New hearing in Center County murder case

There will be a new trial for a 40-year-old murder case in Center County, with a judge deciding the hearing will focus on a key piece of evidence that was only disclosed to the convicted murderer's lawyer earlier this year.

Center County Chief Judge Jonathan Grine issued the ruling in the Subramanyam Vedam case on Tuesday.

It's something of a split decision for Vedam's legal team. Several items they wanted to include in a new evidentiary hearing were dismissed by the judge, but he approved a new hearing to review an FBI report related to the fatal shooting that is crucial to Vedam's defense.

Vedam was convicted of first-degree murder in 1983 in the shooting death of his friend Thomas Kinser.

Prosecutors said Kinser was killed with a .25-caliber gun.

Vedam's lawyers argued that the bullet hole in Kinser's skull was too small for a .25-caliber rifle.

In a case based on circumstantial evidence and in which a murder weapon was never found, the information about the bullet hole was critical to law enforcement.

What Vedam's lawyers saw for the first time in January of this year was an FBI report on the skull hole measurement that matched the bullet measurement details in a note reportedly handwritten by then-Center County District Attorney Ray Gricar, the skull hole case prosecuted.

Judge Grine has scheduled a status conference with the case's legal counsel for later this month.