Judge Threatens To Duct Tape Convicted Murderer's Mouth

By Nick Perreault - Wlns.com

April 16, 2014

JACKSON (WLNS) - A 31-year-old woman convicted of murdering her boyfriend has been sentenced to life in prison with no parole.

Officials say he died in May 2012 from stab wounds and blunt force trauma to his head.

As 6 News Nick Perreault explains, on Wednesday in a Jackson courtroom Gamet wasn't going to lose the chance to speak her mind.

"Basically at trial, the way I was portrayed, mostly everything was lies, there was a little bit of truth, but mostly I was convicted off of lies," said Gamet.

Camia Gamet was still trying to make her case, even after a jury convicted her in March of first degree murder for stabbing her boyfriend, Marcell Hill in spring of 2012.

Gamet claims it was self-defense.

"Remember the cries of help that he scream as you plunged the knife in and out of his body," said Diana Banks-Joiner, Marcell Hall's Aunt.

As family members read a letter to Gamet she could be seen rolling here eyes and even laughing.

"Youre going to shut your mouth or you're going to have duct tape put on it...'he attacked me', alright, we'll wait here for a moment to get her quiet," said Judge McBain.

No duct tape was found.

"We have no choice but to send her where she will also die. I can't believe she stands before you doing this this morning," said Kati Rezmierksi, Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney.

Judge John McBain says it's one of the worst cold blooded murders he's ever seen.

"You gutted him in that apartment like a fish, you were relentess, you stabbed, you stabbed, you stabbed until he was dead," said Judge McBain.

There were 12 wounds in total, a brutal act which Judge McBain says she'll pay for with life in prison without parole.

Gamet and her attorney understood a life sentence was merely a formality. "I understand you have to do what you have to do."

"I agree with the family, I hope you die in prison as well and if this was a death penalty state you'd be getting the chair," said Judge McBain.

The family says justice is served with a lesson to all; abuse can come in all forms, regardless of gender.

Gamet's attorney says she plans to appeal the sentencing.

Judge John McBain explodes at Camia Gamet sentencing: 'I hope you die in prison'

By Danielle Salisbury - Mlive.com

April 16, 2014

JACKSON, MI – As Diana Banks-Joiner stood in a courtroom and spoke of the abuse her nephew Marcel Hill endured at the hands of Camia Gamet, a woman he loved, his killer interrupted.

“Is that it?” Gamet said from her seat at the defense table.

The statement prompted gasps from the audience and an angry response from Jackson County Circuit Judge John McBain, who threatened to duct tape Gamet’s mouth closed.

“She has a right to talk to the court after you murdered a relative of hers,” McBain said Wednesday, April 16.

The judge allowed Banks-Joiner to complete her statement and then sentenced Gamet, 31, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder.

A jury in March convicted Gamet of the offense for beating and stabbing to death Hill, 38, who had 11 "sharp-force trauma" wounds, according to testimony. She used a fillet knife to gut him like a fish, the judge said, raising his voice.

“You were relentless. You stabbed. You stabbed. You stabbed. You stabbed. You stabbed until he was dead," he said.

"I hope you die in prison."

Gamet maintained she acted in self-defense. During the trial, she said she thought Hill was an unknown attacker May 18 in the couple’s dark apartment on Lansing Avenue.

She said she loved Hill and was convicted on lies. She plans to appeal her conviction, she said.

“That’s her true colors,” Banks-Joiner said outside the courtroom. “You saw the true Camia today.”

Gamet was rude, Hill's cousin, Barbara Johnson said. “She doesn’t care. She showed no remorse.”

Johnson was wiping tears from her eyes as she and many other Hill supporters stood in the hallway. The crowd had clapped when McBain announced his sentence, the mandatory penalty for first-degree murder.

“God is good. We all got what we wanted,” said Jennifer Johnson, another cousin.

Chief Assistant Prosecutor Kati Rezmierski said the judge had no choice but to send Gamet to a place where she too will die.

Rezmierski, critical of Gamet's "lip jacking" and laughing at the sentencing, contended Gamet used as many as nine weapons, including a busted floor lamp and a frying pan, in her assault on Hill, a man she had hurt in the past, according to information presented at trial.

“Marcel loved you with all he had to give and you knew as well as we do there was no love from you,” Banks-Joiner said.

She said Gamet only was there to take what she could from Hill.

“The gift you had for him was the gift of death.”

Banks-Joiner wants Gamet to remember the “set look” Hill had in his eyes after he died and his cries for help as she plunged the knife in and out of his body.

“We as a family will take this special gift that you gave Marcel and tell it to other men of all ages, sizes and races that abuse is abuse regardless of what gender,” Banks-Joiner said.

