by Pat Hartman
The official document:
District Attorney Kenneth T. Buck's letter to Chief Judge James H. Hiatt
The reaction:
In January of 2008, after the conviction of Tim Masters for the murder of Peggy Hettrick had been vacated, District Attorney Ken Buck of Weld County was assigned as special prosecutor to determine if any criminal laws were violated by Lt. James Broderick of the Fort Collins Police Department. A mere six months later, to the utter astonishment of absolutely no-one, Buck’s report concludes that Broderick won’t have any criminal charges filed against him. Which is not quite the same as not doing anything wrong. On July 8, 2008, DA Buck’s report was released in the form of an 11-page letter, and on the 9th he held a press conference to further elucidate.
Buck notes that his mandate was limited to finding out if Broderick broke any laws, and uses the word again to say, “During my limited investigation several flaws were uncovered….” One might almost think he’s implying that, if he’d been able to investigate more fully, and not been limited, his findings might have been more substantial. But that’s probably wishful thinking on my part.
The Not Fully Informative Timeline
The letter/report includes an abbreviated timeline of the case. Of course, not every little detail of the excruciatingly long history of the case could be included here, but there are a few things it would have been useful to remind us of. For instance, the timeline notes that on February 12, 1987, the day after Peggy Hettrick’s body was found, Tim Masters was interviewed for 6 hours. This was also the day when a conversation between Tim and his father Clyde Masters was recorded, and also the day Tim was given a lie-detector test with inconclusive results, though that isn’t mentioned here.
It also doesn’t mention how, on the very next day, Broderick tells the FBI all about his favorite suspect, Tim Masters. Unfortunately, the Fort Collins Police Department doesn’t have a damn thing on the kid in the way of physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, confession, or any other thing that would make an arrest stick. Supposedly, the 15-year-old boy is so clever and sly, he’s managed to totally outwit the FCPD, despite the fact that they’ve been working on the case for two entire days.
The FBI advises patience: and here, two days after Peggy Hettrick’s murder, the anniversary surveillance is born. This is not a guess, it’s according to testimony in the recent hearings. In this and subsequent conversations with the FBI, Broderick is instructed in how to set up, conduct, and interpret any results of this fantastic, costly, and counterproductive plan. Already, instead of trying to catch the murderer immediately, he is focused on how to catch Tim Masters a year in the future. This alone should be enough to send Broderick to prison. That’s as far as we’ll go right now with the conspiracy theory. It’s a whole separate, and huge, topic.
But wait – it gets better. Broderick asks the FBI to do a profile. Here’s the problem. With them, the whole concept of making a “profile” centers around the fact that there is no suspect. They start with a blank slate, and just make it up as they go along, predicting what kind of person will turn out to have done the crime. Well, Broderick has already provided to them all of the particulars of Tim Masters, which shows a baffling ignorance of FBI procedure, to say the least. And there’s nothing at all in Buck’s report about how, years later, when Tim was finally arrested, the warrant was partially based on the profile that never existed.
The timeline skips ahead to June 15, 1987 when Broderick, having been promoted, was reassigned to patrol and presumably, was off the Masters case. Then, it says in late 1987 the FCPD received suggestions for the anniversary surveillance. This is very oversimplified, as we’ve just seen, because the anniversary surveillance plan had actually been around since Day 3 of the investigation.
And of course in the meantime there had been the whole Donald Long saga. Long was and still is a viable suspect for the Peggy Hettrick murder, but that’s a whole separate subject also, and one not mentioned in the DA’s report.
Buck’s timeline mentions the February 11, 1988 anniversary surveillance, also in an oversimplified fashion, since that surveillance actually lasted a week and covered several locations. The report also neglects to mention that the “surveillance” included a deliberate psychological warfare-type provocation, designed to mess with the head of this teenager by capitalizing on the fact that it was also the anniversary of his mother’s death. Yes, they planted a copy of her obituary where Tim would find it. Also, the report makes no mention of a news story fabricated by the police and foisted on an unsuspecting journalism intern. It also neglects to mention a police document written on February 8, 1988, stating that if the anniversary surveillance had no result, they would close the books on this case. But they didn’t. Some obsessed mind or minds were intent on nailing Tim Masters with this one.
The Changing of the Guard
One of DA Buck’s conclusions is that the multiple errors in the Masters case were compounded by multiple changes in case leadership. Let’s take a look at this. It started out with Sheri Wagner and Jack Taylor as co-lead investigators, which they presumably still were through June of 1991 when Linda Wheeler-Holloway took over. That wasn’t such an abrupt departure. Wheeler-Holloway had been the first officer on the scene at Peggy Hettrick’s murder site, and then was assigned to deal with the victim’s family. She knew all about the case. After the 1992 Philadelphia excursion, during which Wheeler-Holloway refused to arrest Masters because he was the wrong man, the Hettrick murder went to cold case status in 1993.
In 1995 and ‘96, Officer Marsha Reed got busy pulling together elements of the Masters case, but there doesn’t seem to be any mention of her, ever, as lead. She apparently forgot to file a report from a doctor, that would have been exculpatory for Tim, but that was just as one of the officers on the case, and Buck doesn’t mention her part in it at all. After that, the next lead investigator was Jim Broderick, who was also familiar with the case from the beginning, and indeed knew more than too much about it, since he invented most of it.
This doesn’t really add up to a whole lot of leadership change, when you consider the many years the case stretched over. The various leaders were all familiar with the case. In fact, nobody in the entire FCPD was unfamiliar with it, and certainly, none of the lead investigators came into it a virgin. Besides, there was plenty of continuity in the leadership. At any rate, it should not matter if there had been even more changes in leadership. That’s what records and briefings are for. In a hospital, a patient’s chart is a detailed record of everything that happens, readable by each subsequent nurse who cares for the patient. When new nurses come on duty, a verbal report is given by the off-going shift to the oncoming shift. Would it be acceptable for a hospital to claim that nursing changes of shift were responsible for a patient’s death? Geez, let’s hope not.
More weird stuff
So in July of 1992, an arrest warrant was obtained. This report doesn’t mention that the warrant was based on a story from an informant about how Tim supposedly had special knowledge about the crime that, actually, everybody in town knew. Anyhow, Linda Wheeler-Holloway had the good sense not to arrest him at that time.
Then, in 1995, the Richard Hammond mess happened. He was the eye doctor who should have been the prime suspect in the Peggy Hettrick murder. Broderick was instrumental in destroying the massive amount of evidence gathered on Hammond, and Reed granted immunity to Hammond’s wife, who in some circles is considered a pretty good accomplice suspect.
On April 20, 2007, Buck’s timeline says, “The 17th Judicial District Attorney was appointed by the court as special prosecutor.” This, as we will recall, happened because the prosecution had to recuse itself on account of a conflict of interest – only one of the messy details in this entirely SNAFU’d case.
The allegations against Broderick
One of the most shameful things about this is that there were only three allegations against Broderick which DA Buck’s office was tasked with investigating. And, for symmetry, there are three things that office had to decide: Was a crime committed? Did the suspect (in this case, Broderick) commit the crime, if indeed there was one? And – here’s the most important part – is there a “reasonable likelihood of conviction at trial.”?
At his press conference after the 11-page letter was issued, Buck was asked if the standard is different with civilians and police. Buck says, yes, it is. “Our standard,” he said, is “reasonable probability of conviction.” Which isn’t quite the same as answering the question. Doesn’t that hold true with any prosecutor, in deciding whether to bring charges against anyone, civilian or police? Because if they know they can’t get a conviction, it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money and everybody’s time, to charge the person.
The tape and transcript
So, the first allegation is that Broderick recorded the conversation between Tim and his father, the day after Peggy Hettrick’s murder, in violation of the anti-eavesdropping rules. Well, the first thing Buck points out is that the statute of limitations runs out in three years, so in order to stick, a charge would need to have been made before February 1990. So, obviously, there would be no probability of conviction. When it’s a citizen, they call this “getting off on a technicality,” and it’s quite lame. For cops, there shouldn’t even be a statute of limitations. They have so much latitude and so much power, and get away with so much, there ought to be a counterbalance – like, for instance, a requirement to adhere to higher ethical standards than your average mug on the street. Yes, it’s only wishful thinking.
But Buck goes on to say he doesn’t believe that Broderick, personally, engaged in eavesdropping, as defined by law. Because, supposedly, Broderick wasn’t involved in the decision to record the supposedly private conversation between father and son, and didn’t know whether Clyde Masters verbally consented or not. He says he had nothing to do with it, except that his own interrogation of Masters was pre-empted to accommodate the father-son talk.
This recording is problematic for several reasons, the foremost being consent. In 1996, Clyde Masters died, removing from the equation not only Tim’s sole alibi witness, but the only one who could say whether verbal permission was given to record his conversation with his son in the police station back in 1987. Co-lead investigator Wagner says Sgt. Martinez informed Clyde Masters that the conversation would be recorded. Sgt. Martinez says not. It’s a classic he-said-she-said standoff. And, as Buck tells us, there is no written record that Clyde Masters consented on behalf of himself or his son. The DA gives the police a bit of a scolding for this.
Another problem, and here’s where it gets real complicated, is that when Tim went on trial, the father/son portion of the immediate post-murder questioning was left out of the transcript provided to Tim’s defense attorneys. Apparently, they either were given a copy of the tape, or were told they could have a copy if they wanted it. FCPD was betting that the original defense lawyers would not listen to the tape, even if it were possible for them to do so. If the lawyers were doing their job right, they should have listened to it, if indeed it was turned over to them or made available upon request.
On the other hand, ought we to blame the lawyers, who are officers of the court, for trusting the honesty of government officials? Shouldn’t defense attorneys be naturally entitled to assume that the transcript of an interview turned over by the police, will be accurate and complete, and match up with the tape? I mean, shouldn’t they?
Buck says, “…Defense Counsel received notice of the recorded conversation, and Lt. Broderick has a plausible explanation for creating a second transcript.” This seems to mean that a complete transcript already existed, and Broderick himself generated a second, censored and redacted version of the transcript – one that omitted the father/son conversation. And what, pray tell, was his plausible explanation for doing that? It’s not here. Unless this is supposed to be it:
According to Buck’s report, Broderick was listening to the tape and reading along in the transcript, and when he heard the father/son segment, had doubts as to whether it had been recorded with permission. So he called prosecutor Terry Gilmore. “After that conversation Lt. Broderick believed that any information that was of questionable admissibility should not be included….” See what he’s saying? He knew this would be inadmissible because it was obtained illegally – the fruit of the poison tree – and thus the inclusion of that part of the tape in the written transcript would threaten the whole case! Not being a lawyer, I don’t know if it would have been cause to declare a mistrial, or exactly how it would have happened; whether the worst thing would be that it was exculpatory evidence, or whether the worst thing would be that evidence was illegally obtained – either way, there’s no doubt that Broderick was aware that knowledge of this bit of information could lose his case. A bit of information which, had it been known, could have gotten his police department convicted of eavesdropping, if not for that tricky little statute of limitations. If that’s not concealing evidence, I don’t know what is. “This evidence may have been relevant at trial…” Buck says. Yes, it most certainly would have been. And the question is still open – if not Broderick, what individual was responsible for leaving it out?
Buck’s report says, “Lt. Broderick now knows that the transcript with the full conversation between Tim and Clyde Masters was not given to the defense and was stored “off site” from the police department.” Where, exactly, was “off site”? Why? Why don’t we get to know where? The report says, “A tape of Mr. Masters’ interview, including the conversation with his father, was made available to defense attorneys as part of discovery before trial.” What exactly does that mean? Does “made available” mean that the defense team could have had it, if they had known it was important to ask for it? For instance, if they had known that the tape didn’t match the interview transcript?
Okay, the upshot is, according to this report, “Lt. Broderick did not invite Clyde Masters to talk to his son and Lt. Broderick was not responsible for receiving permission to record the conversation.” But somebody did those things. Let’s go after whoever was responsible. Just because one cop had the inspiration to do it, and another one suggested how to do it, and another one invited Clyde Masters into the room and another one opened the door and another one closed the door and another one forgot to turn off the tape recorder….. Spreading out the doing of it doesn’t make it any less wrong. Somebody was responsible – but, thanks to that darn statute of limitations, it doesn’t matter anyway.
The second allegation
Okay, moving on to Allegation #2, namely that Broderick committed perjury by “misstating his involvement in the Hettrick homicide investigation.” The statute of limitations would of course apply again, but there are exceptions: the accused has to be prosecuted within three years of when the act of perjury is discovered, not committed. So, supposedly, Broderick could still be accused and convicted of this. Theoretically, he’s still vulnerable on this front, until December 17, 2010. That’s the good news.
The bad news is, it ain’t gonna happen. What Broderick said in court was that he had nothing to do with the Masters case between interviewing Tim in 1987, and being asked to assist in 1992. However - Masters’s post-conviction defense team says Broderick was involved at least three times between those dates.
First, there was a letter dated April 30, 1987, to FBI Behavioral Sciences agent Joe Kohout, and Roy Hazelwood, who was retired from the FBI. When Hazelwood was active duty FBI, Broderick had tried to involve him in the case, but he wasn’t interested. This 1987 letter seems to have been Broderick’s effort at trying once more to snag the prestigious profiler Hazelwood. Buck doesn’t mention it, but that letter wasn’t given to defense as discovery in the original trial. It was only exposed during the 2007-08 hearings, during which half a day was spent trying to figure out what the “Kohout memo” was (May 13, 1987) and what it concerned. This could have been easily known, if the April 30 letter had been on the table at the time.
But no. It was one of the documents Broderick held onto throughout most of the duration of the hearings, only giving it up at the last minute after having been issued a subpoena, and even then, not immediately. It was also not part of the paperwork forwarded to Dr. Reid Meloy, who later became Broderick’s own expert witness, or to Roy Hazelwood, who he hoped would become his expert witness. What do you do with a guy who withholds stuff not only from the other team, but from his own side as well? Anyway, the “Kohout memo” seems to have concerned officer Jack Taylor’s conversation with Kohout, who had been primed by Broderick’s letter. There seems to have been some input from Hazelwood, too, though whether it was relayed through Kohout or whether Taylor talked with him separately is not clear. At any rate, Broderick’s April 30, 1987 letter certainly negates any claim that he had nothing to do with the Masters case at that time. Being the FCPD liaison with the FBI constitutes involvement.
Second indication of Broderick’s involvement during that time period: February 4, 1988, just four days before the beginning of the week-long anniversary surveillance there’s an official note of “Broderick’s contact with Tim last week.” What was that all about? Supposedly, Broderick, on patrol, just happened to coincidentally be nearby when Clyde Masters called the police about some kind of harassment. So naturally, Broderick hurried right over. It was a total cosmic accident, had nothing to do with Broderick’s determination to nail Tim Masters.
