| People v. Masters | |
|---|---|
| Court | District Court, Larimer County, Colorado, U.S. |
| Full case name | The People of the State of Colorado vs. Timothy Lee Masters |
| Decided | March 26, 1999 |
| Citation | n° 98-CR-1149 (Colo. Dist.) |
| Case history | |
| Subsequent actions |
|
The Peggy Hettrick murder case concerns the unsolved 1987 death of Peggy Hettrick in Fort Collins, Colorado. Timothy Lee "Tim" Masters enlisted in the United States Navy following a high school career plagued by police accusation of murder when he was a sophomore at Fort Collins High School. After eight years in the Navy, he was honorably discharged. Masters worked for Learjet as an aviation mechanic until 1997, when he was arrested for the murder of Peggy Hettrick. [1] He was charged and convicted of the Hettrick murder in 1999 and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. His sentence was vacated in January 2008 when DNA evidence from the original crime scene indicated that he was not the responsible party. [2] Three years after his release from prison, Masters was exonerated by the Colorado Attorney General on June 28, 2011. As of 2023 [update] , no one else has been charged with Hettrick's murder.
On the morning of February 11, 1987, a bicyclist investigated what he thought was a mannequin and discovered the dead body of 37-year-old Peggy Hettrick in a field in southern Fort Collins. According to the coroner, she died from a single stab wound in the upper left back, likely very early in the morning. Her body had been "sexually mutilated," with the precise removal of her left nipple and areola, as well as a female "circumcision", [3] including what one doctor described as a partial vulvectomy; a procedure that requires high skill and quality surgical equipment to perform. [4]
Before the bicyclist found the body, 15-year-old Timothy Masters saw it while walking to school at daybreak. Thinking it was a mannequin left as a prank, Masters did not report the body to the police. After Masters' father Clyde Masters told canvassing police that he had seen his son deviate from his usual path across the field to the bus that morning, police pulled Masters, then a 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)-tall, 120 lb (54 kg) high school sophomore nicknamed "Toothpick", out of class for questioning.
Early in the investigation, lead investigator Fort Collins detective Jim Broderick centered on Masters as the primary suspect due to his failure to report the body found on his way to school. However, no physical evidence linking Masters to the crime was found.
On February 12, investigators searched his home, including the sinks for blood, and his school locker. They found 2,200 pages of writings and violent artwork by Masters in his bedroom, backpack and school locker, along with a knife collection and pornography. [5] The local newspaper with the account of the body's discovery was found on his dresser next to his knife collection. However, no trace of Hettrick's blood or hair was found in Masters' room or among his belongings, including his clothes and knife collection. [4]
Despite hours of police questioning without an adult present, wherein policemen repeatedly told Masters they knew he'd committed the murder, [6] the 15-year-old Masters maintained his innocence. The adolescent was administered a polygraph test after police interrogation; the results were inconclusive.
Over 1,000 pages of Masters' violent artwork were admitted into evidence.
Two hairs were found on Hettrick, but they did not match Masters. Investigators also found unknown fingerprints in Hettrick's purse, but these did not match Masters either. [4] With no new leads, and following consultation with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit, investigators planted an article containing false information in the local newspaper on February 12, 1988, in an attempt to provoke an incriminating reaction from Masters. [7] Around-the-clock police surveillance of Masters saw no reaction. Masters maintained his innocence during periodic police interviews during his high school and Navy years.
In 1992, during an interview with a former fellow high school student, investigators discovered that Masters told his friends details about the sexual mutilations. The investigators thought this information had never been made public or disclosed to Masters or his defense attorneys; they thought that only the killer would know those details. Investigators interviewed Masters again in Philadelphia, where he was serving in the Navy. He told investigators that a friend in his art class told him about the mutilations. The friend had been part of a group of Explorer Scouts helping the police search the crime scene, and he was told of the nature of the mutilations early in the investigation. His story checked out [4] and the investigation reached a dead end until 1997, when Broderick contacted a forensic psychologist from California, Dr. J. Reid Meloy.
