GREELEY — The district attorney today dismissed outstanding charges against the husband of convicted murderer Shawna Nelson.
Nelson’s husband — former Weld County sheriff’s deputy Ken Nelson — had been charged with trying to dispose of the murder weapon.
Prosecutors said they did not have sufficient admissable evidence to prove the charges against Nelson beyond a reasonable doubt.
Nelson declined to comment.
His attorney, Todd Taylor, said Shawna Nelson had tried to frame her husband.
He said she left shell casings at the scene in an attempt to implicate Ken Nelson.
“We are very thankful to the district attorney,” Taylor said after today’s hearing.
Shawna Nelson was convicted earlier this month of first-degree murder in the death of Heather Garraus on Jan. 23, 2007.
Former Greeley Police Officer Ignacio Garraus had a three-year affair with Shawna Nelson that produced a son.
Nelson, a former Greeley police dispatcher, grew enraged when Ignacio broke off their relationship in December 2006 and refused to support their son, said witnesses.
This led to a plot to kill Heather Garraus and ended when Nelson ordered Garraus to her knees outside the Greeley credit union where she worked as the branch manager. Nelson, who wore a stark black mask and long flowing coat, told Garraus, “You ruined my life” before shooting her twice in the head with a handgun, witnesses said.
A Greeley police affidavit said Ken Nelson took possession of the .40-caliber Glock Model 22 handgun thought at the time to be the weapon that killed Heather Garraus but later surrendered it to authorities.
