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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 the 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."
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