Meloy analyzed Masters's writings and artwork extensively and concluded (without having ever spoken to Masters, which he could not since Masters was protected by his Fifth Amendment rights) that some of the drawings represented Masters reliving the crime. [8]
Based largely on Meloy's testimony about Masters's drawings, including one that Meloy interpreted as a knife cutting into a vagina and another drawing of a body being dragged, Masters was convicted in 1999 of Hettrick's murder and sentenced to life in prison. [9] Though some jurors had doubts about his guilt, the drawings and writings shown to the jury were cited by jury members as compelling evidence against him. [10]
Soon after his conviction, Masters appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals on the grounds that his drawings were inadmissible under rules of the court, as was testimony concerning a confrontation between Masters and a teacher before the murder occurred. Masters's defense team also objected to the testimony by Dr. Meloy. [11] The Colorado Court of Appeals unanimously upheld his conviction on February 15, 2001. [12]
In 2002, the Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether evidence supposedly suggestive of Masters's violent nature, which was fundamental to the prosecution in securing a conviction, was improperly admitted. Finding that some evidence should have, in fact, been suppressed, the Court, nevertheless, determining the error to be harmless, affirmed the lower court's finding. [13] On December 16, 2002, the Colorado Supreme Court denied a petition for rehearing in the case, effectively ending his first appeal. [14]
In 2004 Masters mounted another appeal on the grounds of ineffective counsel. The state appointed a new defense team who immediately began investigating the case. The defense team discovered that evidence, including the hairs found on Hettrick and photographs of the fingerprints found in her purse, was missing. [4] During 2007 hearings, the defense alleged police and prosecutorial misconduct in the investigation and trial. The defense argued that Jim Broderick perjured himself during the 1999 trial concerning his involvement in the case, [15] and that prosecutors allegedly withheld evidence about links to Dr. Richard Hammond, a potential suspect in the murder. [16]
In early 2008, special prosecutors assigned to the case agreed that critical information was not turned over to the original defense team. [17] On January 18, 2008, defense attorneys released evidence that further suggested Masters's innocence. Defense attorneys had touch DNA testing done in the Netherlands on evidence found at the scene, but tested samples did not include Masters's DNA. [18] Rather, the DNA results pointed to Hettrick's sometime boyfriend. [1] Special prosecutors assigned to the appeal recommended overturning Masters's sentence as a result of the DNA findings. The DNA results were confirmed by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
On January 22, 2008, a Colorado judge vacated Masters's conviction and ordered him released immediately. On February 5, 2008, District Attorney Larry Abrahamson and the Eight Judicial Circuit held proceedings to decide whether to retry Masters or to drop all charges against him. [19] Prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss murder charges against Masters on January 26, 2008, though at the time the Larimer County District Attorney stated that Masters has not been exonerated for the crime. [20]
In an announcement on June 28, 2011, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said Masters is no longer a suspect in the 1987 murder of Peggy Hettrick of Fort Collins and has been exonerated. Suthers stated, "Pursuant to the mandate from the Governor's Office, our team undertook a comprehensive review of the entire Hettrick homicide," Suthers said in a statement. "Our team conducted more than 170 interviews and conducted further DNA analysis. Throughout the past year, the Statewide Grand Jury heard evidence and testimony from numerous witnesses. Based on the testimony, the forensic analysis and the crime scene analysis, the overwhelming conclusion is that Timothy Masters was not involved in the murder of Peggy Hettrick."
He continued: "Masters cooperated fully with our investigation, including the Grand Jury proceedings. Given the nature and extent of the Grand Jury investigation, the time has come for law enforcement to officially exonerate Timothy Masters. The Hettrick case remains open. We have made significant progress in the investigation. Our team will continue to develop evidence and we will continue to work on this case until the murderer is brought to justice. Too many lives have been affected by the events of that day. Justice requires that we continue to diligently work on the case."
In 1995, seven years after the murder and two years before the retention of experts for the Masters's trial, Dr. Richard Hammond, an eye surgeon, was arrested for secretly filming women's genitalia, including that of his own female family members, through fake ventilation grates in his downstairs bathroom. The cameras were positioned to allow for detailed, closeup viewing of the women's genitals while sitting on the toilet. Investigators also found that Hammond kept thousands of dollars worth of pornography hidden in a locked office and in a storage shed in town, indicating an obsession with female genitalia. As a surgeon, Hammond had the skill and equipment to perform the precision mutilation found on Hettrick's body. In 1987, Hammond's bedroom window overlooked the location where Hettrick's body was discovered, and he was home the morning after the murder, despite his usually scheduled surgeries on that day of the week. Hammond committed suicide in March 1995, several days after his arrest. The police were called to a La Quinta Motor Inn in north Denver. There, they found Hammond dead, an IV needle containing cyanide residue sticking out of his thigh. "My death should satisfy the media's thirst for blood," he wrote in the suicide note. [4]
Though investigators noted a possible link between Hammond and the Hettrick murder, no follow up investigation was done. Broderick ordered evidence in the Hammond case destroyed before it could be examined for any link with Hettrick [21] based upon the premise that he had committed suicide and there was no criminal investigation that would begin. The arrest of Dr. Hammond, and his subsequent suicide, was information withheld from Dr. Meloy and the other experts, and the FBI was not informed of this case by Larimer County to reconsider their profiling of Mr. Masters from 1987.
