The Wrongful Conviction of Anthony Broom
The Incident
Charlotte Martz died of a single gunshot wound to the left side of her head, at roughly 4:05 a.m. on Wednesday, June 24, 1981. The location of her death was in Anthony Broom’s apartment, which was located at a Holiday Inn in Winter Haven, Florida. The first responding law enforcement officers at the scene surmised her death to be a suicide while the lead detective was convinced it was a homicide.
Anthony reported the incident himself, by calling the front desk clerk, requesting the police and ambulance. When the police didn’t show up within a few minutes, he called the front desk again, in hysterics, saying it’s urgent and to put him through to the police, and that someone has been shot or something to that effect.
When the police arrived, they found the door open to Anthony’s room. They could see that Anthony was giving Charlotte mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When Anthony realized the police were not entering the room, he reached down past where Charlotte’s left hand was hanging off the bed, picked up the gun, said “here’s the gun” and tossed it onto the couch. From the moment the police entered and secured the gun, the weapon was mishandled by several different officers. When the police asked Anthony what happened he said “I don’t know”.
