Let {Yn} be a sequence of nonnegative random variables (rvs), and Sn = n j=1 Yj, n ≥ 1. It is first shown that independence of S k−1 and Y k , for all 2 ≤ k ≤ n, does not imply the independence of Y1, Y2, . . . , Yn. When Yj's are identically distributed exponential Exp(α) variables, we show that the independence of S k−1 andIt is shown by a counterexample that the converse is not true. We show that if X is a non-negative integer valued rv, then there exists, under certain conditions, a rvwhere {N (t)} is a standard (homogeneous) Poisson process, and obtain the Laplace-Stieltjes transform of Y . This leads to a new characterization for the gamma distribution. It is also shown that a G(α, k) distribution may arise as the distribution of S k , where the components are not necessarily exponential. Several typical examples are discussed.