The DNA testing that led to the 2008 overturning of Masters's conviction also implicated Hettrick's sometime boyfriend, Matt Zoellner, a young used car salesman, who testified at Masters's trial. Zoellner was initially a suspect in 1987, but was quickly ruled out. Officials plan to renew the investigation. [22]
Colorado law had no requirement that evidence be preserved, and shields liability to authorities who destroy evidence after criminal trials are complete. Partially as a result of this case, Colorado lawmakers passed H.B. 1397, which requires the preservation of all evidence that may contain DNA that is collected in cases resulting in a conviction for a Class 1 felony or a sex offense. The evidence must be preserved for the life of the defendant, after which the evidence may be destroyed. If charges have not been filed, DNA evidence must be preserved for the length of the investigation. [23] [24]
In June 2008, after a six-month review of the case, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck determined that police had acted inappropriately (misfeasance), but not criminally (malfeasance). "Buck was responsible for determining whether Broderick broke any laws, but in a letter to Chief Judge James H. Hiatt, he said it was important to give context of the overall case, which he used to reach his conclusions. 'After consideration of the evidence, I did not discover criminal conduct among employees of the Fort Collins Police Department or the prosecutors in the case,' Buck wrote." Buck also noted that the statute of limitations had expired. [25]
On October 21, 2008, David Lane, a criminal defense attorney in Denver filed a civil suit in federal district court against the Larimer County prosecutors, Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair, as well as detective James Broderick, alleging violations of Masters's civil rights. In their legal brief are facts concerning the Masters case, including withholding evidence from Dr. Meloy and other expert witnesses (including a surgeon consultant and a criminalist), and interference with the sharing of evidence among expert witnesses that would cast doubt on Masters's involvement in Hettrick's homicide and would have pointed toward other suspects. No information on the other suspects, including their existence, was provided to the experts at the time of their retention. The county settled with Masters for US$4.1 million and the City of Fort Collins settled for US$5.9 million, for a total of US$10 million. [26]
The original Masters case was prosecuted by then deputy District Attorneys Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair, who were elevated to district judgeship soon after. [4] [27] [28] On September 9, 2008, the Colorado Supreme Court censured Gilmore and Blair. [29] In an agreement with the Colorado Supreme Court's Office of Attorney Regulation, Gilmore and Blair acknowledged failing to ensure that Masters's defense attorneys received large amounts of the information which had been obtained by the Fort Collins Police Department, including many key pieces indicating Masters's innocence. [29] [30] In addition, the prosecutors failed to gather other information from police, despite indications that it existed.
In the General Election of November 2, 2010, Judges Blair and Gilmore were voted out of office, receiving less than 40% of the vote in the 8th Judicial District; their tenures ended on January 11, 2011. [31]
On June 30, 2010, a Larimer County Grand Jury under the direction of neighboring Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck's office indicted Lt. James Broderick on eight counts of felony first-degree perjury for materially false statements he made pursuant to the arrest and conviction of Masters. [32] Count 1, concerning an affidavit for Masters' arrest, was dismissed by Weld County District Judge James Hartmann in the January 26, 2011 ruling, "People v. Broderick," in a section entitled "Bronston Principles." [33]
On May 9, 2011, all remaining charges were dismissed by a ruling from Weld County District Judge James Hartmann that the 3-year statute of limitations for perjury in Colorado had expired. [34] Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, who is handling the prosecution of the Broderick case, said he was evaluating the judge's order and "will proceed with Broderick's prosecution if legally appropriate". Buck's options include a direct appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court as well as filing a reconsider motion with the original judge which would include a clarification of the timeline in the case. [35]
On July 29, 2011, a different Larimer County Grand Jury under the direction of Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck's office re-indicted Lt. James Broderick on nine counts of perjury. Broderick faces up to six years in prison for each count if convicted. [36] Those charges also were dismissed. In 2013, Broderick resigned to avoid an internal investigation into his handling of the Hettrick murder. [37] Fort Collins has reportedly spent $400,000 to date to defend Broderick. [36] Charges against him were finally dismissed in 2013.