At of the time of the hearings, less that a year ago, no paperwork documentation of this incident had been located. How do we know that some member of the police department didn’t do the harassment? Look at the other things they did in conjunction with the anniversary surveillance. They followed Tim around all week to video arcades and fast-food joints, and called up his guidance counselor at school to ask if he was acting strange. They baited Tim by leaving his mother’s obituary on his friend’s car. To make sure that Clyde and/or Tim would see their planted, lying, fraudulent newspaper story, the FCPD had been delivering the Fort Collins Coloradoan to their home even though they didn’t subscribe. Maybe that was the harassment that Clyde Masters phoned in about. Maybe he complained about some overage paperboy sneaking around, leaving newspapers that he never asked for. It would not be one bit surprising if some kind of annoyance was set up, just to give Broderick an excuse to stop by.
Third: And then there’s the traffic stop of a suspicious character that Broderick made, during the anniversary surveillance – again, just doing his job, no special connection to the whole Masters thing, of course. We don’t have the exact date on which Broderick stopped and questioned Alfredo Denogean and wrote him a ticket for some kind of traffic violation. But on May 2, after the anniversary surveillance was over and the report on it had been submitted, Officers Wagner and Taylor interviewed a Donnegan or Dunnegan – or, quite possibly, Denogean. Why did they go back to him? What was that all about? Just another of dozens of unanswered questions.
The DA’s office interviewed Lt. Hal Dean about whether Broderick had been involved in the anniversary surveillance. It says here, “Lt. Dean stated that if surveillance officers needed a suspicious person checked out, they would have called the patrol division to have a marked unit contact the person.” Of course they would! The detectives in the surveillance trailer, when this guy knocked on the trailer door, presumably to find out if it was inhabited, so he could burglarize it – the surveillance guys aren’t going to come leaping out and blow their cover. Getting a uniform to tackle the intruder is standard operating procedure. This testimony doesn’t prove anything one way or the other.
We’re losing sight of something very important here – that in Buck’s words, “The vast majority of the anniversary surveillance material was not turned over to the defense in discovery.” The negative results of the anniversary surveillance would have been exculpatory, so this was definitely incomplete discovery – but not, we are told, Broderick’s doing. Whose decision was it, then? Never mind the traffic stop – was Broderick responsible for Tim’s defense team not getting this material? Wouldn’t you like to know? I sure would. Too bad, it’s not one of the questions within the scope of this particular investigation.
Buck says “Lt. Broderick’s involvement in the Hettrick homicide investigation between 1987 and 1992 is of little consequence…” Au contraire! It shows Broderick’s continuing obsession, the vendetta, the single-minded devotion to nailing Tim Masters, that is very consequential indeed.
Third allegation
Was Broderick guilty of “testifying falsely at the Masters trial about shoe print evidence found at the Hettrick homicide scene”? There’s way more to this shoe print mess than is suggested in this document. It’s a whole separate subject. But this paragraph of Buck’s report is precious:
“The crime-scene investigators failed to document the location of each individual shoe print, and failed to create a universal marker system for the crime scene. As a result, the casting impressions and shoe print photographs could not be linked to a particular location in the crime scene.” It has been suggested that the state of technology in 1987 was responsible for the muddle with the shoeprints. This is the kind of thing that makes the onlooker want to groan “Oh, please, give me a freakin’ break.” Even Brother Cadfael, the fictitious 12th-century crime-solving monk, knew enough to take careful note of where footprints were found and in what direction they were oriented.
DA Buck does say, “In my opinion, Lt. Broderick should have known that his testimony was incomplete” in regard to the shoe prints. “He was incomplete in his testimony.” Well, there you have it. Isn’t “the whole truth” part of the oath a witness swears with his hand on the Bible? Seems like that should be enough for a perjury indictment, on its own. “Somebody else was there…that would have been important evidence…” This is the kind of statement for which the response, “No shit, Sherlock!” was coined. Understatement of the decade.
Buck goes on to say, “I do not believe that there is a reasonable likelihood of convicting Lt. Broderick of Perjury at trial.” In other words, he didn’t do anything wrong, because we don’t really have a good chance of convicting him. Wow. Is that how it works? It seems not to have worked that way in Masters’s case. Broderick knew there wasn’t a good chance of convicting Tim Masters. But rather than concluding that Masters didn’t do anything wrong, he set out to invent enough bull, in the form of the fake profile and all his amateur forensic psychology suppositions, and by buying Reid Meloy’s “professional” forensic psychology theories, to create the likelihood that Masters did the murder.
This wrapup of Broderick’s involvement is inadequate and unsatisfactory. It’s like watching an elephant be pregnant for months and then give birth to a mouse. Now there’s supposed to be an internal FCPD investigation, which has been held in abeyance until the delivery of DA Buck’s report. With this tepid whitewash as precedent, it’s not difficult to foresee the results of that investigation.
The Hartman Report on the District Attorney's Report
The Hartman Report on the Special Prosecutor's Report
The Hartman Report on the Special Prosecutor's Report
by Pat Hartman
Originally published at Earthblog.net
March 11, 2008
by Pat Hartman
Originally published at Earthblog.net
March 11, 2008
The still-unsolved murder of a beautiful red-haired woman 21 years ago. A wrongly convicted man, released after nearly a decade of incarceration. A trio of obvious suspects ignored. A cop with a bizarre and unstoppable fixation. A heroic cop who risked her career to do the right thing. A forensic psychologist whose word can lock someone up for life. Four separate investigations of official wrongdoing. The true crime enthusiast who hasn't encountered this case yet will find a story destined to become a classic, as complicated and fascinating as those of Nicole Brown Simpson, JonBenet, or the Black Dahlia. For a complete background on the case see Free Tim Masters Because.
The hearings are over, Tim Masters is free, and the Special Prosecutor's Report (released February 15, 2008) seeks to ease our minds and reset our bullshit detectors to zero. Not so fast, boys.
The report is attributed to Don Quick, undoubtedly with input from team members Mike Goodbee, Thomas Quammen, Frank Spottke and Dan Michals. Perhaps because it is only a quasi-official document, it's written clearly and even with some narrative grace.
Quick's team was assigned in early 2007, after the defense accused the Larimer County bunch of prosecutorial misconduct. The Special Prosecutors were expected to deal only with post-conviction issues having to do with the 35c motion filed by Tim Masters (the one that said he had inadequate lawyering at his trial.) As Quick points out, in this case, the Special Prosecutors played a role different from their usual one. They set out to determine whether Tim got a fair trial. Also, they were called upon to "weigh the merits of his claim of actual innocence."
How many defense lawyers does it take to convict a client?
The report lists the grounds on which Tim Masters filed his 35c motion, a roster of the things he claimed his original trial counsel did wrong or failed to do. This is, after all, the subject matter for which the hearings were created. There's been a lot of talk about what a lousy job Fischer and Chambers did, ranging from not taking certain legal steps before testimony even started, to letting a juror sleep through part of the trial. No doubt, they could have done better. But no matter how much blame anyone feels inclined to place on those two lawyers, they were hobbled and handicapped by the absence of all the things that weren't surrendered as discovery. There's still plenty of blame remaining, to dish out to the prosecution and the police.
The report says, "The defense was not denied access to the evidence section of the police department and, in fact, accessed evidence there during the pendency of the case." About that, there are only two words to say: Thom McAn. Anyone who cares to do a little research will find a close scrutiny of the shoeprint evidence to be rewarding - especially in conjunction with a certain evidence envelope.
When discussing Tim Masters, anyone who says, "Yeah, but the jury convicted him" needs a reality check. No jury can do a good job when they are shown only a fraction of the meaningful evidence, and snowed under with an avalanche of non-evidence, and especially when they are outright lied to.
The Report
At the start, the Special Prosecutors promised to go wherever the evidence took them, which wasn't far enough. We saw tantalizing glimpses of a justice system gone Kafkaesque, but the termination of the hearings left a lot of unslaked curiosity. When the DNA evidence showed up, and Masters was abruptly released, someone was saved by the bell. It's great that Tim got out when he did, absolutely - but it also meant the planned additional hearings were vacated. No doubt this is in line with the law as written. But one thing about the law is, an exception can almost always be found if the motivation is there. Given the revelatory momentum the hearings had gathered, a person can't help wishing they had continued, and wondering if there could have been some way for that to happen.
Reading between the lines, it seems like the Special Prosecutors were disappointed, too. They had planned on "presenting testimony and having a public hearing on several issues." We are told that Jolene Blair and Terry Gilmore, the judges who were deputy DAs back in 1999 when they prosecuted Masters, wanted to testify.
What a coincidence - Tim Masters, wearing civvies for the first time in nearly a decade, walks out the front door on the very day when the two judges were to start answering questions. We'd had every reason to believe they would be heard from, along with Jim Broderick and Becky Hammond. One of the Special Prosecutors said he wanted to bring in Marsha Reed. And we were dying to hear from that quack Reid Meloy. Even Judge Weatherby became impatient with procedural details. After days of testimony from the original trial defense team, Erik Fischer and Nathan Chambers, it was proposed that the judge take charge of some boxes of documents. But he was eager to move forward. "Let's get on with some witnesses," he said, "… the people who know the answers…there is one person in my mind I want to know if is going to testify..."
One of the declared purposes of the report is to give the public some insight into the issues left unaddressed. Which is a nice gesture, though it would have been more edifying to see defense attorney David Wymore dismantle a few witnesses. The other stated reason for the report is to correct media inaccuracies. At the moment, only one inaccuracy is apparent. Some news reports seem to imply that only four problems were found. Actually, there were many. But we'll get to that.
This is incidental, but interesting: If the Special Prosecutor's office had wanted to, it apparently could have avoided ever opening the whole can of worms. A news report in August 2007 said that Quick at that point had the option "to submit a joint request with the defense team for a new trial - or to petition the court to exonerate Masters." It seems that taking one of those courses would have effectively left a lot of things covered up.
Incomplete explanations
In 1992, several years after the murder of Peggy Hettrick, an effort was made to arrest Tim Masters. Quick says the arrest warrant was then withdrawn because of "certain questions." In reality, there was only one question, and it was about the severed nipple, which the police had regarded as holdback information, naively believing that, even after 5 years, it was a confidential detail known only by members of their department. How did Tim know about? Three FCPD officers flew out to Philadelphia to ask him. The answer: he heard it from an Explorer Scout. In the days immediately following the murder, the police had those high school kids out there combing the field looking for - you guessed it: a severed nipple. There probably wasn't a student in the school who didn't know.
Quick goes on to say how in 1997, Dr. Reid Meloy was hired as an "expert witness," and how a new arrest warrant was created, "bolstered" by the expert opinions of the forensic psychologist. In reality, here's how it worked: Officer Broderick fed Meloy information about Tim Masters. Meloy combined Broderick's theories with those of Roy Hazelwood, plus a heaping helping of his own bizarre observations, and came up with the damnedest Rube Goldberg contraption of half-baked notions you ever saw.
One of the things we missed out on was an exploration of the role of an expert witness. Is the expert witness supposed to examine the evidence independently, or be spoon-fed by a cop who does all the homework, marks the (according to him) relevant parts of the evidence, and indicates to the expert exactly what he will be paid to say? Yes, witness preparation is valid, but where does preparation end, and coaching begin? Where does coaching end, and the whole performance become outright theater?
The mood in the courtroom reached absurdity more than once, as documents were unearthed from here, there and everywhere, to defense team exclamations of, "We never saw this stuff!" and Special Prosecutorial cries of "Well, don't blame us, we never saw it either!" Eventually, Judge Weatherby told the two sides to conduct an "omnibus" meeting, and figure out once and for all which documents had not been correctly shared. Of course, this only made matters worse, as another ton of brand-new-to-the-defense documents were disclosed. Although happy to have them, Wymore expressed dismay about the need to recall witnesses he thought he was done with, to question them about these new things.
The Four Stipulated Items
As the Special Prosecutors tell us, "certain police reports and witness statements were not given to the original trial prosecutors" - or, it naturally follows, to the original trial defense attorneys. Consequently, Quick's team filed a paper called "SPECIAL PROSECUTOR'S OFFERED STIPULATIONS" describing a few of the many items that had been withheld from discovery at the 1999 trial. Anyone who sat through those hearing knows we're talking about a multitude of withheld items, not just the four named here.
The Meloy "Extractions"- 274 pages of psychobabble fabricated by the old windbag. Not even the original prosecutors got this, and nobody thought to ask for it, although Meloy's reports referred to his "extractions." Actually, it's possible to see why this was overlooked. It's a weird way of referring to a set of opinions, and sounds more like it would be excerpts from Tim's writings and drawings, used to back up the opinions. One assumes that an "extraction" is extracted from some larger body of work. So the confusion is almost understandable. Another funny thing about these extractions: Broderick gave this material to Roy Hazelwood, but not to his own prosecutorial team.
The Anniversary Surveillance - Information on the week-long, tri-locational, dozens-of-officers-involving, much-overtime-pay-accruing stakeout of Tim Masters. This operation was staged a year after Peggy Hettrick's murder, and featured a psychological experiment where various stimuli were used to try and goad the 16-year-old into a violent response. This was done "at the suggestion of the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Too bad they didn't take some other FBI suggestions, such as (translated from officialese), "Forget that stupid idea. We're not watching your back on this one."
Dr. Tsoi's statement to Officer Reed - A plastic surgeon was asked for his opinion of the wounds to Peggy Hettrick's body. Officer Marsha Reed says she wrote a report, which nobody has seen to this day. Too bad it got lost. The doctor's opinion, not surprisingly, would have been exculpatory of Tim Masters - in other words, indicative that he didn't do it. They got a different guy to testify instead. Further on, the report talks about Dr. Allen, the forensic pathologist who testified at Tim's trial. He said the cuts looked "like a mutilation" not a medical procedure. Dr. Tsoi would have said the cuts were surgical, and made by somebody like a doctor. And Linda Wheeler-Holloway, experienced investigator of both sex crimes and homicide, has said that she wouldn't even class what was done to Peggy as "mutilation," because of the control and deliberation exercised by the wielder of the instrument.
Statements of Roy Hazelwood - The former FBI crime scene expert and "profiler" gave Broderick $2000 worth of good advice that was ignored, and told him some of his theories were bunk. Once Hazelwood understood what a madman he was dealing with, he politely extricated himself from the case.
But there were many more
The report says, "As to the four items described, we found no evidence that the trial prosecutors ever had these items in their possession to turn over to the defense…There was, therefore, no evidence that the trial prosecutors hid or destroyed any of this evidence."
So the Special Prosecutors officially admitted that trial attorneys Fischer and Chambers were not given these four items to work with. Out of the many possibilities, how were the four items picked? The criterion seems to have been that these items were not revealed to Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair, either. So don't blame them. The purpose seems to be to minimize the wrongness of withholding things from the defense. If the police refuse to honor the discovery requirement, if they don't let the defense have stuff, yeah, sure, that's naughty. But the real message seems to be: refusing to give information to your own side, the guys who are on the same team, that's really messed up. And it is, and somebody needs to be blamed for it.
