‘I Committed Murder, Not My Brother’: Twin Confesses, Wrong Brother Imprisoned For 10 Years

Karl Smith was on a witness stand on Thursday to confess that he committed a murder that his identical twin brother, Kevin Dugar, had been incarcerated for since 2003, the Chicago Tribune is reporting.

“I’m here to confess to a crime I committed that he was wrongly accused of.”

It was the first time in years that the 38-year-old identical twins has set eyes on each other. Their mother, Judy Dugar, was in the court room; Kevin, who was seated at a table with his defense team, had broken down in tears.

The stunning confession did not go down well with prosecutors who are questioning the authenticity of the claim, saying Smith only agreed to come forward after he was convicted for attempted murder. In 2008, Karl Smith had taken part in a home invasion where a 6-year-old boy was shot in the head. He was serving a 99-year-prison sentence for armed robbery when he confessed.

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Assistant State Attorney Carol Rogala said Smith is going to spend the rest of his life behind bars and did not have anything to lose by taking his twin brother’s murder rap. Rogala also told the presiding judge, Vincent Gaughan, that Smith’s alleged confession did not tally with independent eyewitness accounts of the 2003 shooting.

Karen Daniel, Dugar’s defense lawyer, countered her claims saying evidence against her client had never been credible because no confession was made and no physical evidence unearthed. She said Dugar was jailed solely based on the testimonies of two eyewitnesses and that one had recanted what she said at his trial.

The brothers had always impersonated themselves and dressed alike to confuse friends and family. They appeared in court still looking the same, despite not setting eyes on each other for years. They both were sporting closely-cropped beards and shaved heads.

Dugar is doing his time at Stateville Correctional Center, while Smith is incarcerated at the Menard Correctional Center. Their mother, who had never visited any of her sons in prison, wondered why prosecutors would doubt Smith’s story, saying that “he would not lie about that.”

In March, 2003, a gunman dressed in a black hoodie opened fire on three people on a street killing Antwan Carter and injuring Ronnie Bolden. Bolden was shot three times and survived, but identified the shooter as “Twin,” a moniker used for both Smith and Dugar, who were notorious for impersonating each other. The shooting was a fall-out between Bolden’s Black P Stones and the twin’s gang, the Conservative Vice Lords.

Bolden had identified Dugar in a photo lineup that did not have the second twin, Smith. The other witness, Monique Boykins, had changed her testimony during the trial saying that Bolden had coerced her to identify Dugar as the shooter to police. However, in 2015, a jury still convicted Dugar of first-degree murder and Judge Gaughan sentenced him to 54 years in a correctional facility.

Smith admitted in court that he was a gang member alongside his brother and that they always played up their identical resemblance in many situations.

“We were acting like one. Where I was, he was, acting like each other. He pretended to be me, and I pretended to be him.”

Smith said when his brother asked him if he was the gunman he denied it, but later confessed in a letter he wrote to his brother, three years ago.

“I have to get it off my chest before it kills me. I’ll come clean and pray you can forgive me…I’m the one who shot those two Black Stones on Sheridan that night.”

Later that year, Smith had sent a second letter to his brother when he got no response, explaining his rationale for staying quiet and asking for his forgiveness.

“The reason I didn’t say [expletive] at the time was because I didn’t and couldn’t find the strength to do so at the time.”

Dugar had replied and asked Smith to get in touch with his lawyers. Smith had done so and sworn an affidavit confessing to the 2003 shooting.

Smith said he did not plan to kill anyone that night, but had run into Black P Stones gang members as he crossed a street to buy marijuana. Smith said he had opened fire with a .38 caliber handgun and fired at both men before running to a friend’s car and leaving the scene.

Smith said he was confident his twin brother would beat the rap when he was arrested, but when he was sentenced, did not have the confidence to come forward, but now felt convicted to because he had found God in prison.

This is not the first time that a brother was accused of a crime he did not commit. In 2012, Michael Winston spent six years behind bars for a murder his older brother, Robert, committed.

In 2000, Joseph Montoya was convicted of second-degree murder in New Mexico. His elder brother eventually gave himself up, saying he was the killer. However, the trial judge did not believe the claim concluding that the twins had “colluded.”

The judge will decide if Dugar deserves a new trial.

[Featured Image by Illinois Department of Corrections]