Federal immigration authorities confirmed on Monday that they intend to deport the State College man who won his freedom after more than 40 years in prison on a now overturned murder conviction.
Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam, 64, was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on a detainer issued in 1988 immediately upon his release from Huntingdon state prison on Friday afternoon. Vedam, who had been incarcerated at the prison since he was first convicted of the murder of Tom Kinser in 1983, was released after a Centre County judge vacated the conviction in August and District Attorney Bernie Cantorna filed to dismiss the charges on Thursday rather than pursue a new trial.
Vedam “is a native and citizen of India subject to a final order of removal that was lawfully issued by a federal immigration judge,” an ICE spokesperson wrote in an email to StateCollege.com. “Pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act, individuals who have exhausted all avenues of immigration relief and possess standing removal orders are priorities for enforcement.”
According to a Bellisario College of Communications feature, Vedam was born in India during a brief period when his parents had returned to their native country after moving to State College for his father to pursue postdoctoral work. His family moved back to the U.S. in 1962 when Vedam was nine months old and he was raised in State College. He is a green card holder, or permanent legal resident of the United States.
The spokesperson called Vedam a “career criminal with a rap sheet dating back to 1980” who “is also a convicted controlled substance trafficker.”
Vedam pleaded no contest in 1984, after his murder conviction and at the time of his first appeal in that case, to previous charges of receiving stolen property and selling LSD when he was 19, according to contemporaneous press accounts. Court dockets also show a conviction on a misdemeanor charge in 1982 of possessing a small amount of marijuana.
He is now detained at the Moshannon Valley ICE Processing Center in Clearfield County.
“ICE routinely coordinates with federal, state and local partners to take custody of noncitizens who have completed criminal sentences and remain subject to removal from the United States,” the spokesperson wrote. “Mr. Vedam will be held in ICE custody while the agency arranges for his removal in accordance with all applicable laws and due-process requirements.”
Vedam’s sister Saraswathi Vedam said on Friday that the “immigration matter is a remnant of Subu’s original murder conviction which has now been overturned.”
“Since that wrongful conviction has been officially vacated, and the charges against Subu have been dismissed, we have asked the immigration court to re-open the case and account for the fact that Subu has been exonerated,” she said.
Subu Vedam has steadfastly maintained his innocence in Kinser’s murder, and the discovery of evidence suppressed during his 1983 trial and 1988 retrial led to his conviction being overturned.
Kinser had last been seen by family on Dec. 14, 1980, when he borrowed a van to drive his friend and fellow State College area resident Vedam to Lewistown to buy LSD. Vedam said Kinser dropped him off in State College when they returned and he did not know what happened to him after that.
After hikers discovered Kinser’s body on Sept. 19, 1981 in a sinkhole at Bear Meadows in Harris Township, prosecutors said Vedam used a .25 caliber handgun to shoot his friend in the head. A murder weapon was never recovered, but Vedam’s conviction was based in part on his purchase of a .25 caliber gun, which he said he did not acquire until after Kinser’s death, and a shell casing of the same caliber found under Kinser’s remains. Casings of different calibers were also found in the area.
The prosecution’s primary theory was that Vedam murdered Kinser over a synthetic ruby that Vedam had stolen from a Penn State research lab and believed Kinser subsequently stole from him.
The DA’s office granted Vedam’s current appeal attorneys access to the full case file in 2021. They found dozens of witness interviews that were never provided to the defense. But more critically, a handwritten note with the size of the bullet hole in Kinser’s skull, believed to have been written by former Centre County DA Ray Gricar, who prosecuted the case, led them to ultimately gain access to an FBI report that was never presented at trial and that they say would have been critical to Vedam’s defense.
They contend it shows that bullet hole in Kinser’s skull was too small to have been made by a .25., and that the prosecution suppressed data generated by an FBI Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis conducted on a test-fire bullet and one found at the site of Kinser’s remains.
Experts for the defense and prosecution offered competing interpretations of the evidence during a hearing in February. Judge Jonathan Grine wrote that his decision to overturn the conviction and grant a new trial was not a matter of which expert was correct, but rather what impact the the FBI file would have had if it had been disclosed at trial.
“No amount of due diligence” would have enabled Vedam to obtain the FBI measurements and bullet analysis data for his 1988 trial, Grine wrote, and “there is reasonable probability the jury’s judgment would have been affected” if an FBI agent’s bullet hole measurements had been provided. He added that the report could have been used for the defense to undermine the credibility of the agent who testified the bullet came from a .25 and “severed the link” between Vedam and the crime.
With the conviction overturned, Cantorna said that because key evidence and witnesses were no longer available, it would be nearly impossible to prosecute the decades-old case. He also said Vedam’s history as a model inmate throughout his 44 years behind bars factored into the decision not to pursue a new trial.
During his time in prison, Vedam earned three degrees, becoming the first inmate in SCI Huntingdon’s 150-year history to earn a master’s while incarcerated, created and led a prison literacy training program, led fundraising efforts for Big Brothers Big Sisters and tutored other inmates to help them earn diplomas.
“It is my conclusion that the interests of justice, the interests of the commonwealth and the interests of the citizens of Centre County are served by this 44-year prison sentence,” Cantorna said.
He later added, “There’s no doubt if there were concerns about public safety, this would not have occurred.”