The legal point of these "discovery" issues is that it matters when evidence isn't shown to the defense, if it could have changed the outcome of the trial. The law also recognizes the cumulative effect. Maybe a little piece of evidence here or there wouldn't have cleared the defendant, but the weight of all of them together adds up to significance. If ever there was a case that illustrates the meaning of "cumulative," we see it here.
This is how a good part of the hearings went: David Wymore would familiarize original defense counsel Fischer or Chambers with a document. He'd ask if they'd ever seen it before. No! He'd ask if knowledge of the thing would have been useful at the 1999 trial. Yes! He'd ask if the thing should have been turned over to them in discovery. Yes! He'd ask if the police and DA were blameworthy for not turning it over Yes! Then on to the next piece of evidence. For a while there, the ambiance was not courtroom, but factory. Document after lost document just kept coming along the conveyor belt.
More than four: let's look at a few of them
*Notes and letters showing that Dr. Reid Meloy did not function as an independent expert, but as a full-fledged member of the prosecution team. His analyses and opinions were constantly adjusted and shaped to fit the needs expressed by Gilmore, Blair and Broderick, whose input to the process of Meloy's cogitations was more than generous. As one hand washes the other, Meloy's input to their processes was also extravagant - for instance, he practically wrote the arrest warrant, and definitely approved it. Legally, this wasn't in his job description.
*A notation that tipped off the defense to the existence of the "McClellan Binders" - a series of notebooks full of information about this snafu'd case that were used (please don't laugh, because this really is not funny) for teaching purposes. We're talking about hundreds of separate documents. Even when this set of ring binders was finally turned over to the defense in the autumn of 2007, several volumes were missing.
*The "Niemann box," a treasure trove of goodies from the FCPD records department which somehow never found their way to the original defense team.
* A scholarly article about mutilation, whose conclusions contradicted the prosecution's theories, and would have pointed more toward Dr. Hammond than toward Tim Masters. This would probably come under the heading of exculpatory evidence.
* A police report, from shortly after the murder, and very close to the crime scene, of a willie-wagger who looked like Richard Hammond.
*Jim Broderick's special cache of notes. Tell you what, when they set that box up on the bench for Judge Weatherby to examine, it was impossible not to think of a kid on Christmas morning.
*A letter from Broderick to the FBI mentioning how a part of Tim Masters's interrogation the day after the murder was accidentally taped over. This may refer to the same incident in which a supposedly private conversation between the 15-year old and his father Clyde Masters was illegally taped. When the transcription of that talk was given to Dr. Meloy, Clyde's lines were removed. One of the FCPD trademarks in this case was to deprive even their own experts of necessary information.
* The "to-do" list of officer Tony Sanchez, who, when working the Richard Hammond case, wrote himself a note that said "Look into Hettrick." Other officers also testified that Hammond was discussed as a potential Hettrick murder suspect. This contradicts the state's position, which is that Hammond was never considered, and never should have been considered.
The hearings are over, Tim Masters is free, and the Special Prosecutor's Report (released February 15, 2008) seeks to ease our minds and reset our bullshit detectors to zero. Not so fast, boys.
The report is attributed to Don Quick, undoubtedly with input from team members Mike Goodbee, Thomas Quammen, Frank Spottke and Dan Michals. Perhaps because it is only a quasi-official document, it's written clearly and even with some narrative grace.
Quick's team was assigned in early 2007, after the defense accused the Larimer County bunch of prosecutorial misconduct. The Special Prosecutors were expected to deal only with post-conviction issues having to do with the 35c motion filed by Tim Masters (the one that said he had inadequate lawyering at his trial.) As Quick points out, in this case, the Special Prosecutors played a role different from their usual one. They set out to determine whether Tim got a fair trial. Also, they were called upon to "weigh the merits of his claim of actual innocence."
How many defense lawyers does it take to convict a client?
The report lists the grounds on which Tim Masters filed his 35c motion, a roster of the things he claimed his original trial counsel did wrong or failed to do. This is, after all, the subject matter for which the hearings were created. There's been a lot of talk about what a lousy job Fischer and Chambers did, ranging from not taking certain legal steps before testimony even started, to letting a juror sleep through part of the trial. No doubt, they could have done better. But no matter how much blame anyone feels inclined to place on those two lawyers, they were hobbled and handicapped by the absence of all the things that weren't surrendered as discovery. There's still plenty of blame remaining, to dish out to the prosecution and the police.
The report says, "The defense was not denied access to the evidence section of the police department and, in fact, accessed evidence there during the pendency of the case." About that, there are only two words to say: Thom McAn. Anyone who cares to do a little research will find a close scrutiny of the shoeprint evidence to be rewarding - especially in conjunction with a certain evidence envelope.
When discussing Tim Masters, anyone who says, "Yeah, but the jury convicted him" needs a reality check. No jury can do a good job when they are shown only a fraction of the meaningful evidence, and snowed under with an avalanche of non-evidence, and especially when they are outright lied to.
The Report
At the start, the Special Prosecutors promised to go wherever the evidence took them, which wasn't far enough. We saw tantalizing glimpses of a justice system gone Kafkaesque, but the termination of the hearings left a lot of unslaked curiosity. When the DNA evidence showed up, and Masters was abruptly released, someone was saved by the bell. It's great that Tim got out when he did, absolutely - but it also meant the planned additional hearings were vacated. No doubt this is in line with the law as written. But one thing about the law is, an exception can almost always be found if the motivation is there. Given the revelatory momentum the hearings had gathered, a person can't help wishing they had continued, and wondering if there could have been some way for that to happen.
Reading between the lines, it seems like the Special Prosecutors were disappointed, too. They had planned on "presenting testimony and having a public hearing on several issues." We are told that Jolene Blair and Terry Gilmore, the judges who were deputy DAs back in 1999 when they prosecuted Masters, wanted to testify.
What a coincidence - Tim Masters, wearing civvies for the first time in nearly a decade, walks out the front door on the very day when the two judges were to start answering questions. We'd had every reason to believe they would be heard from, along with Jim Broderick and Becky Hammond. One of the Special Prosecutors said he wanted to bring in Marsha Reed. And we were dying to hear from that quack Reid Meloy. Even Judge Weatherby became impatient with procedural details. After days of testimony from the original trial defense team, Erik Fischer and Nathan Chambers, it was proposed that the judge take charge of some boxes of documents. But he was eager to move forward. "Let's get on with some witnesses," he said, "… the people who know the answers…there is one person in my mind I want to know if is going to testify..."
One of the declared purposes of the report is to give the public some insight into the issues left unaddressed. Which is a nice gesture, though it would have been more edifying to see defense attorney David Wymore dismantle a few witnesses. The other stated reason for the report is to correct media inaccuracies. At the moment, only one inaccuracy is apparent. Some news reports seem to imply that only four problems were found. Actually, there were many. But we'll get to that.
This is incidental, but interesting: If the Special Prosecutor's office had wanted to, it apparently could have avoided ever opening the whole can of worms. A news report in August 2007 said that Quick at that point had the option "to submit a joint request with the defense team for a new trial - or to petition the court to exonerate Masters." It seems that taking one of those courses would have effectively left a lot of things covered up.
Incomplete explanations
In 1992, several years after the murder of Peggy Hettrick, an effort was made to arrest Tim Masters. Quick says the arrest warrant was then withdrawn because of "certain questions." In reality, there was only one question, and it was about the severed nipple, which the police had regarded as holdback information, naively believing that, even after 5 years, it was a confidential detail known only by members of their department. How did Tim know about? Three FCPD officers flew out to Philadelphia to ask him. The answer: he heard it from an Explorer Scout. In the days immediately following the murder, the police had those high school kids out there combing the field looking for - you guessed it: a severed nipple. There probably wasn't a student in the school who didn't know.
Quick goes on to say how in 1997, Dr. Reid Meloy was hired as an "expert witness," and how a new arrest warrant was created, "bolstered" by the expert opinions of the forensic psychologist. In reality, here's how it worked: Officer Broderick fed Meloy information about Tim Masters. Meloy combined Broderick's theories with those of Roy Hazelwood, plus a heaping helping of his own bizarre observations, and came up with the damnedest Rube Goldberg contraption of half-baked notions you ever saw.
One of the things we missed out on was an exploration of the role of an expert witness. Is the expert witness supposed to examine the evidence independently, or be spoon-fed by a cop who does all the homework, marks the (according to him) relevant parts of the evidence, and indicates to the expert exactly what he will be paid to say? Yes, witness preparation is valid, but where does preparation end, and coaching begin? Where does coaching end, and the whole performance become outright theater?
The mood in the courtroom reached absurdity more than once, as documents were unearthed from here, there and everywhere, to defense team exclamations of, "We never saw this stuff!" and Special Prosecutorial cries of "Well, don't blame us, we never saw it either!" Eventually, Judge Weatherby told the two sides to conduct an "omnibus" meeting, and figure out once and for all which documents had not been correctly shared. Of course, this only made matters worse, as another ton of brand-new-to-the-defense documents were disclosed. Although happy to have them, Wymore expressed dismay about the need to recall witnesses he thought he was done with, to question them about these new things.
The Four Stipulated Items
As the Special Prosecutors tell us, "certain police reports and witness statements were not given to the original trial prosecutors" - or, it naturally follows, to the original trial defense attorneys. Consequently, Quick's team filed a paper called "SPECIAL PROSECUTOR'S OFFERED STIPULATIONS" describing a few of the many items that had been withheld from discovery at the 1999 trial. Anyone who sat through those hearing knows we're talking about a multitude of withheld items, not just the four named here.
The Meloy "Extractions"- 274 pages of psychobabble fabricated by the old windbag. Not even the original prosecutors got this, and nobody thought to ask for it, although Meloy's reports referred to his "extractions." Actually, it's possible to see why this was overlooked. It's a weird way of referring to a set of opinions, and sounds more like it would be excerpts from Tim's writings and drawings, used to back up the opinions. One assumes that an "extraction" is extracted from some larger body of work. So the confusion is almost understandable. Another funny thing about these extractions: Broderick gave this material to Roy Hazelwood, but not to his own prosecutorial team.
The Anniversary Surveillance - Information on the week-long, tri-locational, dozens-of-officers-involving, much-overtime-pay-accruing stakeout of Tim Masters. This operation was staged a year after Peggy Hettrick's murder, and featured a psychological experiment where various stimuli were used to try and goad the 16-year-old into a violent response. This was done "at the suggestion of the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Too bad they didn't take some other FBI suggestions, such as (translated from officialese), "Forget that stupid idea. We're not watching your back on this one."
Dr. Tsoi's statement to Officer Reed - A plastic surgeon was asked for his opinion of the wounds to Peggy Hettrick's body. Officer Marsha Reed says she wrote a report, which nobody has seen to this day. Too bad it got lost. The doctor's opinion, not surprisingly, would have been exculpatory of Tim Masters - in other words, indicative that he didn't do it. They got a different guy to testify instead. Further on, the report talks about Dr. Allen, the forensic pathologist who testified at Tim's trial. He said the cuts looked "like a mutilation" not a medical procedure. Dr. Tsoi would have said the cuts were surgical, and made by somebody like a doctor. And Linda Wheeler-Holloway, experienced investigator of both sex crimes and homicide, has said that she wouldn't even class what was done to Peggy as "mutilation," because of the control and deliberation exercised by the wielder of the instrument.
Statements of Roy Hazelwood - The former FBI crime scene expert and "profiler" gave Broderick $2000 worth of good advice that was ignored, and told him some of his theories were bunk. Once Hazelwood understood what a madman he was dealing with, he politely extricated himself from the case.
But there were many more
The report says, "As to the four items described, we found no evidence that the trial prosecutors ever had these items in their possession to turn over to the defense…There was, therefore, no evidence that the trial prosecutors hid or destroyed any of this evidence."
So the Special Prosecutors officially admitted that trial attorneys Fischer and Chambers were not given these four items to work with. Out of the many possibilities, how were the four items picked? The criterion seems to have been that these items were not revealed to Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair, either. So don't blame them. The purpose seems to be to minimize the wrongness of withholding things from the defense. If the police refuse to honor the discovery requirement, if they don't let the defense have stuff, yeah, sure, that's naughty. But the real message seems to be: refusing to give information to your own side, the guys who are on the same team, that's really messed up. And it is, and somebody needs to be blamed for it.
The legal point of these "discovery" issues is that it matters when evidence isn't shown to the defense, if it could have changed the outcome of the trial. The law also recognizes the cumulative effect. Maybe a little piece of evidence here or there wouldn't have cleared the defendant, but the weight of all of them together adds up to significance. If ever there was a case that illustrates the meaning of "cumulative," we see it here.
This is how a good part of the hearings went: David Wymore would familiarize original defense counsel Fischer or Chambers with a document. He'd ask if they'd ever seen it before. No! He'd ask if knowledge of the thing would have been useful at the 1999 trial. Yes! He'd ask if the thing should have been turned over to them in discovery. Yes! He'd ask if the police and DA were blameworthy for not turning it over Yes! Then on to the next piece of evidence. For a while there, the ambiance was not courtroom, but factory. Document after lost document just kept coming along the conveyor belt.
More than four: let's look at a few of them
*Notes and letters showing that Dr. Reid Meloy did not function as an independent expert, but as a full-fledged member of the prosecution team. His analyses and opinions were constantly adjusted and shaped to fit the needs expressed by Gilmore, Blair and Broderick, whose input to the process of Meloy's cogitations was more than generous. As one hand washes the other, Meloy's input to their processes was also extravagant - for instance, he practically wrote the arrest warrant, and definitely approved it. Legally, this wasn't in his job description.
*A notation that tipped off the defense to the existence of the "McClellan Binders" - a series of notebooks full of information about this snafu'd case that were used (please don't laugh, because this really is not funny) for teaching purposes. We're talking about hundreds of separate documents. Even when this set of ring binders was finally turned over to the defense in the autumn of 2007, several volumes were missing.
*The "Niemann box," a treasure trove of goodies from the FCPD records department which somehow never found their way to the original defense team.
* A scholarly article about mutilation, whose conclusions contradicted the prosecution's theories, and would have pointed more toward Dr. Hammond than toward Tim Masters. This would probably come under the heading of exculpatory evidence.
* A police report, from shortly after the murder, and very close to the crime scene, of a willie-wagger who looked like Richard Hammond.
*Jim Broderick's special cache of notes. Tell you what, when they set that box up on the bench for Judge Weatherby to examine, it was impossible not to think of a kid on Christmas morning.
*A letter from Broderick to the FBI mentioning how a part of Tim Masters's interrogation the day after the murder was accidentally taped over. This may refer to the same incident in which a supposedly private conversation between the 15-year old and his father Clyde Masters was illegally taped. When the transcription of that talk was given to Dr. Meloy, Clyde's lines were removed. One of the FCPD trademarks in this case was to deprive even their own experts of necessary information.
* The "to-do" list of officer Tony Sanchez, who, when working the Richard Hammond case, wrote himself a note that said "Look into Hettrick." Other officers also testified that Hammond was discussed as a potential Hettrick murder suspect. This contradicts the state's position, which is that Hammond was never considered, and never should have been considered.
