9/18/2009
By ERIN MATHEWS Salina Journal

21-year-old faces sentence of at least 36 years and 10 months for unintentional second-degree murder of Mark Simpson

A Saline County District Court jury found Cameron A. Nelson guilty of unintentional second-degree murder Thursday after about four hours of deliberation.

Because of his criminal history, Nelson, 21, faces a sentence of at least 36 years and 10 months in prison for the murder charge and possibly another eight months for an additional count of criminal possession of a firearm, said Saline County Attorney Ellen Mitchell.

His maximum sentence on the second-degree murder charge would be 41 years and one month, according to state sentencing guidelines. A person with no criminal history would face a sentence of about nine years for an unintentional second-degree murder conviction.

The verdict came at the conclusion of an eight-day trial. This was the third jury to hear the state's case against Nelson, with two previous trials ending in mistrials because juries could not reach a unanimous decision.

Judge Daniel Hebert scheduled a hearing on post-trial motions for 2:30 p.m. Nov. 2.

Prosecutors had argued that Nelson was guilty of intentional second-degree murder, but jurors reached agreement on the lesser offense of unintentional second-degree murder, which is defined as recklessly killing a person under circumstances that show extreme indifference to the value of human life.

Mitchell said she is satisfied with the jury's decision. She declined to comment further until after Nelson is sentenced.

Trying to buy cocaine

During her closing argument, prosecutor Christina Trocheck, an assistant county attorney, reviewed the events of the night that she said led to the shooting death of Mark H. Simpson, 38, shortly before 2:30 a.m. April 16, 2008.

Simpson, who had been drinking heavily that night, was standing in the middle of the street in the 500 block of South 10th Street on his way to a house where he and friends hoped to buy cocaine.

Nelson and his friends were approaching the same house in a car, looking to settle a score for a previous fight in which one of them was injured.

"They are upset because they feel they've been jumped in a fight that wasn't fair from the beginning," Trocheck said.

Nelson sat in the front passenger seat, and Clifford Bunville sat behind him when the car encountered Simpson in the street. He was clipped by the bumper, causing him to stumble and possibly turn around, Trocheck said.

As the car continued past Simpson, Bunville saw Nelson extend his arm out the window and shoot Simpson, she said. Bunville didn't know until that moment that there was a gun in the car.

"Clifford Bunville thought he was going to a fight, and in a split second Cameron Nelson sticks his hand out the window and shot Mark Simpson," Trocheck said. "Clifford Bunville wasn't prepared for that."

He could have lied

Within days of finding out that Simpson was dead and another man had been arrested for his murder, Bunville sought guidance from his parents as he struggled with the decision about what he should do.

"He could have protected his roommates and kept it to himself," Trocheck said. "He didn't do that because he couldn't live with that and his parents couldn't live with that, that's why he came forward."

Bunville, who has had to move away from Salina, feels like he can't return home for his own safety since he gave law enforcement information that implicated his roommates and close friends Nelson and Kashif Wilson, Trocheck said. Wilson is charged with aiding a felon in connection with Simpson's death.

"Things haven't been easy for him (Bunville)," she said. "His life has changed. Nothing's been the same for him."

Trocheck argued that if Bunville had been willing to lie, he could have blamed the murder on someone he didn't know from inside the house or anyone other than his roommate.

"The only thing that makes sense is that Clifford Bunville pointed the finger at Cameron Nelson because he was the one who shot Mark Simpson," she said.

Other witnesses -- who didn't know Bunville or Nelson -- and evidence collected at the scene corroborated Bunville's account, she said. Many other witnesses appeared in court reluctantly and initially told police they hadn't seen anything, but Bunville's version of events has changed little since he first talked to police, she said. Nelson didn't testify at any of his trials.

They were closing in

Attorney Julie McKenna, who represented Nelson, urged the jury to consider whether Bunville was a credible witness.

"You determine the credibility of Clifford Bunville, the state's key witness, and I submit to you the case fails," she said.

She suggested that Bunville was motivated by self-preservation to tell police Nelson was the shooter.

"They were closing in, and he was scared," she said. "He was going to go on the defensive. That's the real reason he went to the police."

She said the state did not have the evidence to prove Nelson was guilty, and it is possible Simpson was shot by someone from a nearby alley or by Nathaniel Ervin Jr., whom police initially arrested and then cleared of murder charges.

"It appears there's a lot of activity on the 500 block of South 10th Street -- not only in the early morning hours of April 16, but in the course of every day," she said.

Nelson flees town

But Trocheck countered that there was sufficient evidence and testimony for the jury to know who shot Simpson. Nelson's actions to leave Salina and flee to Topeka when he knew police were seeking him were further evidence of his guilt, she said.

"He arrived with a white trash bag full of clothing that he quickly gathered before he left," she said. "The defendant made plans to flee, and that's what he did."

Trocheck urged the jury to convict.

"The evidence, when you look at all of it, always comes back to one person," she said. "That is the only thing that fits here."

n Reporter Erin Mathews can be reached at 822-1415 or by e-mail at emathews@salina.com.