A detailed forensic study that included the investigative methods used in the Hettrick murder case was published in 2009. [38] In June 2012, Berkley Books published Drawn to Injustice, a book co-written by Timothy Masters and Steve Lehto which tells the story from Masters' perspective. [39]
A&E's true crime television documentary series, Cold Case Files produced and narrated by Bill Kurtis featured a 1999 episode, Murder Illustrated, that dealt with the Peggy Hettrick case. The episode labeled Masters a murderer and congratulated the Fort Collins Police Department and District Attorney's office for a job well done. Since Masters's exoneration, the episode has been withdrawn from syndication, although it remains available on DVD. Kurtis refused to comment on the episode.
In criminal law, police perjury, sometimes euphemistically called "testilying", is the act of a police officer knowingly giving false testimony. It is typically used in a criminal trial to "make the case" against defendants believed by the police to be guilty when irregularities during the suspects' arrest or search threaten to result in their acquittal. It also can be extended to encompass substantive misstatements of fact to convict those whom the police believe to be guilty, procedural misstatements to "justify" a search and seizure, or even the inclusion of statements to frame an innocent citizen. More generically, it has been said to be "[l]ying under oath, especially by a police officer, to help get a conviction."
JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was an American child beauty queen who was killed aged six in her family's home at 755 15th Street in Boulder, Colorado. A long handwritten ransom note was found in the home. Her father, John, found the girl's body in the basement of their house about seven hours after she had been reported missing. She had sustained a broken skull two and a half hours before her death due to asphyxiation; a garrote was found tied around her neck. The autopsy report stated that JonBenét's official cause of death was "asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma". Her death was ruled a homicide. The case generated worldwide public and media interest, in part because her mother Patsy Ramsey, a former beauty queen, had entered JonBenét into a series of child beauty pageants. The crime is still considered a cold case and remains an open investigation with the Boulder Police Department.
In jurisprudence, prosecutorial misconduct or prosecutorial overreach is "an illegal act or failing to act, on the part of a prosecutor, especially an attempt to sway the jury to wrongly convict a defendant or to impose a harsher than appropriate punishment." It is similar to selective prosecution. Prosecutors are bound by a set of rules which outline fair and dispassionate conduct.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.
False evidence, fabricated evidence, forged evidence, fake evidence or tainted evidence is information created or obtained illegally in order to sway the verdict in a court case. Falsified evidence could be created by either side in a case, or by someone sympathetic to either side. Misleading by suppressing evidence can also be considered a form of false evidence ; however, in some cases, suppressed evidence is excluded because it cannot be proved the accused was aware of the items found or of their location. The analysis of evidence may also be forged if the person doing the forensic work finds it easier to fabricate evidence and test results than to perform the actual work involved. Parallel construction is a form of false evidence in which the evidence is truthful but its origins are untruthfully described, at times in order to avoid evidence being excluded as inadmissible due to unlawful means of procurement such as an unlawful search.
Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Opponents of capital punishment often cite cases of wrongful execution as arguments, while proponents argue that innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.
David Ray Camm is a former trooper of the Indiana State Police (ISP) who spent 13 years in prison after twice being wrongfully convicted of the murders of his wife, Kimberly, and his two young children at their home in Georgetown, Indiana, on September 28, 2000. He was released from custody in 2013 after his third trial resulted in an acquittal. Charles Boney is currently serving time for the murders of Camm's wife and two children.
John Michael Kefalas is a politician in the U.S. state of Colorado. An educator and lobbyist before first running for the legislature in 2004, Kefalas defeated a Republican incumbent to win election to the Colorado House of Representatives as a Democrat in 2006. Kefalas won election to the State Senate in 2012 and represented Senate District 14 until early 2019. In 2018, Kefalas ran for and won a seat on the Larimer County Board of County Commissioners. He resigned his Senate seat, and a vacancy committee nominated Joann Ginal to replace him.
