What happened to Dammion Heard? Part 3
The body of Dammion Cain Heard was found hanging from a tree on April 2, 2014. In the six months that followed, police would conduct interviews with more than 45 people known to have been with Dammion in the days and hours leading up to his death. Many of them were friends with the cocky college wrestler, whom they described as "one of the happiest guys" they knew. The investigation was far from clear-cut, but police ruled his death a suicide and closed the case on Oct. 21, 2014. This story relies on police documents, private investigator interviews and medical records, as well as reporting done by "48 Hours" producers Claire St. Amant and Alec Sirken.
Part one was posted on Monday, Aug. 17, 2015
Part two was posted on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2015
Final part of a three part series.
MORRIS HEARS ABOUT JUMPER CABLES
Police never released details to the public on how Dammion's body looked when it was found. There was no public disclosure in any local media outlet that Dammion had been hanged with jumper cables.
Yet, in one interview with police on April 9, Andrew Morris, a student who lived with Kyle Piatt in the house where Dammion was last seen that Saturday night, told police that he had "heard rumors coming from people in Pueblo, Colorado stating Heard was beaten up and hung from jumper cables." Morris told police he had heard this rumor from his brother.
Police contacted his brother who said he heard it from another man named "Noah." Gunnison Police Detective Chris Danos told CBS News that the trail went cold after that.
"We were never able to identify "Noah," the detective said, adding that he found the specificity of the tip "curious."
"It was a concern of mine, like 'hey, where did you get that detail?'" Danos said. "But at that point in the investigation, there were many people, including the Heards and the County Coroner who knew about the jumper cables. So there were potential leaks, but we were never able to follow it back to the source."
ANTHONY RIOS
Police did a brief phone interview with Anthony Rios, another of the party attendees, during the missing persons investigation before Dammion's body was found. Anthony told police that he and Dammion had been friends for a while, and called Dammion a "nice kid."
He said he had no idea at first why Dammion had assaulted him when he got to the party; he described Dammion at that moment as a "different person" and thought at first that Dammion was just fooling around.
Later, he learned that Dammion had attacked him because he was dating Marlena. Anthony told police that after the assault, which he attributed to Dammion's drinking that night, he left and went to another party, and never saw or heard from Dammion again.
TORRIE BOYLE - DAMMION AND SUICIDE
One student who said she was a close friend of Dammion, Torrie Boyle, told police that Dammion had talked to her about suicide on two occasions in the past. But Torrie told police that she had talked him through his suicidal thoughts.
In an interview with CBS News, Boyle told a reporter, "I never took anything he said about suicide seriously. I never thought he'd actually do anything. I always talked him down."
Torrie was also at the house that Saturday night of the party and said she last saw Dammion in Andrew Morris' room around 1:15 a.m.looking "drunk and tired." Boyle told the reporter she does not believe Dammion committed suicide.
"He was too happy a person," she said.
Gary Heard says his son had no history of mental disorders.
"Everything was going his way," Gary says. Before Dammion went off to college, Gary had been a wrestling coach, and Dammion was one of his students.
"He was one of the most mentally tough kids I ever coached, and I coached a lot of kids over 15 years," Gary says.
QUESTIONS AND SPECULATION
But the question remains: If he didn't commit suicide, as Gary Heard believes, who would have any reason to kill Dammion?
Kyle Piatt acknowledged that he was angry with Dammion for attacking Rios, and said he reprimanded Dammion for that. But there is no evidence Kyle had any other physical interaction with Dammion, and multiple witnesses placed him at the house well after Dammion had left.
Despite all the curious bits of information, Det. Danos said the biggest factor in ruling Dammion's death a suicide was the fact that no physical evidence suggested a struggle.
"Knowing what we know about Dammion, he would not have gone calmly into that good night," Danos said. "There was no evidence that anything happened other than his hanging - no defensive wounds, nothing on his body to indicate murder."
"I don't know," Gary says. "I think it might have been an accident. Maybe someone was trying to teach him a lesson and they accidentally choked him to death. And then they had to cover it up. They had to make it look like he died from being strangled, and hanging does that."
The activity on Dammion's phone the last night of his life ended shortly before 1 a.m. on Sunday morning, March 30. His last text was to Torrie Boyle at 12:53 a.m., joking with her that she would not be attending the party.
