Fort Collins Detective Grilled By Defense In Tom Fallis Murder Trial
GREELEY, Colo. (CBS4) - Lawyers have been grilling investigators about what they did and didn't do while examining the death of a former deputy's wife. The prosecution calls it murder, the defense calls it suicide.
Tom Fallis, a former Weld County corrections officer, is accused of murdering his 28-year-old wife after a New Year's Eve party in 2012. Ashley Fallis' death was first ruled a suicide, but the case was reopened two years later.
The prosecution hit Evans police officers hard on Tuesday about not recording and saving notes from some of their interviews. On Wednesday the defense got the chance to do the same thing to a Fort Collins detective who re-investigated the case two years later.
In 2014, Fort Collins Police Services Detective Jaclyn Shaklee was assigned to do a second, independent investigation of Ashley Fallis' death. While she says she recorded nearly all of her interviews, there's one that she did not -- the interview she did with a friend of a Nick Glover's. Glover was the Fallis' neighbor.
Glover says he heard Tom Fallis confess. He was texting with his friend Ben Brunswick shortly after Ashley died. What Glover told Brunswick could either back up Glover's story or refute it, but Shaklee says the notes from her original interview with Brunswick were lost.
Iris Eytan, defense counsel: You wanted to talk to Ben Brunswick?
Shaklee: He was on my list of people to talk to, yes.
Eytan: Just like you talked to Madison Glover?
Shaklee: Correct.
Eytan: And Kathy Glover?
Shaklee: Correct.
Eytan: And you had secretly taped, arranged to tape Trevor Willis?
Shaklee: Yes.
Eytan: But you don't have a recording of that interview that you conducted with Ben Brunswick sometime in the summer of 2014, right?
Shaklee: I don't.
Eytan: And you have any notes saved, right?
Shaklee: Correct.
Eytan: And no audio recording, right?
Shaklee: Correct.
Brunswick later said that Glover told him his neighbor shot herself, but that's not what Glover told the jury.
Brunswick isn't expected to take the stand, so the jury has to decide without hearing from him whether Wednesday's testimony casts doubt.
The court on Wednesday was also hearing from the coroner who performed Ashley's autopsy, and eventually changed his cause of death determination.