Christian "Kit" Martin

I have taken a long break from blogging which I tend to do from time to time, but it is time to kick back in and the case of Christian Martin is where I want to start. Admittedly I do not do a lot of cases like this one as it is a very recent case. In fact, the perpetrator is not set to be sentenced for another month.

Even though I have not blogged in quite some time my list of cases continued to grow although I admit not as much as normal and I feel I have been “out of the loop” for a while and this case surely proves it. Honestly, I had not heard about this case until June of this year when Christian Martin was convicted of murdering three of his neighbors. I happened to be out of town at a funeral and while at the hotel I was watching some court shows and this case was just ending. What is more surprising is that I actually live less than two hours from where this case took place.

While I was hearing about the conviction against Christian Martin in the triple murder of his neighbors, I was also hearing through the media that there was a lot of controversy surrounding the case and the evidence. At the time I did not pay a lot of attention to things and Martin simply got his name on my list of cases to research. After doing my research I am perplexed at the information that I found and I have to admit that I look forward to reading appeals in the years to come to possibly bring some of the information together. In fact, some of the information I was hearing through the media at the time of the conviction speculated on an appeal court overturning the conviction. But, as usual I am getting ahead of myself.

While the murders in this case occurred in November of 2015 by most accounts it seems that things leading to the allegations and the situation in and of itself began at least a year and a half prior. Christian Martin was a major in the United States Army. He had enlisted in 1986, apparently just out of high school. At some point he had married, had three children and divorced. In 2014 he was going through his second divorce. For eight years he had been with a woman named Joan Harmon. The exact reason for the demise of the marriage were not clear but what was clear was that apparently while going through the divorce Martin learned that his wife was already, or at least still married, to another man. It was this revelation that led to Joan being charged by the Commonwealth of Kentucky with the charge of bigamy. Soon after Joan accused Martin of several things including rape, sodomy, child abuse, child molestation and of stealing a military computer.

The military began investigating Joan's allegations and ultimately planned a court martial trial against Martin. These were obviously very damaging accusations. Martin denied all of the charges but a hearing was set for it seems early December of 2015. One of the witnesses in the case was a man by the name of Calvin Phillips. Calvin was a neighbor of Martins. Some reports say that they lived directly across the street from each other, while others say they lived next door to each other. Calvin lived with his wife, Pamela. Martin's defense hired a private investigator to look into things and Calvin was interviewed. According to the information that I found while Calvin claims that he saw the alleged computer that was claimed to be stolen in Martin's house, he also claimed that despite what Joan was telling authorities about abuse she had never mentioned that to him.

How would Calvin know this you ask? Well, that too is speculation. Martin would later say that Calvin and Joan were having an affair. In fact, there was some indication that it was this affair, that Martin claims was not a secret in their small town of Pembroke Kentucky, was his reasoning for seeking a divorce from Joan. Whether they were having an affair is unclear but it does seem that at least Joan and Calvin were friends as Calvin had spoken to the investigator that Martins defense hired. It was stated that Calvin had helped Joan remove her things from Martin's house and that is when he claimed to have seen the alleged stolen computer. It was also in this statement where he was said to have stated that Joan had never mentioned any sort of abuse against her, or her children, by Martin to him. In any case, Calvin was expected to testify at Martins court martial trial. Both the defense and the prosecutor planned to call him as a witness.

Then, two weeks before the court martial trial fifty-nine year old Calvin, his fifty-seven year old wife, Pamela and another neighbor, sixty-three year old Edward Dansereau were murdered. Investigators claim that they had all been murdered on November 18, 2015. Calvin was found inside his home, shot by a .45 caliber weapon the following day. It is unclear at what point Pamela and Edward were found but they too were found not just shot (this time with a .22 caliber weapon) but found in the Phillips' vehicle several miles away in a cornfield. The car had been placed there and then set on fire. It is unclear just how much damage was done by the fire.

Suspicion immediately fell not just onto Christian Martin, but also his ex-wife, Joan Harmon. It was said that Martin was actually held, although not charged, for questioning. And then the case apparently went cold.

It is not clear when, but sometime in 2016 Martins court martial took place. He was eventually found guilty on a few of the lesser charges. He was found guilty on one count of mishandling classified information and one count of assault on a child under the age of sixteen. He was dismissed from the Army, was forced to “forfeit all pay and allowances” and was sentenced to ninety days in jail.