“And that they are not less of a man for reporting it and walking away but a better man because they know that love is not being beat, stabbed or hit in the head with hammers.”

Camia Gamet found guilty of first-degree murder in death of boyfriend

By Benjamin Raven - Mlive.com

March 5, 2014

JACKSON, MI — Camia Gamet's attorney claimed his client killed an unknown attacker in an act of self-defense.

A jury on Wednesday, March 5, disagreed with that argument.

Camia Gamet was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Marcel Hill, her 38-year-old boyfriend who was killed May 18 after suffering injuries from a beating and multiple stab wounds.

Jackson County Circuit Judge John McBain is to sentence Gamet, 31, at 9 a.m. April 16 to a mandatory life sentence without parole.

After the verdict was announced, Hill’s family joined hands outside the courtroom in a circle and said a prayer.

“I think the jury did its job, and I am very grateful for that,” said Hill’s aunt, Diana Banks-Joiner. “Justice was served today in getting a proven violent person off of the streets.”

Banks-Joiner said the family seeks closure in this case and that there is a lot yet to be learned.

Gamet’s lawyer Anthony Raduazo said he expects to appeal the outcome.

When it comes to what influenced the jury the most in convicting Gamet of first-degree murder, the prosecution pointed to a couple of things.

“I think the number of weapons found and the manner of the victim’s injuries played a large role,” said Kati Rezmierski, chief assistant prosecutor. “Even though she (Gamet) was intoxicated the jury had enough evidence to believe that she could’ve stopped herself.”

Jackson County Prosecutor Jerard Jarzynka was pleased with the outcome.

“We are very pleased with this verdict; this took a lot of time out of these jurors' lives,” Jarzynka said. “It’s quite remarkable that the verdict of first degree was given today.

“That shows that the jurors truly believed that all the evidence pointed to this crime being done with intent.“

Camia Gamet testifies she hit unknown attacker with lamp, then stabbed him with knife

By Danielle Salisbury - Mlive.com

March 03, 2014

JACKSON, MI – Asleep on an inflated air mattress, Camia Gamet said she woke to the sound of glass shattering over her head.

It was pitch black and she sat up in bed. “I was startled. I was confused because I couldn’t see,” Camia Gamet testified Monday, March 3, during her ongoing trial before Jackson County Circuit Judge John McBain.

Gamet, accused of murder in the beating and stabbing death of her 38-year-old boyfriend Marcel Hill, said she felt someone hitting her repeatedly in the back of the head, and she defended herself without identifying her attacker.

She said she “jumped up” and reached for a floor lamp. She turned around and started swinging it, she said. It hit something at least once.

Gamet said she fell to her knees and was feeling about, trying to get to her purse, which contained her phone. “My hand touched the knife." She had used it earlier to cut holes in curtains, and in the dark, she said she used it to hit the assailant in the chest, possibly three times.

The man then fell, she said. “Everything was quite.”

She said she dropped the weapon and went to the kitchen, seeking light. The kitchen light would not turn on so she went to the bathroom, turned on the light there and cracked open the door. Gamet then saw Hill’s face and arm and said she realized who she had attacked.

Without checking to see if he remained alive, she yelled his name. He failed to respond and she put on clothes, went outside and called 911. “I realized something serious had happened, and after I saw that it was him, I wanted them to help him,” she said.

If she was so scared, if she was fighting off an assailant, why did she not immediately run from the apartment, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Kati Rezmierski asked Gamet.

Gamet said she needed some light. “I know I wasn’t being attacked anymore.”

“How did you know he wasn’t going to get up again?” Rezmierski said.

“I didn’t know that,” Gamet responded.

Rezmierski further picked apart Gamet’s story.

She was clearly skeptical of Gamet’s claims she could not identify her attacker.

He called her a name and threatened to kill her, but she did not recognize his voice, Gamet said. “It didn’t register to me.”

Gamet could not explain why Hill, her boyfriend of 7 to 10 months, had 11 stab wounds, as a medical examiner testified, when she only recalls hitting him three times, or how a bloody, bent frying pan came to be in the room with the bed.

The only weapons she mentioned were the knife and the lamp, which she said “came apart” when she went to turn on its switch.

Jackson police Detective Gary Schuette presented the pieces of the lamp to the jury. The wire in it was ripped and torn. Part of it was dented, probably from when Gamet hit Hill in the head with it, Gamet conceded.

The medical examiner testified Hill had six wounds that could have been fatal. Among them were multiple lacerations to the back of his head, but Gamet said he kept hitting her after she whacked him in the head.

