Old evidence at new trial

Dead investigator's work from 1980 allowed in by judge

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 12, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Local News

More stories »

BRIGHTON - An Adams County judge Thursday ruled that notes and blood evidence taken by a now-dead investigator at a murder scene 25 years ago can be used in the case against Troy Brownlow.

When a key witness is dead, the suspect doesn't have the opportunity to confront his accuser, as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment.

But Adams District Court Judge Scott Crabtree said Brownlow had forfeited that constitutional right because for 25 years he'd withheld from police information about the murder of 15-year-old Nanine Grimes.

Grimes' body was found in her Thornton home in September 1980, her chest, neck and face slashed with some 80 knife wounds, some as much as six inches deep.

The police investigation didn't identify any prime suspects.

But two years ago, as Brownlow was about to be released from an Arizona prison, officials took a DNA sample from him.

That was run through the national database, and a hit was made on the blood evidence from the Grimes murder scene.

Later, investigators matched Brownlow's DNA to several objects at the murder scene, including a garden hose, a coffee table and a fence. Brownlow lived a half mile from the Grimes family in Thornton at the time of Nanine's murder, and was 16 years old.

Brownlow, who is in Adams County Jail awaiting the June 5 start of his trial, admitted to a Rocky Mountain News reporter last year that he was at the Grimes home that night but was intimidated by an older, larger man who was also there. He said he didn't see the murder being committed, but tried to stop it.

He told the News that every day the past 25 years he has regretted not telling the police about the crime committed there that night.

Crabtree zeroed in on those statements when he made his ruling that crime-scene investigator Joe Smith's notes can be used at trial.

Smith's four pages of evidence included such notes as, "blood likely from suspect on garden hose," which normally are the type of notes that could be excluded from a trial because they could be considered prejudicial in favor of the prosecution, Crabtree said.

Defense attorneys often have argued successfully that testimony or evidence from a person who dies before the trial shouldn't be allowed, because the suspect can't challenge the credibility of that person, as provided by the Sixth Amendment.

But Brownlow forfeited the right to have the notes excluded by staying quiet for so long, and then suddenly talking about how he regretted staying quiet, Crabtree said.

"You intentionally remained silent for 25 years, and didn't speak until the DNA connected you to the crime," he said to Brownlow, who was dressed in orange-and-white- striped prison gear. "Each day you made a conscious decision to remain silent while memories faded, clues got cold and some witnesses died.

"Then you started talking about this big, crazed man. You've forfeited your right to confront Joe Smith by deliberately failing to report a crime."

Crabtree also denied defense lawyers' motions to exclude the Brownlow DNA collected from the Arizona prison, saying authorities there acted within the law in taking it.

The judge also said the prosecution can bring up Brownlow's prior convictions. He'd been serving time in Arizona for felony theft at the time officials there took his DNA.

Defense attorneys Keith Pope and Mary Claire Mulligan have one more shot at suppressing important evidence. Crabtree will rule next Friday on whether the testing mechanism that matched DNA from Brownlow with the DNA at the murder scene will be allowable. The defense has argued that the science of DNA matching, and the statistical probability of a match being as unique as a fingerprint are inexact, leading to different testing approaches that aren't agreed upon by experts.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News