The List of 94
One important document was turned over to the defense before the original trial - a roster of people who were looked at with varying degrees of attention, whose suspect potential ranged from impossible (for instance, known sex offenders who happened to be locked up when Hettrick was murdered) to improbable. This is good news because, well, it was turned over, making it something of a rarity. Bad news because it was next to useless. Three of the most stellar potential suspects are treated thusly:
*Donald Long is noted with three words. At the time, he was suspected of the murder of Linda Holt. He later confessed to, and was convicted of, killing Holt and another local woman. To this day, no one has explained why Long was not considered in the Peggy Hettrick murder.
*Matt Zoellner: The "List of 94" says he allowed his house to be searched, and he took a lie detector test. It doesn't say whether his results came out as "inconclusive" as those of Tim Masters. It says Zoellner was ruled out by investigators. It doesn't mention that his knife collection, shoes, and car were not tested for Peggy's blood. It doesn't mention how his whereabouts at the time of the murder were verified by a woman who said she spent the night with him. As alibis go, this one rates somewhere between ridiculous and pathetic. The report doesn't explain something a lot of us still puzzle over: Why was Zoellner's candidacy for the position of murderer so readily dismissed? It's well known that most murdered women are killed by husbands or boyfriends. Occam's Razor, the principle of accepting the simplest explanation as the most likely one, should have suggested that this murder was a "domestic." A guy might dispose of a woman who was becoming tedious, and slice off a couple of souvenirs, the parts he liked best, to remember her by. That seems much more feasible than some intricately convoluted scenario involving a stranger whose actions can only be explained by a pricey expert. How did the "boyfriend" slide so effortlessly out of the picture?
And this blindness was not in effect only in 1987, after Peggy was killed. Just a few months ago, when defense team investigator Barie Goetz obtained the DNA "standards" from the Fort Collins Police Department, he was carelessly given the entire DNA sample that had been collected from Zoellner. As Greg Campbell reported, "They had no interest in keeping any standards from another suspect, telling Goetz he could have all of the DNA collected from another person who was investigated for the crime… That DNA belonged to Hettrick's former boyfriend, Matt Zoellner." What's up with that?
* Richard Hammond is not mentioned at all.
The important things to know about Hammond
* In 1987, when Peggy was killed, Dr. Richard Hammond should have been considered, because according to the police department's own theories, he was at least as good a suspect as the 15-year-old boy across the street. Hammond may not have yet entered his body-builder phase, but he was bigger and stronger than the skinny adolescent. Hammond lived no farther from the body dump site than Masters did, and had surgical skills that Masters did not have. Hammond did not have a criminal record, but neither did Masters. Becky Hammond said her husband was home in bed all night. Clyde Masters said his son was home in bed all night.
* In 1995, it became public knowledge that Hammond had been filming women and girls who used the toilet in his downstairs bathroom, and couples who used the spare bed. The scandal brought a week of notoriety for Hammond, followed by his suicide. At that time, he should definitely have been regarded as a suspect in the cold-case Hettrick murder.
* In 1996-1999, the murder case was reinvestigated preparatory to nailing Tim Masters. Knowing what they knew then about Dr. Hammond, with his crimes a very recent memory, there's no way in hell the cops can be forgiven for not making him a suspect. It doesn't matter that he was dead: Hammond should have been promoted to the top of their list. He even matched their bogus "profile" better than Tim did. The thing to remember about Hammond is, even if it turns out that he wasn't the killer, he very well could have been, based on what was known at the time. He should have been a prime suspect, and the very facts of his existence, proclivities, and proximity, had they been known at Tim's trial, would undoubtedly have changed the outcome. The failure to consider him as a Hettrick murder suspect at that point is incomprehensible, and it looks very much like a deliberate crusade to pin it on Masters and nobody but Masters.
Why this matters
The report says, "The People would assert that because Hammond cannot be proven by the defense to qualify as an alternate suspect, as a matter of law, that the failure to disclose information relating to his matters does not warrant the relief sought by the defendant." Some of us People, however, feel that the authorities made it impossible for anything to be proven by anybody.
Here's what it boils down to. If Hammond had officially been named a suspect, then the state would have had to give information about him to the original defense lawyers before Tim's trial, as "discovery." At that time, knowledge of Hammond's dual careers - professional surgeon and DIY pornographer - would have thrown a ton of reasonable doubt on the guilt of Tim Masters - enough doubt to acquit him, probably. Remember, the trial was nearly ten years ago. Hold that thought and…
Fast-forward to 2007, when we all became well-informed Hammondologists, once Tim's post-conviction lawyers and some wide-awake journalists called attention to the doctor. Many people considered him a beaut of an alternative suspect, right up until late 2007, when the DNA revelations were made. Since then, some people have stopped believing that Hammond killed Hettrick. Others are still not convinced. Either way, this is according to what we know, or think we know, now.
Okay, rewind back to the 1999 trial. At that time, knowing what was known then, the twisto doctor should have been in the equation. But the defense was not informed about any possible Hammond relevance, because he wasn't a quote, suspect, unquote. No, he was a "person of interest." It's a matter of semantics. The police were meticulously careful never to deem him a suspect, and because of that fine distinction in terminology, our present-day Special Prosecutor cannot decree that information on Hammond was wrongly withheld. Slick move!
Who was thinking what in '95?
The report says, "Terry Gilmore, Jolene Blair and Investigator Linda Wheeler-Holloway all indicate that they had never, during the course of the pre-trial investigation, considered Dr. Hammond as a suspect in the Hettrick homicide" And we'll get to them. But first, let's consider the people who did see Hammond as a suspect back in 1995 (8 years after the murder) when his filming activities were revealed; when he was taken into custody, released, and then died by his own hand, all within a week.
One of the big breakthroughs for Tim's post-conviction defense team was finding a notebook where FCPD officer Tony Sanchez, lead investigator in the Hammond matter, had written "Look into Hettrick." This is solid proof that the idea had, at the very least, entered Sanchez's mind, whether or not he endorsed it. He might have written the note to oblige another officer, Dave Mickelson, who had watched some portion of Hammond's collection of home-brewed porn videos. Mickelson made the connection between Hammond's obsession with female sex organs, the nearness of the Hammond house to where Hettrick's body was found, and the fact that she had been known to house-sit (which is how Hammond recruited women to secretly film.)
Mickelson suggested that the doctor should be looked at for the murder. He was in Crimes Against Property at the time, and didn't have the standing to influence the Hammond investigation or do much of anything, really, except express his opinion. One of his opinions was that the planned destruction of all the videotapes, both the viewed and the unviewed ones, should not be carried out, because film of Peggy Hettrick might be found among them. Mickelson's concerns were ignored by Sanchez and by the next person up the chain of command, the supervisor of Crimes Against Persons who, not surprisingly, was Jim Broderick. Mickelson was told that the tapes had to be burned for legal reasons. He testified that at one point he was threatened with the loss of his job.
Sanchez also viewed some of the videos and checked Hammond's background, finding only parking violations. After these feeble gestures, it was decided that Hammond couldn't have killed Hettrick because he had no previous criminal record, and besides, no violent acts were seen in his hundreds of home-made videotapes. To know this was an startling feat of clairvoyance, since only a small fraction of the tapes were viewed before being burned.
Amazingly, Sanchez has said that he was working without a complete set of tools. The partial vulvectomy that had been performed on Hettrick's body was "holdback" information, kept even from some police officers, supposedly to prevent leaks to the press, so Sanchez didn't know about it. This is problematic for two reasons. First, the excision of the nipple was known by all, and that alone should have been enough to raise a red flag, regarding the medical man/amateur porn king. Second, a biker who had been questioned soon after Peggy's murder came to police attention because an informant overheard him wondering how anybody could call what was done a mutilation, since it was "just a slice to the chest and a stick to the pussy." (This man, incidentally, also knew Donald Long, and took a polygraph test passing every question except "Do you know who killed Peggy Hettrick?") As with the nipple, it's very difficult to believe that any member of the FCPD, not to mention the DA's office and everybody else in town, didn't know about the other cutting. This kind of information just does not remain secret.
Sanchez testified that Hammond picked up women in bars, but said he didn't know at the time that Hettrick was sometimes picked up by men, especially well-dressed ones, in bars. And Sanchez, nominally the lead investigator, hadn't read the psychological profile of Hammond generated during his evaluation between the arrest and the suicide.
Troy Krenning, another officer involved in the Hammond case, also saw some of the videotapes. He later testified to knowing Mickelson's views about Hammond's possible guilt in the Hettrick murder, and said it wasn't difficult to imagine that Mickelson's theory was known throughout the department. Krenning had also associated Hammond's proximity and pornography with the Hettrick murder. (On the other hand, in January 2008, a comment in response to an online news report said, "Troy… certainly did not feel that way during some of the Masters investigation…he told me face-to-face that Masters was guilty and with a surprising amount of vehemence." But maybe that was early on, before the Hammond thing broke.)
Ray Martinez, who was also an officer in '95, testified that he "knew the geography of where the homicide occurred and where [Hammond] lived." He thought, at least in retrospect, that Hammond "certainly should have been investigated in reference to the Peggy Hettrick homicide." And he was clear that the idea was brought up or suggested at the time. "The thought apparently crossed our mind."
So, as we've seen, at least four FCPD officers did make the Hammond/Hettrick connection and believe it was meaningful, back in 1995, and many more were aware of the connection. Despite all this, Hammond was cleared of any involvement. Whoever let this happen wasn't doing their job, and neither was their boss or their boss's boss.
It was, at best, a major error and, at worst, a deliberate refusal to make a genuine effort to solve the murder. Someone with a suspicious mind could think Hammond was so thoroughly ignored because Peggy Hettrick's real killer was already known to be neither Hammond nor Masters. Perhaps the real killer was someone who needed to be protected at any cost - a valuable drug snitch, for instance. Maybe it wasn't incompetence or "professional courtesy" to a doctor that caused Hammond to go unscrutinized. Maybe, since it had already been decided that the murder would be pinned on Masters, Hammond was truly irrelevant. Hey, why not? We've seen, over and over again, that nothing is too bizarre for this case.
An unexpected exception
Among the FCPD personnel who in 1995 mentally associated Hammond with the murder eight years previous, there was one surprising omission: Linda Wheeler-Holloway. Why surprising? Because back in 1992 she was, as lead investigator on the Hettrick murder, one of the three who flew to Philadelphia. On that trip she not only realized there were no grounds for serving the arrest warrant, but became filled with doubt about Tim as the designated suspect. "I wasn't sure he didn't do it, but I sure wasn't sure he did do it." On returning, she irritated her bosses by wanting start from scratch, with the suspect field wide open. Her position was very well known around the cop shop, and very unpopular.
When the Hammond affair came to light, Wheeler-Holloway was on the scene. She was then a patrol officer, having rotated to that service in accordance with department policy. Assigned to search the Hammonds' bedroom, she was in a position to observe the view from the window - a view that included the spot where Peggy Hettrick's body had been abandoned. It might seem that, as the only known proponent of the Maybe-It-Wasn't-Tim revolution, she'd be the one to go on the alert. But it was not so.
"People are too Monday-Night-quarterbacking this Hammond thing," she says. "If I didn't make the connection, it wasn't obvious." She wasn't thinking it, and wasn't aware of anyone else thinking it. And if she had thought it, there would have been complications. In the back of her mind, Wheeler-Holloway harbored a conviction that if the Hettrick case were ever reopened, even with such a promising suspect as Hammond now in their sights, the rest of the department would veer unswervingly back to Tim Masters, and it would be deja vu all over again. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.
It was only later, when a colleague she ran into at a conference proposed a connection between Hammond and Hettrick, that the penny dropped. "It's like I got hit right between the eyes. That's the first time I really thought, "Duh," about Dr. Hammond, because it just really hadn't crossed my mind." After many years of effort, Linda Wheeler-Holloway became the one person, aside from his defense lawyers, most responsible for Tim Masters attaining freedom in January of 2008. One of the questions she now asks is, "If they really had concerns, why didn't other people stand up and say something louder? It's one thing to tell your buddies or say it over a beer, but it's something else to go do something about it."
The prosecution in '95: what were they thinking?
Appended to Quick's report are the transcripts of interviews conducted in August, 2007, one with Jolene Blair (Exhibit B) and the other with Terry Gilmore (Exhibit C). Sadly, reading them does not lead to an understanding of how the Special Prosecutors reached their conclusions. Based on the same material, other conclusions are possible.
Here's what the team came up with. According to the Special Prosecutor's Report, "The requisite evidence or facts establishing a link of Dr. Hammond to the Hettrick murder that would designate him as an alternate suspect under the law did not and do not exist." The operative phrase here is "under the law." The reason he's not a suspect is because nobody labeled him as such - but they did treat him as such, if only in a very limited way and for a very short time. "There is no evidence of an act directly connecting Dr. Hammond to the stabbing death of Peggy Hettrick," the report goes on to say.
So, let's talk about evidence and facts and acts.
They say "There is no blood or blood spatter evidence connecting Hammond in any way to Peggy's death." and "There is no fingerprint, hairs, fiber or other trace evidence connecting Hammond in any way to Peggy's death." Well of course there isn't, because nobody ever looked for it. If Hammond's car, garage, basement, office, and clothing had been inspected on the day when Peggy's body was found, who knows what might have turned up? But at the time of the murder, he was totally off their radar. He was just that nice doctor across the street from the body dump site, who was in bed with his wife all night.
There were, incidentally, none of these kinds of evidence to connect Tim, either.
They say, "There is no DNA evidence connecting Hammond in any way to Peggy's death." At the time when the Special Prosecutor's Report was written, nobody seems to have been in possession of an indisputable Hammond DNA sample. What they had was a highly questionable envelope the doctor supposedly licked. How could any lab make a match with anything?
There was no DNA evidence to connect Tim, either.
They say, "No person has ever come forward to claim that Hammond admitted any relation to or involvement in Peggy's death." Oh, this is how we solve crimes? We sit around and wait for a snitch put the finger on someone? Because nobody blew him in, he didn't do it? This is so lame. Especially when the one person who could have most effectively snitched him out was given instant immunity. You heard right. Becky Hammond got a lawyer, not the same one her husband had, and, quoting Terry Gilmore, this lawyer "would not allow the police to talk with her unless she was granted some kind of immunity from prosecution." Gilmore says he talked to his superiors and "then if we all agreed that that was appropriate, okayed it."
Wow, it's that easy to avoid prosecution? Who knew? How come everybody's not doing it? The police, by the way, gained nothing from the Hammond Immunity (doesn't that sound like a Robert Ludlum thriller?). If you look up "stonewall" in the dictionary, Becky's picture is there.
