The Conviction of Tim Masters: a Travesty of Justice

In March 1999, Tim Masters was convicted for the 1987 Fort Collins, Colorado murder of Peggy Hettrick and given a life sentence based largely on doodles he made when he was 15-years-old. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime scene.

Between the location where Peggy Hettrick was abducted and the field where her body was dumped that early mourning on February 11, 1987, her killer should have left pieces of his DNA on her. As the killer dragged her body through the field, skin cells and a strand of hair from the killer should have fallen onto her clothing.

The law of forensic science: when two people come into contact, they leave cells on each other.

But the Fort Collins Police ignored this fundamental law of forensic science by losing biological evidence found at the crime scene and destroying evidence linked to a prominent doctor they never investigated for the crime.

Jim Broderick, an over zealous Fort Collins police detective, would not waver from his belief that a 15-year-old boy committed the murder despite no physical evidence. Larimer County prosecutors opposed saving DNA and testing it.

The result: an innocent man goes to prison for life for a murder he did not commit.

Twenty years after the murder, Masters' case has become one of the most ambitious and expensive bids ever in Colorado to prove a person's innocence. Nearly $500,000 has been provided by the Colorado legal defense system and the ambitious efforts of Masters' legal team has led them to a cutting-edge DNA testing laboratory in the Netherlands, where the killer's skin cells have been mined from Peggy Hettrick's clothing using the most-advanced DNA techniques available. The tests show it was not Tim Masters' skin cells.

The Crime Scene - Hettrick's body was discovered lying in a field along Landings Drive by a bicyclist just minutes after sunrise. Peggy Hettrick was an aspiring writer and barhopper who worked at the Fashion Bar, a nearby clothing store. She was a petite woman, about 155 pounds with flaming red hair.

Her bra, blouse and coat had been pushed up over her breasts; her panties and bluejeans pulled down to her knees. Her eyes were open, her arms outstretched.

Blood presumably from a knife wound to her back, trailed 103 feet from her body to a small pool by the street curb. Tiny abrasions marked her right cheek. Her left nipple and areola had been carefully removed and the front of her body was wiped clean. No blood.

The police investigators wrapped paper bags around Hettrick's hands and feet to capture skin or hair she might have scratched off her killer and specimens that might be on her footwear.

They found two hairs on her shoes that were not hers. Inside her purse, investigators lifted 13 fingerprints that were not hers. Later, Larimer County Medical Examiner Dr. Pat Allen found neatly executed cuts inside her genitalia made by an extremely sharp knife.

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