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64 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 3.16 6 4 Scout, a square," Porter says. Good news for him. He didn't want "some hoodrat" raising Little Kerry, Porter and Cecilia's child together. Before the couple split, Porter used to take Little Kerry hunting and fshing, camping at Taylorsville Lake. "Pillow fghts, pizza parties, a plane trip to Minneapolis," he says. Porter says his drug use hurt his relation- ship with Little Kerry. He spent the money he made laying bricks getting high. One Christmas, Little Kerry tried to wake his passed-out daddy; the boy thought Dad was playing dead on the couch. Tree-day stints on crack cocaine, that frst hit mak- ing Porter feel like "Ultraman." "Say if you were buried in an avalanche, the frst hit you'd come popping out the snow, ready to take on the world," he says. "When you're out (of drugs), it's like you're handcufed and thrown to the bottom of the sea, Hou- dini in a straightjacket." It was the night after Christmas in 1996, and the original plan was to steal some cars, an art Porter says he mas- tered with a screwdriver and a slingshot. "Could get a car in 60 seconds," Porter says. "Te Cadillac was my favorite." He says he stole hundreds of cars — El Cami- nos, Camaros, Monte Carlos — from all over Louisville. But Porter says the cops were out that night. "Te streets were hot," he says. So he went to his buddy Andre's, smoked until goodbye called his name. He says he was on his sister's couch early the next morning after catching a ride. She lived at their childhood house in Newburg — eight miles from the murder — and was up at 6:30 a.m. with the routine of a nurse. She saw Porter asleep on the couch and put a blanket on him, got him a glass of water. Te next night, the voice of God. Por- ter still at his sister's all day with a crack hangover. Te news on and Porter telling everyone to be quiet. Te news: Tyrone Camp shot dead with a 12-gauge shotgun at a truck stop, bullets to the back and face. Te slow motion. Te trance between Porter and the TV screen. "It was the most focused I've ever been," he says. Te shad- ow at Porter's back that wouldn't let him turn his head, this voice saying something like, "Tis is on you." Porter asking, "Why me?" Te only answer: "I've already told you." At the six-day trial in August 1998, Porter says he was represented by an eight-months-pregnant public defender who had never tried a murder case before. Porter had been arrested some 30 times before, mostly for drugs, three trials to his name. "Not the best track record," he says. (At the time of the trial, Porter had served a year of a fve-year sentence for auto theft.) He admits he was high when he gave an alibi — a month after the murder — that he'd been with a girlfriend at the time of the murder. But that girlfriend had been at a drug-treatment center. "I messed that up," he says. An eyewitness testifed against him. Two people claimed he'd talked up the kill in jail. Porter was accused of making the homemade silencer out of some carpet and duct tape. "Up against a mountain and you're the size of a fngernail," he says. Te prosecutors argued that Porter was jealous Camp was raising Little Kerry. Por- ter had wrecked the Camp apartment in 1990, and the prosecution used that against him. Porter knew they'd be on him about that. But if the prosecutors only knew the truth behind his kicking down that door. "I broke into their apartment to get my mon- ey and weed," he says. "Saw a shadow com- ing down the hall. Tyrone. If I wanted to kill him, wouldn't I do it then? In a room alone with a gun in my hands?" Te defense argued Cecilia and her then-boyfriend, Juan Sanders, killed Camp so they could collect on his $150,000 in- surance policy. Cecilia pleaded the Fifth to almost every question thrown her way at trial. Sanders didn't plead anything, because Sanders wasn't at the trial. According to a C-J article, Sanders was a prime suspect in the case but was dismissed by the prosecut- ing detective when he "lawyered up." Seven months after Camp was murdered, Sanders shot three people, killing one, and was con- victed of manslaughter and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Te same C-J article men- tioned how, at a bench conference during Porter's trial, prosecutor McKay Chauvin said Sanders was "capable of killing every- one in this courtroom just for fun." Porter remembers the jury deliberating for 30 minutes — enough time for him to get to a holding room and take a bite of sandwich. Ten, the verdict. Guilty. Sen- tenced to 60 years in prison. No calm time. No peace, no sleep. Last time he got any real sleep was when he found out he was being indicted. "I slept for two or three days in a window at the Hall of Justice. I was so depressed. Barely ate," Porter says. At Northpoint Training Center, a prison some 80 miles southwest of Louisville, he was wide awake with the need to fght. Like his mom said: "Fight now, cry later." Awake in his metal bunk, papers stacked under his head. Highlighters and ink pens nearby. "You're only supposed to have two, but I'd have at least 10," Porter says. More papers — sentences underlined, margins a mess of notes — shoved under his thin mattress, a layer of case laws. Legal work sliding from his top bunk and landing on his cellmate's head. Locker and laundry bags flled with news articles related to his case or to government corruption, along with books of law: Kentucky Rules of Court, Successful Techniques for Criminal Trials, How to Win Every Argument. Te guards called him "Fire Hazard" and the inmates called him "Te Walking Encyclopedia." Porter calls it "Paper Law." Give him cases involving illegal search and seizure or eyewitness misidentifcation, he says he's got you. "On the yard I was in high demand, hounded by people wanting help working their cases," Porter says. You could fnd him in one of his many ofces, which he'd set up anywhere, typing on his see-through typewriter nicknamed "Typee" (clear so no shanks or drugs could be hidden). Porter worked as a legal aide in the law library, where it was, "Follow me to the law library and follow me home." He was thankful he'd always paid attention to legal and detective shows as a kid — Perry Mason, Adam-12, Te Rookies, Columbo. From 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. he'd work on cases for other inmates. Several needed letters accepting responsibility, showing remorse, refection. "Same routine ques- tions, diferent names and dates," Porter says. He reserved his afternoon shift and the rest of the hours for his own case. "I was and am beyond obsessed. Part of my DNA," Porter says. He'd investigate his case, open-records laws becoming his best friend. No time for visitations. "When I'm getting a visit, that's two hours of my case that I could've been typing," Porter says. "Even during visits, I'm talking law. If my Like a .22-caliber bullet bouncing in the brain. That's the best way Kerry Porter knows how to describe it. A .22: force enough to enter the skull, then slowing till forever stuck inside. Rattling everyday, every hour, "18 hours a day."