Nobody ever claimed that Tim admitted involvement in Peggy's death, either. Except for the police and Dr. Meloy and the DA's office, that is. When it comes to evidence in the form of possessions or productions, Hammond had at least as much, and would have had way more, if it hadn't been destroyed. The effort put forth was very unequal. The police watched every movie that Tim possessed - Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween II, stuff like that - looking for clues. Of the pornographic films Dr. Hammond actually made, they watched a few and burned the rest.
Hammond had a clean record, they say. So what? Everybody starts out with one of those. Hammond's record was clean - until it wasn't. In 1987, the murder year, his record was no cleaner than Tim's. And later, at the time of Tim's trial, it's only in the most technical sense that Hammond had a clean record. True, he escaped having an official record, because he took himself out before they had a chance to charge and convict him. This is not a very impressive argument.
They say, "In sum, there is no act directly connecting Richard Hammond to the stabbing death of Peggy Hettrick." Well, guess what. There was no act directly connecting Tim Masters to it either - yet he served nine and a half years in prison.
Special treatment equals special relationship
The report contains quite a lot of discussion about Hammond, and finds, of course, no evidence of any non-disclosure problem, or of any special relationships. The party line is, Hammond had nothing to do with any of this, and therefore, nobody could have possibly done anything improper on account of him. Terry Gilmore first said he had never been at the Hammonds' house, then after consulting with his wife, said that he had been. His wife knew Becky Hammond from church. But it really doesn't matter if the Gilmores and the Hammonds, or the Blairs and the Hammonds, were bosom buddies, golfing partners, or barely knew each other. All three families were from the upper stratum of society. Admit it or not, we have a class system in America, and the members of the ruling class protect each other.
Gilmore was the screening deputy when Dr. Hammond was arrested and immediately sent off to a hospital for evaluation of his mental health. Charges hadn't even been filed yet, the police didn't even know what they had, at that point. For all they knew, Hammond's oeuvre might have included snuff movies. Concerning his criminal history, Gilmore told the Special Prosecutors, "I don't recall reading any reports prior to signing or okaying the bond." He was let go, because as Gilmore said, "…the concern everybody had was his mental stability." Isn't that all warm and fuzzy! What about his actions? This guy was caught doing some serious pervert stuff, with victims numbering in the hundreds, and the scope of his activities was as yet unknown. But there was no special relationship, no sirree.
Before killing himself, Hammond wrote a nice bread-and-butter letter to Gilmore thanking him for the leniency and expressing how, as Gilmore says, "He was upset about all the publicity and was angry at the police department…." Awwww. "I berated myself for letting him out on bond," Gilmore says, "because maybe he'd of still been alive." Yeah, and maybe he'd have been held accountable for his wrongdoings, but nobody gives much of a shit about that. And Gilmore's vagueness about the whys and wherefores of Becky Hammond's immunity amounts to willful ignorance.
Here's a question: Why didn't the suicide of Richard Hammond suggest, to at least some law-enforcement minds, that he needed to avoid the consequences of something even more sordid than potty pictures, something much worse, that the police might have been on the verge of learning? After all, everyone used plenty of imagination when conjuring up guilt scenarios for Tim Masters. Why not apply a bit of that creativity to Hammond's situation? What was so desperate to avoid, that he killed himself to escape it?
First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain
A mountain of evidence, is what the police had on their hands after Hammond's death. Over 300 self-produced videotapes and a couple of storage sheds full of assorted porn, which flames took over eight hours to consume. Why was it burned? As Gilmore said, "You got a police department that's in possession of all this stuff that they obviously don't want to make public or have disseminated…." Well, if the police can't keep something locked up and undisseminated, who the hell can? That's why they have secure evidence storage facilities. Are we to infer that even if the police locked it up, they couldn't be trusted? Was there a danger that some cops would be selling the dirty movies, or what?
Meanwhile, the case had been "specialed out" - turned over to another jurisdiction. Why? The Jolene Blair interview says, "…people that were on the video tapes might have some relationship to employees of the district attorney's office. I don't know who…." The Terry Gilmore interview says, "I don't think I ever was aware of who they were…." Then who the hell does know? Surely, some living person must still work there now, who worked there then. Why is there a deep, dark mystery about the reason for the removal of the local DA's office from that situation? Aren't these things supposed to be documented? This is the government, right? Gilmore says, "I don't know that I've ever seen that motion." How could he not have seen the paperwork that took away his authority over the case? What was the connection between Dr. Hammond and the DA's office, to cause that office's withdrawal from the case? Why don't we know?
So. The local authorities no longer were officially in charge of Hammond's evidenciary legacy. Yet someone here ordered its destruction. Who? Blair says, "…the City Attorney requested that the District Attorney file a motion for the destruction of those tapes…and I think our office did file a motion to destroy the evidence…" Gilmore says he doesn't remember participating in the decision or signing the request, although he read in the newspaper that he did both. And he acknowledges that involvement by the city attorney's office "wouldn't have happened on a normal basis."
So Quick's report says, in regard to the Hettrick murder, "The defense cannot prove that Richard Hammond 'committed some act directly connecting' him with the crime charged. In fact the weight of the evidence concludes otherwise." The weight of what evidence? Those people destroyed all the evidence. This is, like, so Catch-22. Destruction of evidence in a murder case - isn't that obstruction of justice? Isn't that, like, a crime? What they did here was destroy stuff that should have been evidence in a murder case.
Who was thinking what in '99?
In the four years between March 1995 (Hammond's week of infamy) and March 1999 (Tim's trial), what went on in the minds of the police? In late 1996, the Hettrick case was retrieved from cold storage and reopened in a big way, but still with only one name on the suspect list. Most of the department was deeply engaged in trying, yet again, to build a case against Masters. He was arrested in August of 1998.
After Tim's arrest, Krenning, Mickelson, Sanchez, and Martinez, whatever opinions they might have held, didn't talk to the defense attorneys. Dave Mickelson says he attempted to break the code of silence once, with a passing remark to the Public Defender, tipping him off to look at Hammond. But because Tim wasn't being represented by the Public Defender, the hint fell on sterile ground.
At the recent hearings, Troy Krenning testified that he assumed the defense attorneys knew about Hammond, and knew about Krenning's thoughts about Hammond, and he assumed that they would call if they wanted his take on it.
At the trial, Linda Wheeler-Holloway was a prosecution witness. Only a recognized expert is allowed to give an opinion, but she anticipated that Tim's lawyer might ask her for one anyway, and told the prosecutor "if the defense asked me for my opinion about Master's guilt, that I would tell the truth, which was that I had serious doubts that they were trying the right person. I told Blair that if I was asked the question, that she had better be ready to object to me being asked for an opinion, because I would tell the truth." Although she hadn't yet made the connection between Hammond and Hettrick, frustration with the inadequate investigation of the whole Hammond matter still rankled. There had been more to it than ever got into the papers, and with a little digging, who knows what might have been unearthed?
The point here is: we now know that at least four officers made the connection as far back as 1995. That means the Hammond information should have been part of the discovery material when the trial took place. It's difficult to see how this could be disputed.
Jim Broderick, of course, was still monomaniacally focused on Tim Masters. The report describes him as "meticulous and detailed in his work. He wrote voluminously…" They got that shit right. He wrote so voluminously because he was doing the work we paid Meloy tens of thousands of dollars to supposedly do. One of the documents newly excavated during the hearings is Broderick's chore list from the summer of 1998. The category "For Gilmore - exculpatory covered?" included the item "Take out Meloy ref to doc extractions." This is interpretable as a clear intention to deliberately withhold mention of the Meloy Extractions - one of the four items the Special Prosecutor's office has named in its stipulation list.
Although Lt. Jim Broderick was obviously thinking about how to conceal things, this report emphasizes that there is no evidence of non-disclosure by him, and we are not for a moment to believe that the officer intentionally hid anything, from either the prosecutors or the defense attorneys at trial time. "Our stipulation makes no such finding of intentional hiding," it says. Oh, puh-leeze! (See previous paragraph.) Even if we suspend our disbelief far enough to grant that the trial prosecutors, Gilmore and Blair, were pure as the driven snow, somebody hid and held back stuff. If it was not hid and held back, then where was it, all that time? The Special Prosecutors say, "We found evidence that certain reports and statements were not provided to the trial prosecutors or to the trial defense attorneys…." Well then, who exactly was it that did the "not providing"? If not Broderick, then who? And one issue that no one has even addressed yet is the astonishing number of physical evidence items that have gone missing over the years. That should be a whole separate investigation - which would make, what? Five?
The Special Prosecutors did many things, "including reviewing all of the documents." This is disingenuous. For some time, they were not able to review all the documents, because some documents were kept from them - yes, kept from the Special Prosecutors - until late 2007, when the hearings had already been in progress for weeks. Ever the cowboy, Broderick held on to a plethora of material right up until the very last second and beyond. Not even a subpoena pried the stuff loose until he was darned good and ready to give it up. Even so, we can't know how much relevant paperwork will never see the light of day. He had a lot of years in which to bury it.
The prosecution in '99: What were they thinking?
In his interview, attached to the report, Terry Gilmore is asked about what he was up to during the long re-investigation of the Hettrick murder. He remembers being called and asked questions, chiefly relating to the 1992 Philadelphia trip. Otherwise, he doesn't remember much. No "major events," certainly.
Documents read out during the recent hearings reveal a more active role for the deputy DA. In late 1996, Broderick noted a meeting with Gilmore to discuss what they hoped Roy Hazelwood would do for them. In late 1997, Broderick's notes speak of telling Gilmore to expect a tape from Dr. Meloy. (He had only been retained days before, so this might have been, what, a sample of previous work?) The following month, Broderick, Gilmore, and Marsha Reed got together at the Holiday Inn to welcome Reid Meloy to town (apparently not a memorable "major event" in the life of Terry Gilmore. Sorry, Dr. Meloy.) They visited the scene where Peggy Hettrick's body was found, and the police evidence room. In June '98, there was a conference call between the same four participants, perhaps one of many.
But even all this hobnobbing with world-class experts on sexual homicide didn't ring any bells for Terry Gilmore, who never for a moment thought about Dr. Hammond. "I had absolutely no reason to believe he was involved in any way with Peggy Hettrick's murder," he says. "We had no inkling that [Hammond] was a possible suspect….it just never even occurred to us…."
And Jolene Blair says, "Dr. Hammond….wasn't even a blip on the screen. No one thought of him, no one talked about him." Maybe not around her, but Jack Taylor, another officer, testified at the hearings that in 1999, Hammond was pretty much common knowledge.
But Blair says, "...the crimes that he apparently perpetrated are so different than the Peggy Hettrick homicide…" Is she kidding with this? It's all about crotches, lady. This is the guy who had a camera zeroed in on the pubic area, who had a rating system for various individual components of the female genitalia, who painstakingly edited his productions. Dr. Hammond's hobby is way closer to the Peggy Hettrick homicide than anything Tim ever did. But they say there was no "pairing of sex and violence" in Hammond's productions. You know, the videotapes of which only a small percentage were watched before they were burned. Meanwhile, Tim's trial included such "pairings of sex and violence" as a sketch of a knife on the same school notebook page as a sketch of the cover of a men's magazine.
Alternate suspects? What alternate suspects?
Before charges were filed against Tim, there was a meeting in the DA's large conference room that included, Jolene Blair says, "all of the police officers that had been involved" in the Hettrick case - even some who had since retired from the force. She says, "Nobody voiced any reticence or reluctance or hesitancy or maybe we ought to look at this alternate suspect…" Gilmore was asked, "Did anybody indicate to you that they felt someone else may have done it or we should look into someone else before we file charges?" He said, "Not that I recall. I think we went around to everyone and I just asked them all and, everybody was comfortable…." How nice for them.
In another part of her interview, Blair says, "I think the PD tried very hard to consider all possibilities…" Here's something to wonder about: If nobody ever told this prosecutor anything, how could she measure their dedication to considering all possibilities? Especially when, according to everybody, there were no other possibilities? The most ridiculous thing we are asked to believe is: at the time of Tim's trial, absolutely no word of a possible Hammond-Hettrick connection had trickled through the grapevine to the ears of the prosecutors. Not a hint, not a smidgen of a clue.
Gilmore was specifically asked whether Hammond was mentioned at this meeting. He had "No recollection of any conversations where anyone proposed that he was a suspect in the Hettrick murder case." Blair says "…that investigation of Tim Masters was void of anything related to Dr. Hammond" If we must believe it, then we must. She goes on to say that because the video scandal had happened three or four years earlier, "Dr. Hammond wasn't fresh in our minds."
Hold onto that thought, and fast-forward to late 2007, during the hearings, when this conversation took place between original trial lawyer Erik Fischer and Jolene Blair. These are her words: "We talked about the fact that the defense now was trying to raise Richard Hammond as an alternate suspect. And I told him how ridiculous that was...And I said, 'and the allegation that we somehow kept him a secret is also preposterous.'" She goes on to say the Hammond affair was "all over the media. I mean, everybody knew…what happened with Richard Hammond and his circumstances was no secret." She was scolding Fischer for not being aware of Hammond when preparing for the trial back in 1999. He was supposed to have known all about Hammond, and been equipped to offer him as an alternate suspect. Yet, at the same time, Blair and Gilmore maintain that in 1999, Hammond was a non-factor, such a total non-issue, he was totally off the prosecution's radar. But Judge Blair! Didn't you say the Hammond affair was all over the media? Everybody knew? Everybody, that is, except the prosecutors, who obstinately, mulishly refused to even let him onto their screen.
And what alternate suspect list?
There seems to be some confusion about this. Erik Fischer testified that he asked Terry Gilmore for whatever alternate suspects they might have, and was given a "weak list", which would have been the "List of 94." This is something the prosecution should have turned over, and did turn over; yet for some reason felt compelled to deny having done.
Tom Quammen asks: "Did you give to the defense alternate suspect evidence or information?" Gilmore's answer: "Not that I recall. You mean like a list or anything? No I don't recall ever being any request and I don't recall us ever having any such thing as an alternate suspect list or anything like that." Michael Goodbee asks if there was a specific request made by one the defense trial counsel for information relating to alternate suspects considered in this case. Gilmore's answer: "I have no recollection of that ever occurring." Frank Spottke asks: "You were never asked by the defense lawyers for any alternate suspects or if you had any alternate suspects?" Gilmore's answer: "No. Not that I remember."
If they truly didn't know certain things, why was that?
Who knew what, and when did they know it? That's the gist of all high-profile inquiries. But awareness is one of the most difficult things to prove. There are several different ways of not knowing. One is by causing it to be understood that there are things you don't want to know. By whatever means, you get the idea across to your support staff that plausible deniability will be maintained. "Don't ask, don't tell" is a time-honored and widely-used strategy for the maintenance of blissful ignorance, and there may have been some of that going on. Linda Wheeler-Holloway says not. But that could be because people of very high integrity often don't even realize the evil that goes on around them. They're just not tuned in to the wavelength.
Here's a troubling contradiction: Troy Krenning testified in the hearings that, before the Masters trial, he stated many times that they were going after the wrong guy. "I had plenty of conversations with Jolene Blair about it…It was the beginning of the end of a friendly relationship."
