There will be a new court hearing for a 40-year-old murder case in Centre County with a judge ruling that the hearing will focus on a key piece of evidence that wasn’t shared with the convicted murderer’s legal counsel until earlier this year.
Centre County president judge Jonathan Grine issued the ruling Tuesday in the case of Subramanyam Vedam.
It’s a bit of a split decision for Vedam’s legal team. Several issues they were asking to be included in a new evidentiary hearing were dismissed by the judge, but he did approve a new hearing to review an FBI report tied to the deadly shooting, which is key to Vedam’s defense.
Vedam was convicted of first-degree murder in 1983 in the shooting death of his friend, Thomas Kinser.
Prosecutors said Kinser was killed with gun firing a .25 caliber bullet.
Vedam’s attorneys argued that the bullet hole in Kinser’s skull was too small for a .25 caliber.
In a case that was based on circumstantial evidence, with no murder weapon ever found, the bullet hole information was crucial to the prosecution.
What Vedam’s attorneys saw for the first time in January of this year was an FBI report on the measurement of the skull hole, which matches the bullet measurement information in a note that was reportedly handwritten by then Centre County district attorney Ray Gricar, who prosecuted the case.
Judge Grine has scheduled a status conference with legal counsel in the case for later this month.