Timothy Masters Case Summary

The Unjust Criminal Case and Civil Implications
Of the Timothy Masters Case On the eleventh day of February, in 1987, the body of thirty-seven year old Peggy Hettrick was drug through a park in Fort Collins, Colorado. Almost exactly Twenty-one years later on January 22, 2008 Timothy Masters was released from Buena Vista Prison after being exonerated of her murder. During that time span a whirlwind of criminal and moral injustices occurred, which eventually led the life sentence of an innocent man. All in all this was one of the greatest legal screw ups in Colorado’s history.
The Criminal Case Hettrick’s body was found after a boy walking through a park reported seeing what he though was a mannequin in the field. As the police arrived they

It must be noted that no interview was ever done with his teacher, who called him a fun-loving normal kid, no forensic evidence was found in his home or school, and both the hairs and the fingerprints found on Hettrick, did not match Masters. Detective Broderick embraced a theory that: Masters saw Hettrick walking home from the bar out his back window, he snuck out and stabbed her by the park and drug her body to the location where, with the red light of his flashlight, he mutilated her body. Another detective explained that Broderick had become so fixated on Masters that all his work focused around the circumstantial evidence that Masters was guilty. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work” the detective reported. Broderick was determine to find the boy’s motive using his

She heard a strange sound coming from the basement bathroom. Through a vent she found what she thought was a camera lens and a trail of wire leading to the doctor’s spare bedroom office. Inside she had found hundreds of pictures and video taken of women in his bathroom. Most of which were zoomed in and focused on either their genitalia or their breasts. She immediately reported it to the police. Dr. Richard Hammond was arrested as soon as he returned home from vacation on sexual exploitation charges. It was learned that Hammond had a secret life including a secret identity as well as a history of voyeuristic tendencies that he exploited when he left town. His wife didn’t even know of his vast collection of pornographic materials but had claimed that he was often secretive. Hammond bonded out of jail, while the defense attorney’s office tried contacting an independent prosecutor because some of their staff were caught on Dr. Hammond’s tapes. Five days later Hammond was found dead in a Denver hotel with an IV needle containing cyanide lodged in his leg. All of the detectives on Hammond’s case pushed for Broderick to investigate him for the death of Hettrick due to his fetish of breasts and genitalia, close proximity, and knives that were discovered. Instead less than six months after the discovery of Hammonds evidence Broderick, who was promoted