Let's revisit the four areas of non-discovered evidence that were stipulated: the Meloy extractions, the anniversary surveillance, the Tsoi statement, and the Roy Hazelwood material. It seems that out of the many things that weren't given to either side in discovery, it was particularly important for the prosecution to claim ignorance about these.
But surely, the prosecution did know about the overwhelmingly pervasive role played by Meloy. What about all those phone conferences and meetings? The prosecution knew that Meloy practically wrote the arrest warrant, and that he approved it in a later form. His deep involvement at that stage was inappropriate, and the prosecutors were well aware of it.
The prosecutors knew Tim had been under some kind of surveillance in1988, although they may not have been aware of the scale of the operation. But somebody was. It had been a whole year in the planning. Scores of police officers knew about it, as did Lt. Deryle O'Dell, police chief Bruce Glasscock, a vice president at American Federal Savings, and the FBI. If the surveillance/psychological experiment didn't produce results, the police had planned to close the books on the case. It's hard to believe the DA's office didn't know.
Another way to avoid knowing things, is to not ask the right questions. For instance, "What ever happened with that big surveillance?" Apparently neither of the prosecutors asked that one. "What about that Tsoi fellow, the plastic surgeon? Where's the damn report?" Nobody asked that one, either. Back in '92, the failed arrest warrant contained references to the "profile" that never existed. Gilmore reviewed that document. Why didn't he ask for the FBI profile which supposedly backed it up? Because if there never was a profile, it was really much better not to know. Gilmore had been in on the negotiations with Hazelwood. "Where's the Hazelwood report that we paid $2000 for?" he might have asked, but apparently didn't.
As the Bible tells us, those who have ears will hear, and those who have eyes will see. Conversely, those who don't have ears or eyes will neither hear nor see.
Implications
Once again: The Special Prosecutor's Report tells us, "Neither Jolene Blair nor Terry Gilmore contemplated Hammond as a possible suspect in the Hettrick homicide during their time as prosecutors on the Hettrick case." Okay, suppose we take their word for it. For the sake of argument, let's say they never, ever had Hammond in mind. What does this tell us?
Maybe it tells us that Hammond is just one more of the things that should have been turned over to the lawyers on both sides. Another count of misbehavior against the police department. Fine, but just because, like all the other things that weren't turned over, this wasn't turned over, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It exists as much as those already-stipulated items exist.
Hammond should always have been a factor, by their own standards. Here's why. The first time around, when the brand-new murder was investigated in 1987, who was looked at? All known sex offenders in south Fort Collins. The "List of 94" started out with fewer than 94 names. The first version of it was a handwritten roster of known sex offenders in the geographical area, compiled by sex crimes investigator Linda Wheeler-Holloway from the information in her cabinet full of known sex offender files. Granted, Hammond was not then known as a member of that species.
But after he blossomed, when the scandal occurred in 1995, it is unconscionable that his artifacts were not examined for a connection with Peggy, and unforgivable that they were destroyed. That he didn't stick around to be tried and convicted is irrelevant. He was a known sex offender in south Fort Collins. Why, during that whole period of 1995 through 1999, didn't the police or prosecutors look at him? Not a man who doodled little drawings like Tim Masters, but one who had an elaborate studio setup, and who videotaped the genitals of hundreds of women? Why didn't anybody look at this pervert who lived right across the street from where Peggy's body was found - the most notorious sex offender ever to dwell in south Fort Collins? How could they not have? It adds up to more than willful ignorance. It looks very much like a decision was made and adhered to.
A day late and a dollar short, the buck stops here
There's an interesting line in the Special Prosecutor's Report. Even if the trial prosecutors actually never got the things they say they never got, they still "were responsible for discovery of this information because it was in the possession of the investigating agency." And that's as it should be. That means the District Attorney's office is in charge of keeping the cops honest, which it failed to do. The DA is supposed to keep the police in a position where, whether through fear of consequences or respect for the law, they wouldn't dream of withholding evidence.
On learning that the prosecutors are responsible for knowing about all evidence, and for turning over everything to the defense in the discovery process, even if they themselves don't have it, some have cried "Unfair!" Is it right that the prosecutors should be held accountable for not revealing things they themselves didn't know? Let's take a closer look at this.
There's a well-established principle of citizens being held responsible for what they didn't know. If you give someone a ride, and are stopped at a checkpoint, and your passenger's backpack is found to be full of cocaine, you can bet that your car will be seized and you will be charged. People are currently serving time for less. If the principle of responsibility for things they didn't know can be used against citizens, it can damn well apply to the authorities too, who are being paid hefty salaries to know everything.
The principle of people being responsible for the subordinates they control, is well established. If a dog bites someone, the owner is responsible. If a minor commits vandalism, the parents are made to pay. The investigative agency is presumed to be under the control of the DA's office just as surely as your dog is presumed to be under your control. No way should the trial prosecutors be let off easy.
The Special Prosecutor's Report concludes thusly: "Our office has provided information to each of [the three other ongoing investigations.] It would be inappropriate for us to comment on our conclusions until each of these investigations have been completed." So, what was all that stuff in the report, if not commentary? It certainly set the tone. Don't be surprised when the other three investigations all fall into line. Watch for the trial prosecutors to not be disciplined for anything. Watch for Lt. Broderick to be completely let off. As for the investigation of Peggy Hettrick's murder, it's too little, too late. Watch for it to fizzle into oblivion.
Earthblog.net also first published:
Free Tim Masters Because
An Open Letter to Larry Abrahamson
The Meloy Massacre
Is It Mark Fuhrman Time?
Freedom: Day One
Freedom: Day One
Freedom: Day One
by Pat Hartman
by Pat Hartman
Originally published at Earthblog.net
January 24, 2008
By now, there's probably not a person in America who doesn't know the basic outline of the case:
1987: Peggy Hettrick is murdered in Fort Collins, Colorado. Suspicion immediately fastens on 15-year old Tim Masters. But no physical clues, eyewitness testimony, or anything else commonly recognized as "evidence" link him to the crime.
1998: More than ten years later, after much expert-shopping, after being turned down by more reputable experts, thanks to the collusion of a hired-gun "expert", and still with not a scrap of anything resembling actual evidence, Detective Jim Broderick succeeds in getting Masters convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
2008: Thanks to a whole lot of conscientious people, including superlative lawyers and top-notch investigators and scientists, Masters is freed.
It's Tuesday the 22nd of January, 2008. You go into a store or office, and the person behind the counter, maybe even someone you never met before, says, "Today's the day Tim Masters gets out." It's a great day for America (and this is not said with the irony of a late night talk show host) because the system worked like its supposed to - which gives hope to hundreds, maybe thousands, of wrongfully convicted people. As one friend said, "You witnessed one of the great moments in courtroom history." Yes, it's a thing you don't see every day. What are the chances, after being thumbs-downed by both the appeals court and the state Supreme Court, of somebody writing for himself such an excellent piece of work as the 35c motion Tim put together? Out of all the similar motions filed by all the desperate inmates, this one succeeded in being heard.
At one point, as Judge Weatherby arranged his courtroom, he asked if any more family members were waiting out in the corridor, and a woman called out, "We're all family." That was the feeling. Except for a stray prosecutor or two, we all thought Tim looked a lot better in his blazer and tie than the way we'd been used to seeing him, in the orange jumpsuit, with chains and goofy shoes. And later on, the best party I ever went to - a birthday party extraordinaire, a second birth for a person who's been through the kind of ordeal that would drive a lot of us around the bend. Certainly, no sensation can compare to regaining freedom after nine years' incarceration, but the rush of seeing a loved one set free has got to run a close second. There's nothing like hanging out with a great big clan of ecstatically happy people to brighten up a day. For me as a citizen, and as somebody who's taken a keen interest in this case, it's an overwhelming experience.
Consequently, this piece started out with the intention of being all warm and fuzzy, stuffed with quotes like this one from Tim's uncle Owen Lamb, who said, "We always believed he was innocent - it's such a relief. He's sure welcome at our house, we hope he's watching the Super Bowl with us. I'm just glad he's going to be watching it at all."
So - what's my problem? Well……
We've got a district attorney here, name of Larry Abrahamson, who's now spinning this thing like a top, with the excuse that it's all the fault of inadequate DNA technology at the time of the murder. At this moment, we don't need to review the state of DNA technology in 1987 when Peggy was killed, carved, and dragged around like a leftover turkey carcass. At this moment we don't need to reflect upon the progress of DNA testing in the late 1990s when Tim was arrested and tried. What we now need to remember are the later events, when Mr. Abrahamson spent many months actively blocking the possibility of any DNA testing at all. He then, without permission, against a court order, allowed Peggy's clothes to be subjected to an old-school harvesting method which could very well have destroyed the existence of any remaining evidence on those pathetic scraps of fabric. He released the clothing and let this potentially destructive testing be done - not to put too fine a point on it - illegally. Knowing that his actions might ruin Tim's last chance for exoneration.
Now, there seems to be some soft-pedaling in process. Some equivocation, some backing and filling. The historical revisionism is already setting in, as Abrahamson and his crew assure us that it's all just been a little misunderstanding. Voices are telling us that the only reason Tim was convicted was that appropriate DNA technology wasn't available when Peggy was killed or, even more ridiculous, at the time when Tim went to trial. This is a big, big, big lie. A whopper. It is, in fact, the kind of industrial-grade bullshit that put Herr Goebbels on the map. If the people of Colorado let him get away with it, we're as guilty as he is and deserve everything we get from him and his kind.
The zeal with which Tim Masters was pursued, back at the start, suggests more than just the usual propensity to lock a warm body into a cell so that "justice" can be seen to be done. It suggests a real need to fill that "Peggy Hettrick's killer" vacancy to protect someone else. For a while there, the shocking saga of Richard Hammond had us going - the twisto doctor, etc. But putting somebody else away just to protect the social acquaintance of an assistant DA and his wife, that's kind of a weak rationale even for these guys. And now we are told that the murderer appears not to have been Hammond.
Another, better suspect was being shielded by putting Tim Masters in his place. Who and why? Is this a paranoid fantasy? Is it any more paranoid than the fantasy a 16-year-old might have harbored, that he was being watched for a solid week? Because back in 1988, on the first anniversary of the murder, somebody did follow him for a week. A whole bunch of somebodies, staked out in a construction trailer near his house and following him everywhere, hoping he'd do something indicative of guilt. Is it any more paranoid than believing that a cop planted a copy of Tim's mother's obituary where he'd be sure to find it? Because a cop did do that. Is it any more paranoid than believing that one obsessed lawman would devote almost a decade to bringing about his downfall?
Try watching, first, video from the interrogation at the Fort Collins police station when
Tim was 15; then the interview on Denver's Channel 9 last week, the day after the recommendation was made that his conviction be vacated. Viewing those two pieces of film back-to-back is eerie. More than twenty years have elapsed between these two documentations of a man's life, and for more than nine of those years he's been incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit. It makes you think.
I see Tim Masters as a martyr whose experience and struggle have benefited us all. It's not an ordeal he would have wished for himself, or anybody would have wished for him. He didn't volunteer for the job, he was drafted. Still, he's done us all a great service, because what he went through has succeeded in bringing to light a whole bunch of stuff in the legal system that's been festering and when it finally oozes out, it ain't gonna be pretty at all. Tim Masters should be awarded all the honor due to a POW back from Southeast Asia or the Middle East. Why not? He was deprived of every material possession, as well as the capacity to control his own time and energies. Captured by his own government, he was kept out of circulation and in misery for more than nine years, almost his entire life as a young adult.
Here in Fort Collins, there's another man who has a high media profile, because he was kidnapped in Beirut in 1985 and held hostage for a long time. Dig it: Tom Sutherland and his family sued the Iran government's frozen assets, and came away with $353 million. Well, Sutherland was imprisoned for 2354 days. Tim Masters did 3452 days, and, as if that weren't enough, had his reputation trashed. What's that worth? How much should Tim Masters get, in recompense for his lost years? To what bureaucracy can he now apply for a refund?
I've heard of a freed, wrongly accused man who actually was compensated to the tune of $100 a day for each day of imprisonment. One commentator has even suggested that the state should pay restitution of a million dollars for each year sacrificed to the "justice" machine. I think the time of an exonerated ex-prisoner is worth at least as much as that of the quack who got him locked up, the alleged expert whose big lies put Tim Masters away. I like the figure of $300 an hour, the same rate as was charged by the witch doctor that calls himself a forensic psychologist. How much would that come to? A lot of people's first impulse is to say hell yeah, give it to him. Only problem is, the state doesn't have any money. Or rather, it does - it has the money it takes from the taxpayers. Sorry, but that's the only way there is for a state to get any money. Except for what it gets from the federal government, and where does Washington get it from? Sadly, from the identical source: the taxpayers.
Why should you and I pay for the sins of Lieutenant James Broderick and his band of co-conspirators? Why is the whole monumental expense of this case coming out of our pockets, when we aren't guilty of anything except allowing these jackals to have their way? Are police officers required to carry malpractice insurance, like doctors? If not, why not? Can we at least garnish their wages? And what's the deal with putting bad cops on administrative leave, anyway? For such wickedness, nobody should get a paid vacation. Keep him on the job, preferably on some duty where he can't damage any more citizens, and turn over his paycheck directly to his victims. Him and all the others who construct these Kafkaesque situations.
Why shouldn't Broderick have to sell his house and car and any other assets, in order to pay off this debt? One of the more bizarre outgrowths of the War on Some Drugs is the doctrine that property can be guilty of a crime. In other words, if you transport drugs in a boat, your boat is guilty, and so the government gets to seize it. So, why not let the asset forfeiture concept serve in other ways as well? For instance, Detective Broderick did a great deal of thinking and plotting about how to destroy Tim Masters, while in his house. Therefore, his house is guilty and should be seized to help pay whatever monetary award eventually goes to Masters. If any of Broderick's teeth contain gold, let's have them too.
Now, this may seem like a side issue, but it's not. There's a consumer angle here that needs looking into. Doctor Reid Meloy, the forensic psychologist who testified at such absurd length, was paid a great deal of money - $70,000 is the number I heard. I'm thinking my next art project should be a Photoshop collage of Reid Meloy in leopard-skin hot pants, because he's such a ho. And not even a good one. Many call girls, in fact, possess more integrity. And, get this - in recent months, while some police officers risked censure by taking Tim's side, and while many people spent copious amounts of time at the hearings - including Tim's original defense lawyers, who each testified for many days - while these people jeopardized their livelihoods and relationships to participate in freeing Tim, what did Reid Meloy do? Here's what he did. Rather than provide copies of his reports to the defense team, rather even than sell them the materials at the cost of photocopying, Dr. Meloy charged $1000 for those documents. That's right - the sleazy son of a bitch could not resist wringing one last increment of profit from the situation.
