The Centre County District Attorney’s Office announced Thursday that the Commonwealth would not be moving forward with a third trial for a State College man who was twice convicted of first-degree murder.

Subramanyam Vedam, now 64, was first convicted in February 1983 for killing his roommate, 20-year-old Thomas Kinser, who was found in a sinkhole in September 1981, about nine months after his death. That conviction was overturned by the Superior Court and Vedam was retried. A jury again convicted Vedam of first-degree murder on Feb. 25, 1988.

He has been serving a life sentence in SCI Huntingdon.

Vedam has always maintained his innocence, according to freesubu.org, a website dedicated to clearing his name. The website states he was enrolled at Penn State University starting in 1981.

The murder weapon was never found, and during both trials, prosecutors relied on circumstantial evidence to charge and convict Vedam, who had been friends with Kinser since the late 1970s, the website states.

On Aug. 28, in response to a Post-Conviction Relief Act petition filed by the defense, Centre County President Judge Jonathan D. Grine ruled that Vedam’s conviction could not stand and that he was entitled to a new trial.

Grine’s ruling came after the defense’s review of evidence in the case revealed there was suppression of evidence and perjured testimony on behalf of the commonwealth.

According to background information included in the Centre County DA Bernie Cantorna’s statement Thursday, Kinser’s cause of death was determined to be a gunshot wound to his skull. A .25-caliber bullet was found inside his shirt and was determined to be consistent with the trajectory of the bullet that killed Kinser.

In both previous trials, Daniel O’Connell testified on behalf of the prosecution that he sold Vedam a .25-caliber gun and ammunition prior to Kinser’s disappearance and death.

O’Connell stated that he allowed Vedam to test-fire the weapon into a tree prior to purchasing it and told investigators where to find the tree.

When investigators recovered the test-fired casing, they compared it with the casing found with Kinser’s body and determined they were fired from the same weapon.

In Grine’s August ruling, he said the commonwealth was in possession of the specific measurements of the bullet hole in Kinser’s skull and failed to disclose them.

The measurement of the size of the bullet hole in Kinser’s skulls “undermines the commonwealth’s theory that a .25 caliber weapon caused Kinser’s death and supports the defense theory that that .25 caliber bullet is too large to have caused the hole in Kinser’s skull,” the court found.

The judge also found the commonwealth did violate Vedam’s due process rights by knowingly presenting perjured testimony, specifically that an FBI agent stated there was nothing inconsistent about the hole in Kinser’s skull, though the hole measured smaller than a standard .25 caliber bullet.

In Grine’s opinion, the commonwealth knew this testimony was false, as prosecutors had the specific measurements of the hole in Kinser’s skull.

This information would have also undermined the commonwealth’s contention that the bullet came from a .25 caliber weapon associated with Vedam, the report states.

In Cantorna’s statement Thursday, he said the DA’s Office maintains that the evidence provided to the defense in their request for a new trial supports the testimony and evidence presented at trial by the FBI that Kinser’s wound was consistent with a .25-caliber round.

However, the DA states that given the amount of time that has passed since Kinser’s body was found and the case was originally tried, it would be improbable that the commonwealth could prosecute Vedam a third time.

“Witnesses are deceased, memories have faded, evidence has been lost, and ultimately it would be difficult to successfully retry a 40-year-old case in these circumstances,” according to the release.

Cantorna also said that Vedam has had no reported issues while incarcerated and he no longer presents a danger to the public.

“Given the implications of Judge Grine’s opinion, the real-life difficulties of a retrial, and the reality that 44 years is a sufficient sentence for a murder committed by someone who was nineteen years old, the Commonwealth has today filed a request for the case to be dismissed,” Cantorna writes.

The defense provided no objection to the DA’s motion.