COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—A Colorado man whose murder conviction was overturned partly because no DNA evidence tied him to the crime may be released, a judge said Tuesday, but prosecutors say they’re going to put him on trial again.
El Paso County District Judge Thomas Kane set $250,000 bail for Tim Kennedy, who was convicted in 1997 of the 1991 slayings of 15-year-old Jennifer Carpenter and her boyfriend, 37-year-old Steve Staskiewicz.
Kane, who presided at Kennedy’s original trial, overturned Kennedy’s convictions and life sentences on April 21, citing flawed evidence, prosecutors’ failure to turn over evidence to the defense, and a lack of DNA evidence.
Kennedy’s retrial was set for Sept. 21.
“Now he gets a real trial and he’ll be able to present evidence that will clear his name,” said his sister, Judy Kennedy.
Timothy Masters’ conviction and life sentence in the 1987 slaying of Peggy Hettrick in Fort Collins were overturned with the use of DNA evidence. Masters was released in January 2008. Hettrick’s slaying remains unsolved.
Dutch DNA expert Richard Eikelenboom conducted DNA tests for defense attorneys for both Masters and Kennedy, and the results were verified by the state DNA lab.
Eikelenboom found a lack of DNA on Carpenter and Staskiewicz’s bodies where the killer would have touched them and on a sponge believed to have been used as a gun silencer.
Assistant District Attorney Dan Zook called Eikelenboom’s method of trace DNA testing “novel,” seldom used and of questionable reliability. Zook insisted Kennedy, now 52, was wearing gloves at the time of the slaying.
“The court is well aware that these are two horrendous murders,” Zook said, arguing that Kennedy be held without bond. “This man is dangerous. I believe he is a danger to the community.”
Defense attorney John Dicke argued for Kennedy’s release.
“I would trust Tim with my child, my house, my wife,” Dicke told Kane. “He is the most honest and sincere client I have. He would give someone the shirt off his back and that’s what cost him his freedom.”
Carpenter, a runaway, was allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a couple. Prosecutors learned that a “hit” order had been put out on Carpenter and were moving to take her testimony when she and Staskiewicz were slain in Staskiewicz’s trailer.
Kennedy had lent Staskiewicz, his friend, three guns for protection, including an AMT 380 handgun that was the murder weapon. He also lent two TVs and a stereo for entertainment while the couple hid from the purported plot to kill Carpenter.
Zook pointed out the murder weapon belonged to Kennedy, his statements to investigators were inconsistent and that DNA on a cigarette butt found in a beer can showed Kennedy was at the trailer the night of the slayings. Kennedy has said he visited his friends before they were shot.
Zook said Kennedy was unemployed, a meth addict and a drug dealer who had become paranoid because of his drug use. He said police found a sign in Kennedy’s car that read, “Give me back my belongings. I don’t go to police ever. You and your old lady better watch out.”
An FBI expert had testified that bullets found in Kennedy’s apartment matched a bullet used in the slayings. But that analysis was thrown out by Kane, who cited faulty science behind an assumption that investigators can pinpoint the box a bullet came from. The FBI stopped conducting such tests in 2005.
At Kennedy’s hearing for a new trial, a witness identified another man as the triggerman who boasted about finding another person’s handgun in the trailer to use in the slayings. In overturning Kennedy’s conviction, Kane said there was evidence of a murder conspiracy between the couple accused in the kidnapping and sexual assault and the man identified by that witness as the triggerman.
Kane said the alternate suspect theory should have been used by Kennedy’s defense attorney.
Kane also found that prosecutors did not turn over to the defense a letter from a suspect in the kidnapping and sexual assault that could have been interpreted as involvement in the slayings.