At some point Martin left Kentucky and moved to North Carolina and began working as a pilot (something he had done in the military) for a company that was a sub company to American Airlines. Life seemed to move on for Martin and he once again became engaged. Meanwhile back in Kentucky the murders were still unsolved and Joan Harmon pleaded guilty to bigamy. She would be given a sentence of “five years of pretrial diversion.” That basically means she got five years of probation. Kentucky, being one of four Commonwealth states, uses a little different wording when it comes to criminal justice but in the end they are not all that different.

In 2017 Matt Phillips, son to Calvin and Pamela, contacted then Attorney General, Andy Beshear. That name may sound familiar to some. Beshear is currently (2021) the Governor of Kentucky and he made a lot of news for himself during the coronavirus pandemic. Matt Phillips reached out to him because he felt as if the murder investigation was stalled and that no one would ever be brought to justice. Beshear promised to look into the situation. He contacted investigators in Christian County and eventually a special prosecutor was hired to take on the case.

Once again Christian Martin became the prime suspect. A grand jury was put in place and on May 10, 2019 they returned with several indictments against Martin. They included three counts of first degree murder, one count of first degree arson, one count of attempted arson, two counts of burglary in the first degree and three counts of tampering with evidence. The following day, while Martin was preparing for a flight from Louisville Kentucky to North Carolina, law enforcement pulled him from the plane and arrested him.

Now, most of you are probably familiar with the idea or the purpose of a grand jury but I will give a quick explanation for those of you who are not familiar. Basically, a grand jury is commenced to decide whether there is enough evidence against someone to charge them with a crime. Some call it a mini-trial, and I suppose you can look at it that way but I do not feel that is really accurate. The grand jury is only given information from the prosecution. That being said the prosecution only has to give information that they feel they would give them the outcome they would like. I say it this way because there have been cases in which prosecutors feel pressure by the public to convene a grand jury but they themselves do not necessarily feel charges are warranted. This was never more evident than another Kentucky case in which the current Attorney General, Daniel Cameron came under fire after a grand jury was convened in the Breonna Taylor murder case. Grand jury members have come out to claim that Cameron did not give them all of the information they felt they were entitled to have in order to secure an indictment against the police officers involved in her shooting. An Attorney General is not forced to show the grand jury all of the evidence they have against someone and a defense attorney is not allowed to question or cross examine any of the witnesses. The only lawyers, aside from the prosecutor, that are generally allowed at these proceedings represent other witnesses who testify to the grand jury.

When it comes to the Christian Martin case it seems that some of the information given to the grand jury to secure the indictment against him soon became questionable. This involved the evidence in which was presented about where and what towers particular cell phones were “pinging” from. A witness for the prosecution claimed that Martin's phone was pinging in the same area as Pamela Phillips' phone in the cornfield at the time prosecutors claim the car, that contained the bodies of Pamela and Edward Dansereau, as her phone was doing. We all know that “expert witnesses” are a “dime a dozen” and whether it is a prosecutor or a defense attorney, one can generally find an expert to testify for their side. However, I tend to give this argument in this case between experts a little more credence than many situations. I say this because prior to Martin's trial in 2021 there was already a lot of controversy about this information that was presented to the grand jury. Secondly, the prosecutor did not come out and say that the information given to the grand jury was correct and seemed to stand by their position. Neither did they not comment and tell the media to let it be hashed out at trial. No, the prosecutor simply said “we have more evidence than this.” Considering that this case just recently ended and Martin is yet to be sentenced, I cannot say for certain that this information was even presented at the trial. Obviously the grand jury believed they had enough information to indict Martin on the charges and issue a warrant for his arrest. But, the question always lies with the evidence. The legitimacy and the strength of that evidence is what matters most.

For his part Martin, and his supporters, proclaimed his innocence. To the media Martin proclaimed that he had no motive to murder Calvin Phillips, let alone the others. Now, one can hardly completely agree with this assessment. The motive was apparent as Martin was facing the court martial after being in the military for thirty years and likely nearing retirement and Calvin was an obvious witness. He would claim that Calvin was his “star witness” since it was speculated that he would testify that Joan Harmon had never mentioned that Martin had abused her or her children. This would have helped him when it came to the most serious of the charges that he faced. But, Calvin was also expected to testify that he saw the alleged military computer that was stolen. It would reasonable to believe that Martin would have not wanted that information to be entered into the court martial and that he be found not guilty of all charges to continue his career. And, in the end, even without Calvin's testimony he was still convicted on two charges and his military career was ended. I suspect that regardless if Martin was responsible for the murders, or not, going into the court martial he was confident that his lawyer could convince the tribune that all of the allegations were false and made up by Joan Harmon in retaliation for his divorce against her which had led to the bigamy charge she faced.

