FORT COLLINS, Colo.—Defense attorneys said an FBI profile that played a key role in convicting a man years after a 1987 slaying is missing from evidence as they seek to win a new trial.
A forensic psychologist for the prosecution used the profile to create a theory that Tim Masters, who was 15 years old at the time of the slaying, killed Peggy Hettrick as part of a fantasy.
Masters was convicted in 1999—12 years after the slaying—on a circumstantial case that included a psychological analysis, violent pictures he had drawn, the fact that he lived 100 feet from where Hettrick’s body was found, and that police said he had seen the body but didn’t report it.
San Diego psychologist J. Reid Meloy quoted the FBI profile in a 247-page binder of notes that he used to build his psychological analysis.
Among his findings were that the killer could have planned the slaying to coincide with a “personally significant” anniversary. Hettrick died within a day or two of the anniversary of the death of Masters’ mother, and Meloy noted that Hettrick, like Masters’ mother, had red hair.
Trial defense attorney Nathan Chambers testified for the third day Thursday as Masters’ defense attorneys, David Wymore and Maria Liu seek a new trial.
Chambers said Meloy’s notes were never turned over to him at trial and how the psychologist quickly reached a guilty conclusion.
“It’s an effort to validate the government’s theory, to . . . I’m trying not to use inflammatory words here . . . To frame him, to pin it on him,” Chambers said on the stand in response to a question.
Meloy, in a letter to Lui said: “After a long and hard look I haven’t been able to find the FBI profile.”
Other lost or destroyed pieces of evidence in the case include hairs found on Hettrick’s footwear and photos of fingerprints from her purse, none of which match Masters.
The hearing on whether to grant Masters a new trial will resume Nov. 5.
Part of Masters’ defense is that investigators may overlooked a potential suspect, an eye doctor who lived nearby and who had a sexual fetish. Dr. Richard Hammond committed suicide in 1995 immediately after police accused him of secretly videotaping the genitalia of female visitors who used the bathroom at his home.
Some of the wounds on Hettrick’s body originally were described by the county’s medical examiner as “surgical” in nature. Later that was changed to wounds of “mutilation” that could have been done by anyone with a knife and a desire.
Prosecutors said Hammond was home with his wife on Feb. 11, 1987, when Hettrick, a manager at Fort Collins Fashion Bar, was stabbed in the back and sexually mutilated.
