An inmate whose testimony could help exonerate a murder convict is seeking a judge’s protection from prison investigators who appear to be intimidating him.
The investigators are former El Paso County detectives — one of whom led the probe into the 1991 killings.
Prisoner Charles Stroud has been both a suspect and witness, and says Corrections Department investigators are threatening his privileges and living conditions if he calls into doubt the conviction of Tim Kennedy.
“These people control every piece of my life, Your Honor. . . . I fear for my life, my safety, every big and small part of my existence. Therefore, please don’t make me testify. DOC’s blue crew get what they want, any way they have to,” Stroud wrote District Judge Thomas Kane, who this week will consider Kennedy’s appeal.
I reported on Kennedy last month after tests of key DNA evidence raised questions about his conviction.
Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Carpenter and her 37-year-old boyfriend, Steve Staskiewicz, were friends of Kennedy when they were shot execution-style in their Colorado Springs trailer.
Carpenter had been raped months earlier by Rebecca Corkins and Stroud. Witnesses told police that both solicited them to chase Jenny out of town or blow her brains out before she could testify.
Detective Mark Finley pursued the case as a witness assassination masterminded by Corkins or Stroud, but could not persuade DAs to press charges.
Four years later, Finley closed the case by arresting Kennedy. The jury convicted him on scant more evidence than that a gun he loaned his friends may have been used in the shootings.
Kennedy’s trial lawyer never called on any of the witnesses who said Stroud and Corkins solicited them to make Jenny disappear. And he didn’t challenge testimonies of Finley’s witnesses who radically changed their accounts before trial to favor the prosecution.
Kennedy has served 13 years of two life sentences.
Judge Kane this week will consider new evidence, including tests showing somebody’s DNA other than Kennedy’s on items gripped by whoever shot, then dragged the victims.
Now a prison investigator, Finley is serving as an advisory witness for DAs in their fight to uphold Kennedy’s conviction.
On Dec. 5, at the request of District Attorney John Newsome’s office, Finley dispatched fellow DOC investigator Richard Hatch — also a former El Paso detective — to Territorial Prison to question Stroud, whom Kennedy’s team is calling as a witness.
“Come on Charlie, meet with Finley, just talk to him. Tell him what your testimony will be. . . . Are you sure your (sic) going to take the Fifth Charlie?” Stroud wrote that Hatch asked him.
“You have a really good job Charlie. What job will you do if they move you to another prison?”
“I know how it goes when a detective works hard to break a case. . . . He takes it very personal when others try to undermind (sic) him.”
Corrections spokeswoman Katherine Saguinetti countered “at no time did” Hatch “strongarm” Stroud “or tell him what his testimony should be.” She said it’s “standard protocol” for DOC investigators to question offenders on behalf of DAs.
In this case, that’s bunk.
The DOC tasks its investigators with probing violations that could breach prison security. Their job isn’t to interrogate prisoners about “street cases” outside prison walls, especially ones bird-dogged by their own colleagues.
Newsome wouldn’t comment.
Stroud’s felony conviction indeed raises questions about his credibility as he serves 50 years for raping Jenny Carpenter. But he would have no reason other than fear to rat out prison brass, especially regarding a case in which he was a suspect.
In interviews prior to Stroud’s outcry, Kennedy described years of similar harassment by Finley and fellow investigators.
There are terms that could describe what went on in that interrogation room Dec. 5. Witness intimidation and abuse of power are two of them. Obstruction of justice is another.
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
