Perjury case may reopen in Tim Masters case

Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck may take a second look at a perjury investigation he closed last summer against Fort Collins police Lt. Jim Broderick involved in wrongdoing in the case of Timothy Masters, who was freed after nearly spending ten years in prison last year.

"We're going to look at new documents, and we're going to re-examine the evidence we had before and make a determination on whether we'll reopen the investigation." Buck said Friday.

Masters spent nearly 10 years in prison for the 1987 murder of Peggy Hettrick. His conviction was overturned last year after DNA evidence found on Hettrick's body did not match Masters'.

After Masters' release from prison, Larimer District Attorney Larry Abrahamson asked Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck to investigate allegations of perjury and eavesdropping against Lt. Jim Broderick.

Masters now lives in Greeley, but keeps to himself, says Maria Liu, the main attorney who helped secure Masters' new trial and his subsequent exoneration.

At the time of the murder, Masters was 15, and prosecutors concentrated on him based solely on his doodles and sketches and the fact that he had walked by the body and did not report it to police. Masters had said he thought it was a mannequin.

Broderick testified during Masters' trial that he wasn't involved in the investigation of Masters between mid-1987 and 1992. But e-mails released as part of Masters' lawsuit against police show Broderick was involved in the Masters case.

E-mails from 1989 show Broderick planning out the surveillance of Masters on the second anniversary of Hettrick's murder.

"The plan is to pick Masters up from school and keep on him until we put him to bed at night," Broderick wrote in an e-mail. Other portions of e-mails, written by another police officer informed staff to Broderick's equipment requests for the surveillance, noting that it was "a worthwhile last ditch effort to catch Tim if we can."

These e-mails were not provided to Buck as part of his initial investigation of Broderick.

In Buck's initial investigation, while clearing Broderick, he noted irregularities in evidence gathering and reporting, but nothing criminal.

Tim Masters: Revisiting A Conviction

List of 94: Returning To The Murder Of Peggy Hettrick

Other Sources:

Truth in Justice - Tim Masters case

Colorado Criminal Reform Coalition - Tim Master case

Tim Masters catalog

Brian Blackwell