and there it was. the gotcha in the prosecution s case. here was an extremely credible witness, a military officer, whose memory strongly suggested that when howes stepped outside the garage that day to talk to the police, ken creamer still inside, moved that crossbow, staged the scene to make it look more like an accident. powerful evidence. assuming the jury would decide to trust neighbor howes military-trained memory and that forensic firearm s expert s evaluation of the crossbow. but would they? ken creamer takes the stand. would jurors trust him? i heard a poof sound, and i turned around quick and my wife was already on the floor. when the crossbow incident continues.
ken creamer killed his wife anna. of that, there was no doubt. shot her with a crossbow, right here in his garage. and the shock of it was, he d done it before. just didn t kill her that time. so the charge that put him in this place, first-degree murder, is no surprise. but, still, justice crawled. the boy adjusted to a new life with anna s family, a family that came to believe firmly in creamer s guilt. and for 2 1/2 years, he sat in jail waiting to answer the question. how do you plead, guilty or not guilty? not guilty. this was june 2008. the commonwealth evidence will show this was no accident. and this, the prosecutor, tabitha anderson. here s your time line, september 2005 the defendant
finest. then he got arrested. and then she wouldn t press charges. it was ridiculous. she said, he didn t try to shoot me. come on, it was an accident. and end of conversation. i mean and he was released. they bought the crossbow together for recreation anna told them, and both she and ken had tried it out, but after that close call, they were getting rid of it. he was giving it to his wife to give to one of the other teachers she worked with and, you know, get rid of it. but of course, the katzes couldn t have any idea back then what would soon happen to that crossbow and their good friends, the creamers, especially, said their friends, when they thought about what lovely people the creamers were. what a loving couple. he was a good father and husband. he took his son to scuba diving lessons, to dance lessons. he treated his wife with the utmost respect. never raised his voice, never
they put the boy into foster care briefly and then he was taken away too live with anna s relatives. ken was denied bail and took up involuntary residence here in the virginia beach county jail. it was more than a year later when police, still preparing their case, mind you, asked neighbor randall howes for another interview. they had some pictures, crime scene photographs that i had not seen. but now he saw something very disturbing. and right then and there randall howes knew he was about to play another important role in ken creamer s life. so i went, uh-oh. this means probably that my testimony will be key. and randall howes was absolutely right. a trial begins and the prosecution tries to prove that what happened to this young wife and mother was no accident. i determined that the manner of death in this case was homicide. bored with your one trick lipstick?
any doubt. he told the truth. still, creamer said the crossbow went off inside a bag. maybe that made it an accident after all. we had the bag and we had the weapon, and we were trying to figure out desperately how could this weapon be in the bag and have done what it did. and none of the positions this bag was in made any sense whatsoever with the weapon inside of it. it just didn t make sense. we couldn t find we couldn t figure it out. we couldn t find a good exit hole. there was no rip in it. there was no hole for the arrow. it didn t make sense. so if it couldn t have been an accident the second time, what about the first? this sounds like that to me already he s already planning something. so now jury members realize they had formed some strong opinions about mr. creamer. i just don t put any stock in anything he says. you know, i just don t don t trust the guy. and once they decided that about ken creamer, members of the jury began to look at the marr