Tim Masters
Larimer
County, Colorado
Date of Crime: February 11, 1987
Tim Masters was convicted in 1999 of the 1987 murder of
Peggy Hettrick. Hettrick's body had been found in a south Fort Collins
field just hours after she was last seen leaving a nearby restaurant. This location was 100 feet north of the mobile home of Tim Masters. Masters' father told police that his 15-year-old son had walked through the
field as he did every day to take a bus to school.
When police contacted Masters, he admitted seeing the body. He thought
it might be a mannequin or that someone might have played a prank on him. However, he did not report the body and police were skeptical of the reasons
he gave. In the margins of Masters' notebooks, police found sketches
of dinosaurs with arrows through them, gruesome war scenes described by his
Vietnam veteran dad, and horror flicks such as Nightmare on Elm Street. Masters loved to write, and his goal was to be another Stephen King. Masters' special-ed teacher said she was not at all concerned about his
drawings as most of her kids scrawled horrific images.
In 1995, a prominent eye surgeon, Dr. Richard Hammond, briefly became a
suspect in the crime after he was caught with numerous voyeuristic
videotapes. Hammond, however, soon committed suicide. Noticing
that Hammond lived across the street from the crime scene and that his tapes
focused on female genitalia, some investigators wanted to review all of
Hammond's tapes to see if Hettrick appeared in any of the videos. However, the lead investigator in the Hettrick case and his supervisor had
the tapes destroyed. They were focused on Masters.
In 1998, eleven years after the crime, Masters was arrested for Hettrick's
murder and brought to trial in 1999. An “expert” interpreted Masters'
drawings and what they said about his psychological motives. The
prosecution presented footprint evidence that Masters detoured from his
usual path to his bus stop to walk within 6 feet of the body. This
detour allegedly satisfied a psychological need of Masters to revisit the
scene of his crime. Masters' attorneys were convinced of their
client's innocence, but they saw fear in the jury's eyes. Masters had
grown into a muscular man and was no longer the 110 lb. adolescent who
doodled in his notebook.
A later examination of evidence showed that Hettrick's murderer had
performed a partial vulvectomy on her. This procedure required good
lighting, so it moved the crime scene away the darkened field where her body
was found. It also required a surgical instrument and a high degree of
surgical skill. It is very doubtful that Masters could have performed
this procedure as he had no surgical training. A plastic surgeon who
reviewed the evidence noted that even he would have difficulty inflicting
the wounds found on Hettrick.
In Jan. 2008, Masters' conviction was overturned after advanced DNA tests
exonerated him. He was released on bond. [3/08]
________________________________
References:
Denver Post, Update
Posted in:
Victims of the State,
Colorado Cases, Failed to
Report Body
|