FORT COLLINS, Colo.—Joyous family members were preparing to welcome Tim Masters home from prison after special prosecutors said they would ask a judge to overturn his murder conviction and life sentence.
Masters, 35, was expected to be set free on a personal recognizance bond on Tuesday. He was transported Monday from the Buena Vista Correctional Facility to the Larimer County jail at about 3:35 p.m. to await his court hearing Tuesday.
Special prosecutor Don Quick said last week that DNA evidence pointed to someone else in the 1987 slaying of Peggy Hettrick in Fort Collins. Quick said he will ask a judge to set aside Master’s 1999 conviction and vacate his sentence.
“We’re so thrilled,” said Masters’ aunt, Betty Schneider. “We just love this kid, and we’re glad he’s coming home.”
Schneider said family members were fixing meals, getting a special cake and buying him clothes.
She said prison workers at the Buena Vista Correctional Complex threw a party for Masters Friday after Quick announced his decision.
“Isn’t that amazing?” she said.
Masters challenged his conviction as unfair, and Quick has acknowledged that the original defense team didn’t get all the information it should have received.
Larimer County Larry Abrahamson said Monday that he will move quickly to determine whether charges against Masters should be dropped. He said he will also send a letter to all law enforcement agencies in his district asking that they review contested convictions in which defendants are still serving a sentence.
“Any case that may benefit from results of DNA testing procedures, not available at the time of the convictions, are to be reported to my office,” Abrahamson said.
Masters told the Rocky Mountain News on Sunday that he was still trying to absorb the news.
“It’s not completely sunk in yet,” he said in a telephone interview. “Hopefully, it will feel real really soon.”
Masters said he was packing family photos and other belongings but was leaving behind his television, his coffee pot and his Department of Corrections-issued clothes.
“I don’t need any of that on the street and I don’t need any DOC clothes,” he said.
After years in prison for a murder he insists he didn’t commit, Masters said he has “a little bit of excess baggage.” He stopped short of saying anything specific about investigators who believed he was guilty and about prosecutors who took the case to the trial.
“You can pretty much imagine how I feel toward them,” he said.