Martin's trial began the first part of June in 2021. The proceedings were moved from Christian County to Hardin County, more than 100 miles away due to the publicity in the case. As I stated earlier he was charged with ten different counts ranging from murder, to arson, to burglary and to tampering with evidence. After a two week trial and eight hours of deliberation the jury returned a guilty verdict for all counts. So, what did the prosecutors have?

I mentioned before that at the time of the verdict I was hearing more than the normal arguments against this verdict. Sure, many news outlets will have a person or two come through and talk about how the prosecution did not fully prove their case or the evidence “just was not there.” But, again, I felt that this was discussed more than normally and as we know I have heard, watched and researched a lot of cases. In fact, it was these comments that made me want to research this case first after my long break. Please keep in mind again that since the case is so new and fresh I do not have an appeal paper to look over and see everything that was presented or given, what I like best, a play by play of the prosecution theory of how things happened and everything that happened at the trial. I can only go by the information I have found, which obviously at this point is solely through the media. I do dig deep though and if there are questions or things that have been contradicted I am not afraid to say so.

It appears that the two main things that the prosecution had against Martin was a bullet casing and his military dog tags, apparently both found at the scene of the Phillips' home. Now, I cannot say for certain when, where, or how the dog tags were found as I only saw a small comment made about their discovery. As far as the bullet casing goes there seemed to be a bit more. As I stated earlier Calvin had been shot with a .45 caliber bullet while Pamela and Ed had been shot with a .22. Reports say that five months after the shooting a family member found a .45 caliber bullet casing at the Phillips home and turned it over to the police. Ballistic testing would be done on the casing and it was said to match a gun that Martin owned and kept in a safe in his home. The defense attorney's would argue that the casing and the dog tags were planted at the crime scene. They blamed Joan Harmon and claimed that she was behind attempting to frame Martin for the murders. It appears that Harmon did not seem to help herself because it was reported that she refused to testify, although I am unsure if they were referring to the trial itself or the grand jury trial, and plead the 5^th when asked questions. The defense was apparently quick to point out that there were no witnesses to the crime, nor was DNA recovered, at least none relating to Martin.

After the conviction a penalty phase of the trial began. When it was finished the jury recommended life without parole (times 3) for murder, life for arson, twenty years for each count of burglary and the attempted arson and an addition five years (times 3) for tampering with evidence. Sentencing is scheduled to happen on September 2, 2021. There does not appear to be a reason to doubt that it will not likely be as the jury recommended.

If you have not caught on by now, this is one of those cases where I am unsure how I feel about the charges, let alone the conviction. I fully admit that I do not believe Christian Martin when he talks about not having a motive in murdering Calvin Phillips. Prosecutors seemed to believe that he went into the Phillips house likely to just kill Calvin and that Pamela and Ed “happened upon the scene” and Martin was forced to kill them so there were not any witnesses. But, several things in this case bother me. First and foremost is the absence of DNA. Then there is the issue of the bullet casing that was found five months after the crime and then said to match a gun belonging to Martin. I want to know more about this. I want to know who found the casing, where it was found and why it was not found for five months. I want to know more about the dog tags, when and where were they found.

Do I believe that it is likely that Martin is guilty? The best answer I can give is … maybe. I do believe that there was a motive for him, whether it be because of his upcoming court martial or the fact that at least Martin apparently believed there was an affair between Calvin and Joan, something again, I can not prove one way or another but in the end think it only matters what Martin believed. But, the next question is an easier one to answer. Based on what I know and understand at this point I have to ask was there enough evidence to convict Martin. My answer to that would be no. But again that is solely based on what I know. I also want to know more about Joan Harmon. I want to know what she knows; I want to know what she told people. While she pleaded the 5^th in court it was said that in 2016 she told the media she believed Martin was responsible for the murders. Defense attorney's believe that she was involved in the murders and framed her ex-husband. There were rumors that Harmon had stated she would ruin Martin. Was she upset that Calvin had told the investigator that she had never mentioned that she or her children had been abused by Martin? Was she so obsessed with getting even with Martin that she feared Calvin's testimony would make her look bad or not get Martin what she felt he was due? Was there an affair and Calvin broke things off and she saw this as a way of getting even with both Calvin and Martin at the same time by framing him? For me there are just too many questions left to make a decision on whether the jury got it right.

In the end three people were obviously murdered and while justice should be served, it should be served adequately and the right person be punished.  The question is, has that happened?