No-one suggests that we should take back the money because some people think Dr. Meloy is a "scam artist with a long history of fraudulent testimony" or "the most ignorant blowhard I have ever seen." It's because he testified at such bounteous and fantastical length about the character of Tim Masters without ever having met or interviewed the subject of his blather, the person about whom he was pontificating. Because he lied in court, which in some jurisdictions is considered perjury. Because he didn't even do the work. Jim Broderick did the work, and told Meloy what to say. He wrote the script. Dr. Meloy was the ventriloquist's dummy who delivered the lines. We merely propose that Dr. Meloy should cheerfully refund to the taxpayers of Colorado his entire fee, plus interest. And that extra thousand to the defense attorneys.
Justice has not been done. One phase of a mighty sizeable injustice has been brought to a halt, but that's not quite the same thing. The person who killed Peggy has been walking the earth for 20 years with impunity and with blood on his hands - hanging out at his favorite pub; hollering for his favorite football team; having a life; possibly even, God forbid, reproducing. Smugly satisfied in the knowledge that he got away with murder, and even more stoked by the certainty that another man was paying for it.
So Tim Masters is finally out of prison. A lot of us are not prepared to say, "Well, that was nice," and go back to whatever we were doing before. Because there are still a couple of judges, a police officer, a forensic psychologist, and a few other co-conspirators whose day of reckoning needs to be put on the calendar, not in pencil, but in ink.
Earthblog.net also first published:
Free Tim Masters Because
An Open Letter to Larry Abrahamson
The Meloy Massacre
Is It Mark Fuhrman Time?
The Hartman Report on the Special Prosecutor's Report
Special Prosecutors Report Feb. 15, 2008
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Masters_Special_Prosecutors_Report.pdf
Timeline
These dates are from many different sources, and there’s always room for error, so if something inaccurate is listed here, please send in better information.
TIMELINE
This is more for the seriously curious person, who already has some grasp of the events, and wants to pinpoint when a certain thing happened. If you’re new to this case, don’t try to understand it by reading through the timeline.
Almost all entries refer to events in the life of Tim Masters, before and after the murder of Peggy Hettrick by an unknown person. Some entries are about Donald Long or Richard Hammond. If the item concerns one of those two, it’s clearly marked. Otherwise, it’s about Tim Masters.
1961
Clyde Masters buys an acre of land in south Fort Collins
1978
Clyde Masters family moves to Fort Collins
1982
Nov 30
Clyde Masters retires from the Navy
Lloyd Masters family moves in next door to the Clyde Masters family
1983
Feb 12, 1983
Margaret Masters, wife of Clyde and mother of Tim, is rushed to the hospital
Feb 13, 1983
Margaret Masters dies
Feb 15, 1983
Margaret Masters is buried
1986
Christmas season – Peggy Hettrick’s purse stolen
1987
Feb 2, 1987
Matt Zoellner stated he last spent the evening/night with Peggy
Feb 10, 1987 Tuesday
Peggy Hettrick reports in to work at the Fashion Bar at noon. She checks out for a break around 5, and goes to Banana’s to meet with her temporary roommate.
6:30 – Clyde Masters leaves for tech school class
Around 9 Peggy Hettrick leaves work at the Fashion Bar and starts an evening of wandering.
10 – 10:30 - Clyde Masters gets back from school. He and Tim watch a couple of TV shows before turning in.
Feb 11, 1987 Wednesday
Around 1 a.m. Peggy leaves the Prime Minister by unknown means of transportation.
1:45 – Next door to where Tim lives, his aunt, Bridgette Masters, gets home. Lloyd Masters has been home all evening.
1:00 – 3 a.m. Time span in which Dr. Allen estimates Peggy died.
Somewhere around 7 a.m., a driver passing by on Landings sees something in the field, but only later becomes aware that it was Peggy’s body.
6:59 – Tim Masters leaves home on foot, for the bus stop.
A few minutes after 7 a.m., Peggy's body is sighted, and reported a few minutes later, by a bicycle rider.
The location of the homicide is 3800 Landings.
Clyde Masters is interviewed by police,
At school, Tim Masters is questioned by Det. Gonzales; his locker and backpack are searched. Throughout the day and evening, he is questioned for a total of 7 hours.
FCPD Lead investigators: Jack Taylor and Sheri Wagner. Jim Broderick also involved in the initial stages.
(Richard Hammond) Among the neighbors interviewed by police are the Hammonds of 401 Skysail, who say they were home all night, and neither saw nor heard anything unusual.
4:30 Peggy’s body is autopsied
Feb 12, 1987 Thursday
In class, Tim doodles the "drag" drawing. At the police station, Tim Masters is interviewed and given a polygraph test. A conversation between Tim and his father Clyde is secretly recorded. Their home is searched and many items seized including, from Tim’s room six survival knives (one with a scalpel in the handle), some adult magazines, and many notebooks full of Tim’s writings and drawings. No evidence linking to the crime is found on the knives, or in the sinks or laundry drains.
(Richard Hammond) Terry Safris receives first of a series of threatening phone calls.
Feb 13, 1987 Friday
Tim Masters is interviewed again.
According to news report, by now 100 people have been questioned with no witness found to anything. Local news makes first mention of the "boyfriend"
News report: the FBI behavioral science unit will become involved, to help develop a "profile" of the killer.
Officer Jim Broderick is now the FBI liaison, consults ViCap FBI man Jim Wright, who tells him to look for a burglar/voyeur. But Broderick has already fixated on Tim Masters, and describes him, asking for a prediction of his behavior. Wright advises watching him next year on the anniversary of his mother’s death and Peggy Hettrick’s murder
Police issue a "Confidential Update" memo to the City Council.
Feb 14, 1987 Saturday
By now, 200 people have been questioned. Volunteers, including Explorer Scouts, have been searching the field where Peggy’s body was found.
Feb 17, 1987
Peggy Hettrick’s obituary in local newspaper.
Feb 18, 1987
Lt. Bud Reed tells reporter there are "no suspects in custody" for the Peggy Hettrick murder.
Feb 21, 1987
Local paper publishes article by Jim Hawkins, Crime Prevention Coordinator for the police dept., on how to avoid becoming a victim. In another article, a spokesperson repeats that police "did not have any suspects in custody" and the FBI is still helping to develop a psychological profile.
Feb 24, 1987
(Richard Hammond) "Icicle man" menaces Terry Safris at the Prime Minister.
March 10, 1987
Officer Ray Martinez talks to manager of Prime Minister, then learns from Terry Safris of series of threatening phone calls that started the day after Peggy Hettrick was killed.
March 18, 1987
(Donald Long) Linda Holt disappears after work. Police publicly declare there is no connection with Peggy Hettrick’s murder.
March 19, 1987
(Donald Long) Linda Holt’s van found 5 miles away, near Long’s place. Fingerprints taken from van, and semen stains which produced a blood type.
March 24, 1987
(Donald Long) Linda Holt’s body found, through information provided by Donald Long’s girlfriend
April 3, 1987
Police department interoffice memorandum says Tim Masters is not a prime suspect in the Peggy Hettrick murder. Also, a progress report is made by Chief Glasscock to the mayor and city manager and city council. Local newspaper publishes an article of advice from the police on how to be safe.
April 17, 1987 (approximate)
Two months and 6 days after Peggy Hettrick’s murder, police take an indecent exposure report. On Landings Drive, one block from where Hettrick’s body was found, a woman reports a man walking with one leg of his shorts pulled up to expose his erection. The woman turned around to look at him again, "because he might have something to do with the Hettrick murder," as she said when making the police report.
April 30, 1987
Jim Broderick writes letter to Joel Kohout of FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit, and Roy Hazelwood
May 1987
Jim Broderick promoted to sergeant, leaves investigations division, goes to patrol.
(District Attorney Ken Buck’s report puts it this way:
"June 15, 1987 – Det. Broderick was promoted to Sergeant and shortly thereafter was reassigned to the patrol division.")
May 87 or after
Jim Broderick talkes to Clyde and Tim Masters about an incident in their neighborhood that was called in.
May 11, 1987
Peggy Hettrick’s cousin commits suicide in Arvada, Colorado
May 13, 1987
The "Kohout Memo" Officer Taylor’s notes on conversation with Joel Kohout of Behavioral Sciences. (Seems to be input from Roy Hazelwood, too. Relayed through Kohout, or did they talk separately?)
July 15, 1987
(Donald Long) Fort Collins police interview Donald Long for the first time. He talks extensively about another man, who police ultimately question then release in Holt's killing. Long gives blood, hair, saliva and fingerprints that day.
Several months after the Hettrick murder – date unknown:
In another Colorado city, Linda Wheeler Holloway and other law enforcement personnel attempt to interview a man recently released from prison, who had mutilated a woman. He barricades himself in, opens fire on the police, and fatally shoots himself.
Aug 31, 1987
In Tim Masters’s neighborhood, a survival knife is found in a ditch – reportedly with a broken-off tip. (In 2007, David Wymore says it wasn’t broken off but bent back)
Nov 7, 1987
(Donald Long) Mona Hughes disappears after leaving work in Greeley.
Nov. 8, 1987
(Donald Long) Mona Hughes's car is found near
Nov 11, 1987
"Rampant rumors spread that the same person who killed Hettrick also killed Holt. Police say no relation exists between the two murders." News clip
Nov 11, 1987
Local paper reports that a juvenile male has been interviewed about the Peggy Hettrick murder, and released without charges.
Nov 15, 1987
(Donald Long) Long is arrested for killing Linda Holt
Nov 24, 1987
(Donald Long) Newspaper says, according to local woman, Donald Long’s CB radio handle was "Panty Snatcher."
Dec 1, 1987
Body of Mona Hughes is found with 14 stab wounds
Late 1987
Troy Krenning returns to Fort Collins
1988
Jan 8, 1988
Police hold a work session – on the topic of outstanding Hettrick leads.
Lt. Deryle O'Dell. writes a memo regarding the anniversary surveillance plan and psychological warfare plan against Tim Masters. It needs to be okayed by chief Bruce Glasscock
Jan 28, 1988
Richard H. Butler, VP of American Federal Savings, writes to the police dept. and fully okays their plan to park a construction trailer on the bank’s property from Feb 1 – Feb 21
Late Jan or Feb 1988
Lt. Broderick has some kind of contact with Tim Masters, its date and nature unknown, mentioned in notes on Feb. 4 organizational meeting as an event that happened "last week".
Feb 4, 1988
Investigators from FCPD hold a briefing for all officers involved in the surveillance plan.
Feb 8, 1988
Police document says if the surveillance of Tim Masters has no result, they will close books on case.
Feb 8-14, 1988
Surveillance of Tim Masters, the empty field, and Peggy Hettrick’s grave
Feb 11, 1988
Police officer Dean delivers copy of the Coloradoan to the Masters home. It contains a planted story designed to rattle Tim. Channel 14 news is filming in the area.
Feb 16, 1988
Final report on the week-long surveillance is issued.
May 2, 1988
Officers Wagner and Taylor interview Donnegan or Dunnegan
May 1988
(Donald Long) Long confesses to both Linda Holt and Mona Hughes murders. Sentenced to life plus 50 years.
May 1988
(Donald Long) Husband of Mona Hughes sues FCPD, claiming that if they had secured Long after the death of Linda Holt, his wife wouldn’t have been killed.
July 1988
Tim Masters signs up for the Navy
1989
Feb 2 – 11, 1989
Surveillance of Tim Masters, described in Schneeberger memo
Feb 10, 1989
Police officer calls the Masters home, pretending to be Tim’s classmate. Clyde Masters says his son is at the Navy recruiting office.
July 9, 1989
Tim Masters starts boot camp
1990
Lloyd Masters family moves out from residence next door
1991
June 1991
Linda Wheeler-Holloway assigned as lead investigator, to reopen the Peggy Hettrick murder case.
Sept 1991
Tim’s pants and knife sent to California for DNA analysis of blood
December of 1991
Results come back, the blood on Tim’s pants is his own; blood on the knife totally consumed by testing process.
1992
Some time in this year, Linda Wheeler-Holloway organizes files, put them into Records
Some time in this year – Strategies on how to conduct the upcoming interview with Tim Masters, are suggested by Roy Hazelwood
Some time in this year, spurred by FCPD inquiries, Navy intelligence studies Tim Masters’s record and interviews his co-workers and supervisors.
Jul 28, 1992
Warrant to arrest Tim Masters is reviewed by Assistant DA Terry Gilmore and signed by District Judge William Dressel. It includes matter from the nonexistent "profile."
July 31 and Aug. 1
Jim Broderick, Linda Wheeler-Holloway and Hal Dean go to Philadelphia, question Tim Masters for 14 hours, and leave without making an arrest.
Aug 5, 1992
Linda Wheeler-Holloway tells Commander Feldman, Sgt. Vagge, Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair what happened in Philadelphia.
Oct 11, 1992
At the instigation of Clyde Masters, the local paper prints a story about how his son is being harassed by the police department.
1993
Peggy Hettrick murder returns to cold case status.
1995
Some time in this year: the detective bureau of the FCPD is restructured, and the investigators have more time to work on unsolved cases.
Mar 19, 1995 Sunday
(Richard Hammond) In the early morning, police are called by woman house-sitter to the home of Dr. and Mrs. Hammond, where an elaborate setup is found in place to film users of the restroom.
Mar 20, 1995 Monday
(Richard Hammond) Hammond turns himself in, released on bail. Tony Sanchez and other officers notice the view from Hammond’s window is the body dump site.
Mar 21, 1995
Remarks of Jim Broderick regarding the arrest of Richard Hammond are published in the Fort Collins Coloradoan.
Date uncertain
Officer Tony Sanchez writes the "look into Hettrick" note.
Mar 23, 1995 Thursday
(Richard Hammond) Hammond in court to be advised of rights. Scheduled to return April 6
Mar 24, 1995 Friday
(Richard Hammond) Hammond checks into a La Quinta motel in Denver and injects sodium cyanide into a vein leaving a suicide note saying "My death should satisfy the media's thirst for blood"
Marsha Reed interviews Becky Hammond.
Mar 25, 1995 Saturday
(Richard Hammond) Shortly before noon, Hammond’s body is found by member of motel cleaning staff.
May 17, 1995
(Richard Hammond) Officers Broderick and Sanchez meet with Duval to discuss how to destroy Hammond evidence.
Date unknown
Becky Hammond interviewed by Marsha Reed and Tony Sanchez and granted immunity.
Aug. 15, 1995
(Richard Hammond) Less than 5 months after Hammond’s death, and with only a small fraction of it having been examined, all the evidence from Hammond’s home and storage lockers is burned in a fire that reportedly requires over 8 hours to consume it all.
Nov 30, 1995
Det. Linda Wheeler-Holloway retires from Fort Collins Police Department
1995 and 1996
Officer Marsha Reed gathers the elements of the Peggy Hettrick murder cold case file, preparatory to reopening it
1996
Sometime in this year, Erik Fischer moves to Fort Collins
Apr 15, 1996
Clyde Masters dies at age 60, while visiting in California
Oct 1996
FCPD begins to re-investigate the Peggy Hettrick murder,
Oct 16, 1996
Broderick meets Roy Hazelwood at sexual homicides seminar, and talks to FBI man Jim Wright
Oct 25, 1996
"Thousands of pages" of Tim Masters’s writings and drawings are conveyed to Roy Hazelwood, now an expert in sexual violence in private consultancy practice.
