a volume of other additional evidence to the grand jury in addition to the cell tower records, most importantly a shell casing found at the murder scene.
After hearing the arguments, Judge Atkins said he doesn’t believe Lt. Smith intentionally lied to the grand jury.
Judge Atkins then denied the motion to dismiss the indictment and continued the case until Martin’s trial in June.
