In 1982, James and Virginia Campbell - pillars of the
Houston community - were murdered in their bed in the middle of the night. Daddy’s Girl is the spectacular
story of this murder case - a true tale of betrayal, vengeance, and Texas justice.
Two weeks after he had secured Jim Leitner to sit second
chair, Gene, with Duval's permission, hired ... Samuel A. Guiberson, a documentary
filmmaker-turned-lawyer who specialized in cases involving electronic surveillance.
Guiberson had written a much-discussed article for the National Law Journal with
the catchy title, "How to Send Prosecutors Reeling with Their Own Taped
Evidence." At Gene's request Guiberson began work on an independent transcribing job
of the West-Paris tapes, and it was soon apparent that the defense's version and the
state's version would differ. Except at certain moments, the tapes were difficult to
listen to. Kim Paris had carrier the transmitter in her purse; every time she moved, or
shifted the purse, extraneous noise garbled or suffocated the transmission. Much of the
conversation on both nights had taken place in restaurants, with background chatter of
other diners, chairs scraping, dishes and cutlery clinking, and loud music...
...Nettles moved to postpone the motion to suppress the tapes as
evidence until after jury selection. He wanted to give Sam Guiberson time to complete his
study...Judge Azios granted the postponement.
And Rusty reeled. He nearly boiled over. ...where in hell was the
money coming from to pay for the time of this new defense expert? "Now the State of
Texas isn't just subsidizing Gene Nettles," Rusty Yelled, "it's subsidizing Sam
Guiberson!"
... Rusty decided, for the moment, to limit his choleric
complaints to the sympathetic audience of his comrades in the District Attorney's Office.
If he made a public fuss, it would seem as if he was unsure of his case against David West
and was trying to weigh the odds—in terms of manpower—too heavily in favor of
the state.
He was unsure of his case. Drawing closer to jury
selection, he began to grasp the enormous problem of convincing twelve people to convict a
man of capital murder solely on the basis of a repudiated admission to a scheming woman.
That's how the world might well see it, he realized, especially now that the creative mind
of Sam Guiberson had joined the defense team.
