DENVER—The lead detective in a botched Fort Collins murder investigation has acknowledged that police knew about evidence that pointed away from the man who was convicted but later exonerated.
In documents filed this week in U.S. District Court, Fort Collins police Lt. James Broderick said fingerprints found on the purse, hair and clothing of the victim didn’t belong to Tim Masters.
Masters was convicted of murder in the 1987 death of Peggy Hettrick and served 10 years in prison before he was cleared by advanced DNA testing.
Masters was released in January 2008. Hettrick’s slaying remains unsolved.
Broderick denied allegations in a lawsuit filed by Masters that prosecutors or investigators destroyed the evidence.
“Mr. Broderick admits workable latent fingerprints were found in Hettrick’s purse that were not Plaintiff’s,” said the document filed in response to Masters’ lawsuit, which claims the physical evidence did not belong to either Hettrick or Masters. “Mr. Broderick admits the hair (on her clothing) could not be determined to have come from Plaintiff.”
Broderick’s response was one of five filed since Friday in Masters’ suit, which claims prosecutors and investigators ignored, withheld or destroyed evidence that pointed to his innocence.
“I was surprised that they admitted that much,” said Masters’ attorney, David Lane. “We always believed that that was true.”
Masters’ trial attorneys have said hair and footprints found at the scene and other evidence were would have been enough to acquit Masters, had the defense known about it.
Broderick, the city, the district attorney’s office and the prosecutors, Terrence Gilmore and Jolene Blair, have all denied wrongdoing and claim government immunity.
Broderick’s attorney, Patrick Tooley, declined to elaborate Wednesday.
Gilmore and Blair are now judges in Colorado’s 8th Judicial District. In September, Colorado’s Supreme Court censured them for failing to turn over information to Masters’ trial attorneys.
In an agreement with the Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Regulation, both acknowledged failing to ensure defense attorneys received several key pieces of information obtained by police that called their case into question.
Masters’ lawsuit says the fingerprints and hairs were sent to the FBI for analysis and were later destroyed by Fort Collins police, making it impossible to search for other suspects.
Broderick’s response did not explain what happened to the fingerprints and hair, or whether investigators deemed the evidence irrelevant.
Lane said it was unclear whether Broderick knew about the evidence before Masters’ 1999 trial or learned about it during Masters’ appeal.
Broderick also said he participated in a hearing where he “believed the evidence was and would be sufficient to establish plaintiff’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
With no physical evidence linking Masters to the slaying, Broderick and prosecutors developed a circumstantial case built largely on violent drawings the aspiring horror novelist had in his room and that he had seen the body, which was dumped in a field about 100 feet from his bedroom, but didn’t call police.
Masters’ lawsuit also alleges key evidence was withheld, including that a top FBI profiler disagreed with the opinion of the prosecution’s star witness, criminal psychologist Reid Meloy, on Masters’ drawings.
According to the suit, Meloy now says prosecutors “intentionally manipulated” his opinion by giving him only a portion of the evidence available and misrepresenting the physical evidence.
