PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The Colorado Bureau of Investigation announced earlier this year investigators learned Woods omitted relevant facts from criminal justice records and tampered with DNA testing by omitting some results, according to a March story from The Denver Post. Woods retired in late 2023 instead of facing termination. Rourke said with Woods under investigation, his office would have to find other ways to prove the case against Dye. Rourke said they were on track to do that until six months ago when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Arizona that experts can’t come into a case and testify on the work of other experts."
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STORY: "Murder suspect released on plea deal with manslaughter charge for 1979 death of Evelyn Kay Day," by Reporter Anne Delaney, published by The Greeley Tribune, on November 22, 2024.
GIST: "A Kansas man charged with the 1979 murder of former Aims Community College employee Evelyn Kay Day will be released after agreeing to a plea deal this week, leaving Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke “incredibly frustrated” by the case’s resolution.
Rourke said his frustration with Dye’s release stems from the involvement in the case of former Colorado Bureau of Investigation scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods, who has been accused of altering, deleting and omitting data in her lab.
James Herman Dye, born in 1956, agreed to a Class 4 felony count of manslaughter in Day’s death and the dismissal of counts of first-degree murder after deliberation and first-degree felony murder, according to the plea agreement Dye signed Thursday.
“I’m incredibly frustrated by the position that Missy put us in,” Rourke said Friday. “This was going to be closure for the Day family, and because she engaged in incredibly selfish and unlawful acts, we have lost the ability to hold him accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation announced earlier this year investigators learned Woods omitted relevant facts from criminal justice records and tampered with DNA testing by omitting some results, according to a March story from The Denver Post. Woods retired in late 2023 instead of facing termination.
Rourke said with Woods under investigation, his office would have to find other ways to prove the case against Dye. Rourke said they were on track to do that until six months ago when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Arizona that experts can’t come into a case and testify on the work of other experts
The death of a key law enforcement officer who witnessed Day’s autopsy and could vouch for the evidence collected also hindered the ability of the district attorney’s office to prove identification of Dye as the suspect through DNA, Rourke said.
After consulting with Day’s family, her two sons reached a conclusion that it would be in the best interest for responsibility to be accepted in court with the manslaughter charge rather than have the credibility and viability of evidence and data challenged in court during a trial.
to manslaughter on Nov. 21, 2024 and will be released with time already served, the Weld County District Attorney’s Office said. (Weld County Sheriff’s Office).
Dye was arrested for Day’s murder by Weld County Sheriff’s Office detectives in 2021 while he was living in Wichita, Kansas.
The plea deal on the manslaughter sentence was accompanied by an incarceration period of 2 years and 247 days, for a total of 977 days in custody with 365 days parole. The deal stipulated Dye has served 1,342 days toward the sentence as of Friday, and the sentence is discharged without further parole.
The state of Colorado also is not requesting restitution, according to the agreement.
Day was 29 years old when she was found by coworkers on the night of Thursday, Nov. 27, 1979, in the back of her hatchback car on West 20th Street across the street from Aims in Greeley, according to the Weld County Sheriff’s Office.
Day was employed as a business lab monitor at Aims. She was last seen alive about 10 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 26.
She was strangled, beaten and sexually assaulted, the Weld County coroner ruled at the time.
The sheriff’s office reopened and reviewed Day’s case in April 2020. In May, detective Bryon Kastilahn submitted Day’s DNA to the CBI lab for testing. Lab results showed a match to Dye, who had a history of sexual assaults and who had been a student at Aims while Day was employed at the college.
Day’s husband, Chuck, was initially the prime suspect in Day’s murder, and he remained a person of interest for many years. Chuck Day maintained his innocence through the investigation, the sheriff’s office said in a news release issued Friday.
The sheriff’s office detectives investigating the case “engaged in unconventional investigative tactics” to try to get Day to confess to Kay’s murder. The tactics would be considered unorthodox in the late 1970s and even more unorthodox under today’s standards of policing, the sheriff’s office said.
No current sheriff’s office personnel were involved with the investigation of Chuck Day. Sheriff Steve Reams met with Day before Day’s death last month to exonerate him of any allegations and to apologize for what he went through.
“The current administration of WCSO recognized the suffering Chuck endured publicly and privately through the initial years of the investigation,” according to a sheriff’s office release. “We offer our sincerest apologies to the surviving family members of Chuck’s family …""
The entire story can be read at:
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CHECK OUT THE 9NEWS AT THE LINK BRLOW: (Here's a taste!): "When discussing why the plea deal was reached, prosecutors cited concerns with analysis performed by Colorado Bureau of Investigation DNA analyst Missy Woods. In 2023, CBI said that the 29-year veteran with the agency was under investigation after anomalies were discovered in her work. Her misconduct has impacted more than 800 cases. That number could grow as a team continues to review paper casefiles from 1994 through 2008. In court documents, prosecutors in Weld County have said they assume Woods would not be available to testify in this trial because her work is under "intense scrutiny." Because of Woods' credibility issue, other analysts had to retest the evidence. Prosecutors in Weld County had hoped someone other than Woods would be able to testify about the DNA results from the additional analysis. They had previously filed a motion asking the court to rule on the constitutionality of admitting DNA results for evidence initially handled by Woods but retested by another analyst. Court documents show the prosecution in Weld County asked the court to rule ahead of trial on whether another DNA analyst at CBI would be allowed to testify to the results of his independent analysis conducted on solutions initially prepared by Woods."
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
- SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