"Sucks for you LOL," he wrote.
According to the timeline established in the police interviews, Dammion was drunk and tired at the party by around 1:15 a.m., seemingly too exhausted even to hang out with a girl he'd asked to come over. Yet, 20 minutes later, he left to get gas. Kyle Piatt got emotional as he wrestled with the timeline.
"I don't know why he would leave the house. Every time he drank, he slept over there," Kyle told police.
Party attendees don't report seeing Dammion again at the house after 1:15 a.m. But the timeline outlined in the police reports may not be totally reliable. Many of the students were interviewed weeks or months after Dammion's death.
"There were lots of differing stories," Danos said. "We were interviewing young adults at a party that were consuming alcohol and possibly other substances that possibly changed their perspective."
Police often asked students how they thought Dammion died. Most said they had no idea, but couldn't imagine him committing suicide.
Torrie Boyle was the only person who said that Dammion had ever expressed suicidal thoughts. The most common belief was that Dammion's death was an accident. But someone doesn't accidentally end up in a noose.
GUNNISON PD ASKS FOR A SECOND OPINION FROM ANOTHER DEPARTMENT
Dammion's father continued to put pressure on the Gunnison Police Department at every turn. He also made several statements to the media criticizing the investigation.
In June - two months after Dammion's body was found, but well before much of the evidence had been processed or witnesses had been interviewed - the Gunnison Police Department contacted the Denver Police Department for an outside opinion.
The report opened by acknowledging Gary Heard's concerns. Denver Police Commander Matthew Murray wrote, "I am aware the decedent's father has claimed that the Gunnison Police Department have not handled this investigation properly and that his son was murdered."
Murray said his initial report was based on photographs from Dammion's death scene. After stating his expert opinion that Dammion committed suicide, Murray listed 17 bullet points to back up his claim.
While this seems like overwhelming evidence on its face, many of Murray's points do not appear to take into consideration key statements from witnesses or facts about the environment where Dammion was found.
Murray wrote that Dammion was "found alone" and that his car was the "only vehicle at the scene." However, statements from eyewitness Linda Nienhueser challenge both of these assertions.
Linda Nienhueser told police she saw a white truck and two bicycles on the trail near Dammion's SUV on Sunday, March 30, 2014. She also reported seeing what she believed was a second person crouching near Dammion's body and peering at her through binoculars.
"Rarely is another person present with a death by suicide," Murray wrote. "I have never investigated or supervised a suicide by hanging where another person was present."
If Nienhueser's observations were taken into account, then Murray might have come to a different conclusion about the likelihood that Dammion killed himself.
Murray also wrote there was no "sign of a struggle" at the death scene - citing this as an important factor in determining that this was a suicide. Of course, if in fact someone hanged Dammion to cover up a strangulation elsewhere there would have been little opportunity for a struggle at the scene.
Regarding Dammion's cell phone being disassembled, Murray wrote matter-of-factly, "there would be no purpose for a killer to remove the battery from the phone."
But it's not hard to imagine why a killer would want to disable his victim's cell phone from pinging towers and indicating its location. It's also plausible, as Murray wrote, that a person committing suicide would want to cut off communication before ending his life. The fact that only Dammion's DNA was found on the phone would seem to support that theory.
Murray pointed to other circumstances of the crime scene, such as the fact that Dammion's hood was pulled over his head and the noose was double-knotted, as further proof that a suicide took place. But he chose not to analyze many other details, including the fact that Dammion's shoes were untied, his pants were unzipped, and there was a long blonde hair on his hand.
"I have no reservation in opining that this death was caused by suicide," Murray concluded.
Danos told CBS News that he also consulted Murray in October when Gunnison closed the case, and Murray didn't find any reason to change his previous reports.
"We shared the final forensic evidence and he didn't have any additional comments," Danos said.
Gary, on the other hand, has a laundry list of comments - and perhaps more importantly - a sealed box of evidence to go along with them.
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After the Gunnison Police Department closed the case, Gary requested all evidence found at the scene of Dammion's death. It was released to him in May 2015, and has been sitting in a sealed box in his auto body shop ever since. He hasn't opened the box because he doesn't want to taint the evidence, in the hope that the case will be re-opened.
"What I want is for some other police agency to investigate this case and answer all these questions," Gary says. "I just want to know what really happened to my son, wherever it leads."