LARIMER COUNTY to PAY $4.1M FOR WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT

The settlement amount resulted from the meeting held this morning during the executive session of the Board of County Commissioners; where the county attorney decided to settle with Masters.

The legal team of Larimer believed that the county would be in a bigger risk if the settlement has not been reached.

AP further reported that $3M will come from the county's insurance company and the remaining $1.1 million will be taken out from county's Risk Management Fund.

Kevin Kuhn attorney for Judge Jolene Blair who was the prosecutor in the original Masters case expressed his disappointment on the settlement and said that his client never had the chance to present her side of the story and they feel this settlement is completely wrong. While, Josh Marks, counsel for Judge Terrence Gilmore who was also one of the prosecutor in the Masters case, supported the bitter comment of Kuhn.

By agreeing to the settlement the Larimer County have basically conceded for the mistakes done on Masters and now restitution for those mistakes has to be made, a county source said.

Even Masters and his attorney were not so happy with the figures, and said that "he would trade 10 million dollars to get back the ten years of his life spent in prison."

The unsolved Peggy Hettrick murder case happened way back February 11 1987, when a bicyclist found the sexually mutilated dead body of the then 37 year Hettrick in the Southern Fort Collins, Colorado. But, before the bicyclist saw the dead body, the then 15 year old Timothy Masters told his father that he saw the body while walking it to school, but, he thought it was a mannequin and just ignored it. After the latter's father reported to the police that his son saw the body, the cops pulled him from class for questioning.

In 1999 Masters was convicted based from drawings and narratives and despite the fact that his DNA did not matched the DNA collected from the two hairs found on the victim's body. Rather it pointed to one of Hettrick's boyfriend. But, this development was discovered after Masters' conviction, and two unsuccessful appeals.

It was in 2004, when the State appointed a new defense team, who discovered that the hairs and fingerprints found in Hettrick's purse were missing.

The DNA testing freed Masters in 2008 and through his counsel David Lane filed a civil suit against Judge Terry Gilmore, Judge Jolene Blair (original prosecutors of the case) and detective James Broderick, for violations of Timothy Master's civil rights.