Dec 18, 1996
Broderick sends progress report to Hazelwood, discusses with Asst. DA Terry Gilmore what they hope Hazelwood will do.
1997
Feb 14, 1997
Two- page "hinge" letter from Broderick to Hazelwood
Feb 20, 1997
Fax from Broderick to Hazelwood
April 2, 1997
Broderick sends map a more detailed map to Hazelwood
June 19, 1997
Fax from Academy Group (Roy Hazelwood) to Broderick, replying to questions that had been put to him about how far he was willing to get involved in the case.
Broderick talks to Hazelwood, who suggests lists of psychologists including Reid Meloy
Jim Broderick promoted from sergeant to lieutenant
Nov. 9, 1997
Meloy retained
Nov. 14, 1997
Letter agrees to pay Meloy $300/hr. every 30 days
Broderick’s notes say he has told Asst. DA Terry Gilmore to expect a tape from Meloy. Would this be, like, a sample of his work?
Dec 6, 1997
Meloy calls to say he has received everything from Hazelwood (Tim Masters’s "productions" – writings and drawings, maps, and whatever else they had sent.)
Dec 29, 1997
Holiday Inn meeting of Meloy, Marsha Reed, Terry Gilmore, Jim Broderick, they went to police dept. to view evidence, and visited the scene where Peggy Hettrick’s body was found.
Dec 31, 1997
Det. Marsha Reed writes to plastic surgeon Dr. Christopher Tsoi, sending autopsy report, 7 photos of the surgical wounds inflicted on Peggy Hettrick after her death, and a list of questions.
1998
Jan 5, 1998
Broderick sends letter to Meloy – enclosing transcript of secret recording made of Feb 12 1987, of a conversation between Tim and his father.
Jan 7, 1998
letter from Meloy to Broderick, thanking for visit and enclosing a copy of his notes
Jan 9, 1998
Officer Marsha Reed meets with Dr. Tsoi, but her daily report is blank, and the report she remembers writing about the meeting is never seen again.
March 2, 1998
Broderick sends letter to Meloy about the autobiography that Tim wrote for a class assignment, and how the death certificate of Margaret Masters was lying out in the open.
May 14, 1998
Peggy Hettrick's body is exhumed to look for knife tip, which wasn’t missing in the first place. No knife tip found.
June 20, 1998
Meloy submits 12-page draft report summarization
June 22, 1998
Meloy sends preliminary finding report to Broderick, having revised it after receiving input from police and prosecutors. Also letter "please note that my entire document extraction has now been sent to you." This is not the same as the report, but a different set of papers.
June 23, 1998
Conference call between Dr. Reid Meloy, Asst. DA Terry Gilmore, Asst. DA Jolene Blair, Officer Marsha Reed
June 29, 1998
Meeting to review affidavit
Summer
Meloy spends part of the summer in Europe
July 9, 1998
4-page report from Hazelwood to Broderick, as at this point the prosecutors still comtemplate having him testify
July 10, 1998
Broderick’s notes say he conferred with Hazelwood about the arrest warrant. In this conversation, Hazelwood recommended removing all references to the "profile"
July 16, 1998
Conference call between Broderick, Hazelwood and Meloy
July 24, 1998
Broderick send letter to prosecutors stating that Dr. Meloy had been sent a draft of the warrant, and they were awaiting Meloy’s "approval."
July 29, 1998
Fort Collins police report shows that Allen, the medical examiner, called the wounds surgical. The description came in a conversation with Broderick.
August 1998
Broderick sends Hazelwood draft copy of arrest warrant and copies of Meloy’s "extractions."
Aug 6, 1998
Police obtain arrest warrant for Tim Masters, from District Judge William Dressel, charging first-degree murder
Aug 10, 1998
Det. Broderick and other FCPD travel to Ridgecrest, CA to arrest Tim Masters, who is now 27 and out of the Navy.
Aug 15, 1998
Invoice from Meloy for 1 hour 15 minutes worth of review and analysis of something, and ¾ hour phone conference on same date
Aug 20, 1998
Tim Masters is charged
Nov 3, 1998
Erik Fischer reviews evidence from an envelope. Later in the 2007 hearings, the contents and chain of custody of this envelope turn out to be a major point of contention.
Nov 9, 1998
Photos in the evidence envelope returned to FCPD by the FBI lab – so they would not have been included in what Fischer reviewed six days earlier, and weren’t turned over in discovery.
Dec 5, 1998
Meloy sent remaining extractions to Broderick Meloy submits another report
Some time in 1998
Police break in to Clyde Masters’s trailer
1999
Some time this year
“Suspects in Hettrick homicide” aka List of 94” created by Officer Marsha Reed, building on list originally compiled by Linda Wheeler-Holloway.
Feb 4, 1999
Meloy sends letter to Stu VanMeveren, Larimer County DA, expressing hope that his work "will result in a successful prosecution" and touting Blair and Gilmore as "superb professionals."
Feb 12, 1999
Re: the evidence envelope (see Nov. 3, 1998) today’s date is the first date on the log. It’s the same day Broderick jotted in his notebook in red that one photo, "#105 is messed up, tread pattern looks like Thom McAn shoe"
March 18, 1999
Tim Masters’s murder trial begins Case # 98CR1149
March 26, 1999
Tim Masters convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, after jury deliberation of ten hours over two days.
1999 ?
Somewhere in this time frame, the Cold Case Files TV show is made.
Nov 8, 1999
Opening Brief of Defendant-Appellant to Court of Appeals. Attorney Erik Fischer
2000
Apr 13, 2000
Attorney Erik Fischer in Fort Collins Coloradoan calls the conviction "character assassination as proof of a crime" and says Tim Masters should get a new trial
Oct 17, 2000
Oral arguments before Colorado Court of Appeals
2001
Feb 15
Appeals Court confirms the conviction. Petition for Writ of Certiorari granted
August 2001
Jolene Blair becomes District Court Judge for 8th Judicial District
2002
Jun 10, 2002
Heard by the Colorado Supreme Court. 99CA896
For the petitioner: Nathan D. Chambers
Jul 12, 2002
Publication on Moving Target blog – "Use a Pencil, Go to Jail, part 1"
Aug 3, 2002
Publication on Moving Target blog – "Use a Pencil, Go to Jail part 2"
Oct 15, 2002
Judgment affirmed by Colorado Supreme Court (with three justices dissenting)
Dec 16, 2002
Petition for rehearing denied (although the same 3 Justices would grant it ).
2003
May 1 or possibly 5th, 2003
Tim Masters files 35c Motion for Relief because of ineffective counsel
May 14, 2003
Maria Liu appointed to serve as Tim Masters’s post-conviction attorney
2004
The “angel”s first letter to Tim
Nov 2004
"Free Tim Masters" website holds about 1500 pages, mostly trial transcript.
Nov 12, 2004
Tim Masters Defense fund is set up. Defense attorneys try to get the District Attorney to agree to DNA testing.
2005
Jun 17, 2005
Motion is filed to recuse District Court Judges Jolene Blair and Terence Gilmore.
June 30, 2005
David Wymore joins the defense team
Jul 25, 2005
Tim Masters in Larimer County Court with about 20 friends, relatives and supporters. His motion was to recuse District Court Judges Jolene Blair and Terence Gilmore as well as Judge Daniel Kaup, who had worked in the DA’s office at the time of the investigation. Recusal was granted, clearing the way for his 35c Ineffective Counsel Motion to be heard. Defense attorneys are contacted by major media.
Appointment of visiting judge Joseph Weatherby
Jul 26, 2005
"Former Cop Favors New Trial" in Rocky Mountain News report re: Tim Masters, about Linda Wheeler-Holloway
Linda Wheeler-Holloway visits the Netherlands and learns about new DNA harvesting technique
Nov, 2005
Richard and Selma Eikelenboom of the Netherlands are brought into the investigation by defense
Some time in 2005
15 fingerprints from inside Peggy Hettrick’s purse are removed from the FBI lab files and never returned.
2006
April 2006
Attorney David Wymore catalogs all evidence. His list doesn’t include the evidence envelope (see Nov. 3, 1998)
Nov 6, 2006
Judge Weatherby approves testing in the Netherlands of the clothing, and specifies that there should be a written protocol before either side does any testing.
Nov 17, 2006
Broderick is subpoenaed for any profile in any form, and any communications with the FBI, Hazelwood, Behavioral Sciences Unit
Nov 2006
Thanksgiving week Larimer County DA's office and FCPD remove Peggy’s clothing put into evidence during the 1999 trial and take it (without any protocol) to the CBI laboratory. Armed with the knowledge of which segments of fabric the defense wants to lift epithelial cells from, they swab half those areas with their old-fashioned and potentially destructive method.
2007
Early 2007
A hearing at which two former Ft. Collins Police Detectives testify that they never believed Tim Masters killed Peggy Hettrick, and that the FCPD made a rush to judgment.
Early 2007
The defense learns how the clothing has been taken for testing against the instructions of the court.
Early 2007
Defense alleges prosecutorial misconduct and asks for Special Prosecutor
Jan 2007
defense motion to disqualify the DA’s office for intentionally tampering with Peggy’s clothing.
Feb 13, 2007
Court orders Roy Hazelwood to answer questions sent to him and identify materials he was sent and conveyed on to Meloy. No answer.
Apr 18 2007
Riedel and Lammons of DA’s office file "MOTION TO APPOINTING A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR AND VACATE HEARING" which denies wrongdoing on their part.
Apr 20, 2007
The prosecution quits the case recusing themselves because of a conflict
Judge Weatherby signs order appointing Special Prosecutor Don Quick
April 21 2007
District Attorney's Office for the 8th Judicial District hands over Masters case to prosecutors from Adams County.
May 7, 2007
Special Prosecutor needs more time to review the case
July 31, 2007
Don Quick, Special Prosecutor, sends letter asking for "reports, photos, documents, etc." in other words all discoverable material, to Chief Harrison of FCPD, Sheriff Jim Alderden, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, DA Larry Abrahamson of the 8th Judicial District, and DA Ken Buck of the 19th Judicial District.
August 9 2007
Asst. Chief Investigator interviews Terry Gilmore on behalf of the Special Prosecutor
August ??? 2007
Asst. Chief Investigator interviews Jolene Blair on behalf of the Special Prosecutor
Aug 31, 2007
Greg Campbell interviews Tim Masters at Larimer County Detention Center.
Sept 27, 2007
Interview with retired FCPD officer Marsha Reed where she states she prepared a report on her interview with Dr. Tsoi (See Dec. 31, 1997)
Oct 4, 2007
Defense learns of Officer Tony Sanchez’s "Look into Hettrick" note. Marsha Reed says Tony Sanchez told her that Hammond was a suspect in Hettrick murder.
Oct 15, 2007
Defense team gets most but not all of the "McClellan Binders."
Nov 6, 2007
revelations about surveillance, sting operation, planted news story
Nov 16, 2007
Broderick’s notebooks of working notes turned over to special prosecutors
Nov 21, 2007
Informal discovery viewing of what prosecutors have. Half a day spent trying to understand the origin of the "Kohout memo"
Dec 1, 2007
Defense files motion asking court to order Broderick, Neimann, and several other police dept. personnel to answer questions about the discovery process, regarding the items held by the Records Dept.
Dec 2, 2007
Broderick’s notebooks transferred from Special Prosecutors to defense team
Dec 6, 2007
Colorado Bureau of Investigation report submitted to Special Prosecutors. Findings: Three partial DNA profiles from Peggy’s clothing, none consistent with Tim Masters.
Dec 11, 2007
CBI report turned over to defense team
Dec 18, 2007
Post-conviction defense team files a Motion for Special Prosecutor to Investigate Possible Criminal Activity by the Fort Collins Police Department and a Motion for Special Prosecutor to Investigate Perjury at the Trial of Tim Masters by Fort Collins Police Lt. James Broderick
2008
Jan 4, 2008
Larry Abrahamson files motion for Order Appointing Special Prosecutor, granted the same day
Jan 15, 2008
Defense shares its DNA test results with Special Prosecutor
Jan 18, 2008
CBI confirms that DNA is consistent with alternate suspect "the boyfriend", and inconsistent with Tim Masters.
Friday afternoon press conference announces that the conviction of Tim Masters will be vacated and he will be released.
Broderick is out of state on family medical matter
Jan 22, 2008
Happy Freeday, Tim Masters!
Special Prosecutors file Motion to Vacate Judgment of Conviction and Sentence for Tim Masters.
Jan 25, 2008
All charges against Tim Masters dismissed by DA Larry Abrahamson
Feb 15 2008
Adams County District Attorney Don Quick files Special Prosecutor’s Report
Trial Transcripts and Motion for Relief
Volume_I.pdf
District Court, Larimer County, Colorado
Case No. 98-CR-1149
Thursday, March 18, 1999
Volume_ II.pdf
Volume_III.pdf
Volume_IV.pdf
Volume _V.pdf
Volume_VI.pdf
Volume_VII.pdf
Motion.pdf
MOTION FOR RELIEF PURSUANT TO CRIM.P.35c
District Court, Larimer County, Colorado
Case No. 98CR1149
Contributions - Where to Send?
A fund to aid Tim Masters as he starts his new life outside of prison has been established in care of his legal defense team.
Contributions to this fund, as well as care packages, other donations, and letters, should be sent to:
Tim Masters
c/o Collins, Liu & Lyons, LLP
812 Eighth Street Plaza
Greeley, CO 80631
Any questions can be directed to attorney Ashley Chase at (970) 336-6499.
Celebration Poem
Freedom Day (for Timothy Masters)
Green and white balloons are rising
Into the deep winter sky,
The bitter freeze turned back
By the strength of the sun.
On a day wide with triumph,
Freedom is now stepping through the door.
Green and white balloons are rising
One man released from tough walls
Built by rabid insistence.
One woman’s soul now closer to truth;
Her question may finally be answered.
Freedom lifts them both into the frigid open air.
Green and white balloons are rising
They are a message to the world:
Lies must not stand,
Failures must be corrected- now.
This is not about just one woman and man.
Freedom, this day, is more precious for all.
Tim Van Schmidt
1/22/08
(The poet is a member of the performance poetry and sound art group TVS and two fingers, which does some pretty amazing stuff.)
http://www.tvsandtwofingers.com
General Topography of Tim's Home and Surrounding Area in 1987 (map)
Click on the photo to enlarge it. If this doesn't work, I'm open to suggestions.
South Fort Collins Colorado 1987 (map)
Click on the map to enlarge it. This works on my computer, but if it doesn't work on yours, let me know and I'll figure out something else. Or better yet, suggest how to make it work.
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