These are details she did not share with Schuette the morning Hill died.

She told Schuette she and a friend returned to the apartment to find Hill and the friend called 911. Monday, she admitted this was a lie. “I was scared,” she said.

A tape of her conversation with Schuette shows her throwing furniture and wailing in the police department interview room. “I was heartbroken,” she said of learning from Schuette that Hill had died.

She did not then tell Schuette about her self-defense claim because her motto is “you don’t talk to the police.” Had she not been drunk – Schuette testified her blood-alcohol level was 0.18 – she never would have spoken to him, she said.

Gamet said her relationship with Hill was rocky, but she loved him. “I thought I could help him,” she said when asked why she stayed with him.

He had a cocaine problem, he sold prescription drugs, and when he drank he became hostile and angry, she said. She described a time he ripped a shirt off her body and punched her. He did not have the cognitive or physical impairments his family and state government considered him to have, she said.

Gamet, who also uses drugs, denied stabbing him and stitching him with black thread, as a relative of Hill testified she had done. “That is false.”

Further, Gamet said she never hit Hill in the head with a hammer, which Hill reported she did less than three months before he died. Later, he stopped cooperating with authorities, and charges against Gamet were dismissed. “I do not know how he received the injuries to his head. He did not know,” she said.

When asked about domestic violence charges filed against her in 2007 in Ohio, she said she tried to swing a fire extinguisher at a man with whom she had children as he kicked and stomped on her. He pleaded guilty or no contest to domestic violence.

She never tossed her 6-week-old baby during the dispute, as was reported, she said. “Those charges were unfounded. They were dismissed,” she said.

The man testified from a jail or prison in Ohio. He backed her statements. He said he was abusive and "pretty much always" the aggressor.

Gamet has a difficult past, according to her testimony. As a child, she was in 13 different facilities or foster homes during a five-year period.

She said she “feels terrible,” about Hill. “I did not mean for this to happen.”

Woman accused of murder tells detective she came upon boyfriend's body; trial continues Monday

By Danielle Salisbury - Mlive.com

February 28, 2014

JACKSON, MI – In a recording from a Jackson Police Department interview room, Camia Gamet was heard screaming.

“Oh God, please, don’t let him be dead,” she said as she was alone and on the floor. Detective Gary Schuette had just informed her boyfriend, Marcel Hill, died.

Gamet repeatedly threw the room's furniture, a table and two chairs. “Oh my God,” she shouted over and over again.

Prosecutors played the recording Friday, Feb. 28, during the fifth day of Gamet’s murder trial before Jackson County Circuit Judge John McBain. The trial will continue next week.

Gamet, 31, is accused of stabbing and beating Hill to death May 18 in the apartment they shared in a Lansing Avenue house in Jackson.

Her lawyer is contending she acted in self-defense.

When Schuette questioned Gamet the morning Hill died, Gamet told him she and a friend returned to the apartment to find Hill. They panicked and left. “That was it," she said.

She said she did not run from the police or throw a cell phone. “I don’t have a cell phone."

Part of a phone was found in her bra. Other pieces of it were located near the Lansing Avenue house, and all the parts fit together, Schuette testified.

He said her story did not make sense and she accused Schuette of using “psychology” to convince her to speak further.

“Marcel is there. There is blood everywhere. And he’s dead. You were there beforehand and you had an argument with him…” Schuette said during the recorded interview. “You ran away from the scene and you got his blood on you. That’s not psychology. Those are facts.”

He eventually left the room and Gamet threw the furniture and curled up in a corner. Schuette and another officer soon returned and put her in handcuffs.

Friday, Schuette explained pictures from the crime scene, which moved at least one relative to leave the courtroom, upset and shouting, and unwrapped many evidence packages containing items allegedly used to injure Hill.

The Michigan State Police crime lab found Hill’s blood on a bent, broken end table missing its glass top, a piece of a floor lamp post, a frying pan and a long knife. His blood also was on a shirt and pants Gamet wore.

Hours before Hill died, she and Hill got into a “scuffle” at a bar. It was less a fight than “grabbing and pulling,” the detective said, and the dispute centered on an apartment key.

Several people have testified about the pair’s violent relationship. Gamet once stabbed him in the abdominal area and sewed it closed with black thread, Hill’s aunt said, and Gamet was accused in March 2013 of hitting Hill in the head with a hammer. The case was dismissed.

McBain allowed the prosecution to additionally present evidence of two past criminal convictions in Ohio.

In April 2007, authorities arrested her for domestic violence threats. She pleaded guilty or no contest to disorderly conduct for threatening to kill a former boyfriend, the detective said.

