Killer's lawyer targets prosecutors in bid for new trial

Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 7, 2007 at midnight

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FORT COLLINS — Special prosecutors in the Peggy Hettrick murder case worked today to show that defense attorneys could have done more to ferret out information before Tim Masters was put on trial for the killing in 1999.

The question of what was turned over to Masters' lawyers — and whether prosecutors improperly withheld evidence that could have helped him win acquittal — is central to the man's bid for a new trial in a murder he has always insisted he did not commit.

Attorney Nathan Chambers, who represented Masters at his trial, has been on the stand this afternoon for a sixth day but for the first time faced cross-examination from Tom Quammen of the Adams County District Attorney's Office. Officials from the Adams County District Attorney's Office are acting as the special prosecutors in the case, replacing Larimer County prosecutors who originally handled the trial and appeals.

And while Chambers acknowledged that he could have done more, he said the original prosecutors in the case, Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair, were ethically bound to provide information that they withheld.

"I should have followed up," Chambers said. "I should have. But the fact that I didn't follow up does not excuse the prosecutor for not producing them."

Hettrick was stabbed in the back. Her killer then sliced away tissue from her genitals and left breast.

Masters, who was 15 at the time Hettrick was killed, quickly became the prime focus of the investigation. He lived in a mobile home overlooking the field where Hettrick's body was found, and he admitted that he stopped and looked at her corpse as he walked to the school bus. However, he did not report it — he later told police he thought it was a mannequin — and a bicyclist who later saw the body called police.

However, it wasn't until 1998 that Fort Collins police investigators obtained enough evidence to get a warrant for Masters' arrest.

A jury convicted him of murder in 1999, largely on the basis of a forensic psychologist's interpretation of his writings and drawings, many of which were graphic and violent.

Quammen, through a series of questions, attempted to show that defense attorneys were given documents that could have led them to find the answers to the questions now being raised. He pointed to three specific documents that were turned over to defense lawyers in 1998 and 1999:

-- A letter from then-Fort Collins police detective Marsha Reed to Dr. Christopher M. Tsoi, a plastic surgeon, seeking a meeting to talk about the wounds to Hettrick's genitals and breast.

-- Separate letters from J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist, that reference more than 200 pages of his "extractions" — his analysis of evidence in the case.

-- A report that talked about the surveillance conducted by police in February 1988, the one-year anniversary of Hettrick's killing.

The defense was never given a report of Reed's interview with Tsoi — in fact, it's not even clear whether one was ever written — or Meloy's "extractions" or details of the 1988 surveillance plan.

And David Wymore, who is leading the fight to win Masters a new trial, and Chambers have repeatedly asserted that they should have been turned over before the trial. And they have said that the rules of discovery are "self-executing" and that prosecutors were ethically bound to have turned the documents over before trial.

Dr. Tsoi, in an affidavit filed with Masters' current attorneys, said that he told Reed that it would have been "almost impossible" to mutilate Hettrick in the way prosecutors asserted that she was. Meloy's 274 pages of "extractions" included conclusions that Masters was guilty after just a few pages.

And the 1988 surveillance plan included a decision to plant a fake story in the local paper and deliver it to Masters' home, apparently as part of an effort to get him to do something to tie him to the crime.

At one point, Quammen asked Chambers whether he could have called prosecutors and asked for a report of the interview with Dr. Tsoi. Chambers said "probably" wouldn't have done that.

When Quammen asked why, Chambers became animated.

"Because I assumed — and I was wrong in making this assumption; it was an error on my part — I assumed I was dealing with honorable people," Chambers said. "I assumed that the prosecutors and the police would try this case according to the rules. ... I assumed that we were not involved in a game of cat-and-mouse where they were going to withhold discovery unless we asked the specific right question."

Quammen also asked a series of questions aimed at rebuffing Wymore's frequent assertions that Masters' drawings and writings amount to nothing more than "doodles."

"They're more than just doodles, aren't they?" Quammen asked.

"Yes, there's writings," Chambers answered.

"Writings involving stabbings, murder, parts of the body being cut off, blood dripping, right?" Quammen asked.

"Yes," Chambers said.

Quammen also pointed out that the state Supreme Court, in its 4-3 ruling affirming the conviction of Masters, found that his drawings were "graphic and often repulsive."

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