Two years after commercial airline pilot Christian “Kit” Martin was pulled off a jet at the Louisville airport and charged with a gruesome triple murder in Christian County, a jury Thursday heard conflicting accounts of the crime that went unsolved for years.
In an opening statement, special prosecutor Barbara Whaley said Martin had the motive to kill Calvin Phillips; his wife, Pamela; and neighbor Edward Dansereau; in tiny Pembroke, Kentucky, because Calvin was set to testify in a court-martial that could end Martin's Army career.
She also said prosecutors will show that a shell casing found five months after the crime was conclusively shown to have been fired from a .45-caliber handgun found in a safe in Martin’s home across the street.
Whaley, an assistant attorney general, also told the jury, which is hearing the case on a change of venue in Hardin County, that the family found Martin’s dog tags on a shelf in their historic home.
Calvin and Pamela Phillips, found dead in 2015
But Martin’s attorney, assistant public advocate Tom Griffiths, noted there were no eyewitnesses to the crime, no DNA and no fingerprints. And he said he will present forensic proof that the bullets that killed the victims did not come from his client’s gun.
Griffiths suggested the damning evidence — the shell casing and military ID which mysteriously were missed by police who scoured the home — must have been planted there, possibly by Martin’s angry ex-wife, who had vowed to ruin him.
The case attracted national attention when Martin, a former Army major who flew for American Airlines, was handcuffed at the airline gate as he was about to take off May 11, 2019. He was still wearing his pilot’s uniform when he was booked on three counts of complicity to murder, arson and other charges.
The trial is being streamed live by Court TV.
The 2015 murders went unsolved for four years before Martin was finally charged — in part because of cell tower records that Christian County sheriff’s deputy told a grand jury disproved his alibi that he was home at the time of the crimes.
Whaley didn’t mention the cell phone evidence Thursday, which a defense expert has disputed.
She said Martin wanted to get rid of Phillips because he was supposed to testify in two weeks at a court-martial in which Martin was charged with mishandling classified information and abusing his wife’s son.
That trial was postponed and when it was finally held the next year — without Phillips, who was dead — Martin was convicted of less serious misdemeanors.
Whaley said prosecution witnesses will testify Martin fatally shot Calvin Phillips in his home on the morning of Nov. 18, 2015, then dumped the body in the cellar and tried, unsuccessfully, to burn it.