CASPER, Wyoming (PNN) - September 20, 2012 - Graphic recordings prove that a Montana man was sentenced to life in prison for a murder he didn't commit, after pig thug cops knowingly withheld exonerating evidence.
The man was acquitted on retrial, and is now suing in Federal Court.
In 2010, more than a year after the Sublette County, Wyoming Sheriff's Office resurrected an investigation from its cold-case files, a jury convicted Troy Willoughby for the 1984 murder of Lisa Ehlers. The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence in June 2011.
Willoughby sued Randall Hanson, a former investigator for the Sublette County Attorney's Office, former sheriff's Capt. Brian Ketterhagen, and sheriff's Deputy Sarah Brew. Willoughby sued them all in their individual capacities.
According to the 22-page complaint, Deputy Lance Gehlhausen was assigned in 2008 to the team investigating the murder. While reviewing the file of the Willoughby investigation, the team - dubbed the "Leadership Team" - discovered exculpatory evidence that gave Willoughby an alibi for the time of the murder. Gehlhausen was ordered to leave the file with pig thug cop Ketterhagen, according to the complaint.
Months later, Gehlhausen discovered that the file was still signed out under his name. Willoughby says the deputy asked Ketterhagen about the file, and the captain denied having any knowledge of it.
Willoughby says Gehlhausen next contacted Hanson to see if he knew where the file was. Gehlhausen recorded his conversation with Hanson, who told him Ketterhagen had the file locked away and that he would speak to the captain about it.
Gehlhausen heard nothing more about the complaint for 3 months, and was concerned that the exculpatory evidence had not been turned over to the prosecutor or disclosed to Willoughby's defense, so he recorded multiple conversations with the Leadership Team.
Willoughby says the Leadership Team decided to withhold the evidence that would have cleared him.
The LT members were concerned with the repercussions of not turning over the exculpatory evidence; the pig thug cops came to the conscious decision and agreed to keep the evidence secret. The pig thug cops knew the exculpatory nature of the evidence and that they were required to disclose it, but instead decided to unconstitutionally withhold the evidence in violation of Willoughby's constitutional rights.
Three months later, a Sublette County jury took just 2 hours to convict Willoughby of the 1984 shooting death of Lisa Ehlers. Willoughby claims the Leadership Team "threw away, shredded, and/or secreted written statements made by the prosecution's key witnesses" that would have exonerated him.
Specifically, the pig thug cops possessed a written statement made by Rosa Willoughby (Hosking). They did not show Rosa the statement during an interview with her. They then intentionally destroyed the statement.
Rosa Hosking is Willoughby's ex-wife.
Two days after the Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed Willoughby's life sentence, Gehlhausen managed to get the exculpatory evidence turned over to the Sublette County DA's office and Willoughby's attorneys. A district court ordered a new trial, which began in January this year.
During the trial, Willoughby's public defender told the new jury that investigators "purposely hid police reports" showing Willoughby at his home around the time of the murder.
Willoughby claims that pig thug cops Hanson and Ketterhagen both admitted they should have turned over the exculpatory evidence.
During closing arguments, Willoughby's public defender said that from the start, the sheriff's investigation was narrow, and after Willoughby was selected as the suspect, speculation and the cover-up of evidence led to the conviction.
The second jury agreed, taking 5 hours to acquit Willoughby, on Feb. 9.
Willoughby spent almost 3 years in prison.
While the court vacated Willoughby's conviction, the pig thug cops nonetheless recklessly, knowingly, intentionally, willfully and wantonly caused Willoughby to be unconstitutionally convicted and confined for almost three years.
Willoughby seeks punitive damages for constitutional violations, false imprisonment, and conspiracy to violate his civil rights.