A short time later, in May 2007, she was charged with domestic violence for attempting to assault a boyfriend with a fire extinguisher and throwing her six-week-old baby at him, Schuette said.

Gamet has four children, but all of them have been removed from her care, her brother said in May.

The defense has not yet cross-examined Schuette or presented any witnesses. They are expected to testify beginning Monday.

Woman On Trial For Accused Beating, Murder Of Boyfriend

Wlns.com

February 24, 2014

JACKSON COUNTY, MI (WLNS) - A 30-year-old woman is on trial Monday for the accused beating of her boyfriend back in May 2013.

Camia Gamet is accused of beating her boyfriend, Marcel Hill to death.

Police say Hill was found dead inside his home in the 700 block of Lansing Ave.

According to officials Gamet has a long history of domestic violence.

Two months before Hill's death, police say Gamet was charged and jailed for beating Hill with a hammer.

Woman charged with killing boyfriend hit him two or three times with hammer, man told police in March

By Danielle Salisbury - Mlive.com

May 21, 2013

JACKSON, MI – Less than three months before his death, Marcel Hill told police Camia Gamet came to his room at the Avalon Hotel in Blackman Township and hit him two or three times on the head with a hammer.

He said she was high on crack cocaine, had started to argue and fight with him and would not leave when he told her to go, he reported to Blackman-Leoni Township public safety Officer Kory Torbet on March 8.

Gamet told the officer Hill came after her and she was protecting herself, according to the report, requested by the Citizen Patriot after Gamet, 30, was charged with open murder Monday, May 20.

She is accused of beating Hill, 38, to death early Saturday, May 18, in the home they were sharing on Lansing Avenue in Jackson.

Less than 10 days earlier, she had been released from the Jackson County Jail because the prosecutor’s office dismissed charges of domestic violence and felonious assault stemming from the hotel incident. Chief Assistant Prosecutor Mark Blumer said Hill was not cooperating with authorities and the office could no longer pursue the case.

On March 8, Hill told Torbet he waited about four hours to report the hammer incident because he was scared. He called police at 6:53 a.m. and met the officer in the lobby of the hotel at 2000 Bondsteel Drive, but he said Gamet hit him “sometime after 3 a.m.”

Hill said a couple weeks before then Gamet had stabbed him in the left side. Hill went to the emergency room and told medical personnel he had fallen down the stairs and cut himself on a screw sticking out of a wall, according to the police report.

On March 8, Hill had several cuts and one large bump on his head, the officer reported.

The same day, Torbet found Gamet in the hotel room, lying behind the locked door and appearing “passed out,” according to the report.

Hill told the officer she had been drinking in addition to using crack.

Once Torbet and a maintenance person went into the room, Gamet woke and told the officer Hill assaulted her several times in the past.

Their neighbors told a reporter they frequently fought.

Gamet said she was defending herself and showed the officer her cell phone history, which recorded three attempted 911 calls, the officer reported.

She never got through to an emergency dispatcher, she said, and Hill left as she was trying so she locked the door and fell asleep, she told the officer.

Gamet went to the Jackson County Jail. She was released May 9 and returned last weekend.

On Monday, District Judge R. Darryl Mazur ordered her held without bond.

Camia Gamet, 30, arraigned on charge of open murder for allegedly beating boyfriend to death

By Danielle Salisbury - Mlive.com

May 20, 2013

JACKSON, MI – Camia Gamet, 30, was arraigned Monday afternoon on a charge of open murder for allegedly beating to death her boyfriend, Marcel Hill, 38.

District Judge R. Darryl Mazur ordered her held in the Jackson County Jail without bond.

Gamet, appearing teary-eyed in black and white stripes, has a long history of violence, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Mark Blumer told Mazur.

She was accused in March of assaulting Hill and the prosecutor’s office charged her with domestic violence and felonious assault. Members of his family said she has in the past stabbed Hill and hit him on the head with a hammer, sending him to the hospital.

The charges were dismissed on May 9 because Hill did not cooperate with authorities, Blumer told Mazur. He was afraid, his aunt, Diana Banks, said. “If I got beat the way he was getting beat, I would be afraid too.”

Blumer said Gamet also has been accused of offenses involving domestic violence in at least two states, he said.

Prosecutors allege Gamet hit Hill on the head. Hill died early Saturday, May 18, at the home he was sharing with Gamet on Lansing Avenue. Jackson police reported Hill was repeatedly struck with blunt objects.

Open murder leaves for a jury or fact finder to determine whether first- or second-degree murder or manslaughter is the appropriate charge.

First-degree murder, the most serious of the offenses, carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.