Rolando Cruz is an American man known for having been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, along with co-defendant Alejandro Hernandez, for the 1983 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in DuPage County, Illinois. The police had no substantive physical evidence linking the two men to the crime. Their first trial was jointly in 1987, and their statements were used against each other and a third defendant.
Centurion is a non-profit organization located in Princeton, New Jersey, with a mission to exonerate innocent individuals who have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to life sentences or death.
Stanley Tiger Romanek is an American author, documented con-artist and convicted sex offender.
Odin Leonardo John Lloyd was a semi-professional American football player who was murdered by Aaron Hernandez, a former tight end for the New England Patriots of the National Football League, in North Attleborough, Massachusetts, on June 17, 2013. Lloyd's death made international headlines following Hernandez's association with the investigation as a suspect. Lloyd had been a linebacker for a New England Football League (NEFL) semi-professional football team, the Boston Bandits, since 2007.
Investigating Innocence is a nonprofit wrongful conviction advocacy organization that provides criminal defense investigations for inmates in the United States. Investigating Innocence was founded in 2013 by private investigator Bill Clutter to assist nationwide Innocence Project groups in investigating innocence claims. "Once we have a case that meets our criteria, we'll put private investigators to work on it. A lot of these cases need investigators," said Kelly Thompson, executive director of Investigating Innocence. Prior to his work on Investigating Innocence, Clutter was one of the founders of the Illinois Innocence Project. Investigating Innocence also has a board composed of exonerees that reviews incoming cases.
Hae Min Lee was a Korean-American high school student who went missing on January 13, 1999, in Baltimore County, Maryland, before turning up dead on February 9, 1999, when her corpse was discovered in Leakin Park, Baltimore. Her autopsy revealed that she had been killed by way of manual strangulation.
Juan A. Rivera Jr. is an American man who was wrongfully convicted three times for the 1992 rape and murder of 11-year-old Holly Staker in Waukegan, Illinois. He was convicted twice on the basis of a confession that he said was coerced. No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene. In 2015 he received a $20 million settlement from Lake County, Illinois for wrongful conviction, formerly the largest settlement of its kind in United States history.
The murder of Tair Rada, a 13-year-old Israeli schoolgirl, was committed in 2006, in the girls' bathroom of her school in Katzrin. Roman Zdorov, a Ukrainian national residing in Israel and working at the school as a floorer, was convicted of the murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment on September 14, 2010. His prosecution and conviction have been a source of controversy, receiving much media coverage, as well as being the focus of an Israeli documentary TV series called Shadow of Truth that has gained worldwide attention on Netflix. On August 26, 2021, Zdorov was released from prison to house arrest after many appeals.
Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a division of Colorado Department of Public Safety, is a law enforcement agency of the state of Colorado that performs forensic and laboratory services and criminal investigations at the request of local and state law enforcement agencies and district attorneys. They investigate arson, homicides, sexual assaults, fraud, cyber, identity theft, and other crimes. Their forensic services include DNA, biology, firearm, latent print, toxicology and drug chemistry analysis. Other units in the CBI include Crime Scene Services, Crime Information Management Unit, Criminal Justice Information Systems, and Colorado’s InstaCheck Unit. The CBI is designated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, as the CJIS Systems Agency for Colorado. It is headquartered in the Denver suburb of Lakewood at 690 Kipling Street.
Jabbar Collins is an American man who served 16 years for a crime he did not commit. He was convicted of second-degree murder following the February 1994 death of Orthodox rabbi Abraham Pollack in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The 20-year-old Collins, who lived in a nearby housing project, was arrested and charged with the murder. In March 1995, he was sentenced by a jury to 34-years-to-life in prison, sixteen of which he served.
The Eastburn family murders were the murders of Kathryn "Katie" Eastburn and her daughters, Kara and Erin, which occurred in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in May 1985. In 1986, United States Army Sergeant Timothy Hennis was tried and convicted for the three murders. In 1988, Hennis's conviction was overturned on appeal, and he was acquitted the following year. In 2006, the Cumberland County Sherriff's Office obtained DNA evidence linking Hennis to the crime. Despite the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause prohibiting retrials after acquittals, the United States Army was able to initiate prosecution and trial proceedings against Hennis under the dual sovereignty doctrine. In 2010, Hennis was tried and convicted by an Army court-martial for the triple murders and sentenced to death.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)