CO - Ashley Fallis, 28, dies of gunshot wound, Evans, 1 Jan 2012

  • #41
Hello Again:
RE Fallis Case and Not Guilty Verdict

Item 1- 2 jurors spoke on camera. Obviously they heard the array of evidence and head all witnesses. Both seemed reasonable level headed thoughtful. Neither the man nor woman even hinted at any doubt that Tom Fallis was guilty. Indeed this was NOT not guilty because of sufficient or compelling reasonable doubt. That leads me to wonder what did they see and hear that confered that level of certainty on what otherwise appears to be a deeply troubling case.

Item 2. I m entirely open to a complete cogent explanation of why Tom Fallis is not guilty of murder - or something else at least 2nd degree or even manslaughter.

Item 3 I am baffled at the Evans Police Chief appearing as an innocent 12 year old Boy Scout declaring yes . yes . - can't explain this that or the other. Don't know why officer B left that out. "Ah shucks guys, people sometimes forget and make mistakes, ya know"

Item 4 I am baffled at what analysis of evidence 5 separate police agencies conducted to arrive unanimously at Tom Fallis' innocence. I am not asserting this could not be in the end TRUE; I just don't see it based on what I ve seen via reporting and what is public.

Item 4 . - As a student of Jon Benet Ramsey fiasco, Ramsey PR circus, and The Dr Phil debacle, I d advise either the governor of Colorado or its Attorney General to empanel an independendent commission study the entire matter including media effects and coverage, political influence and access, the effects of money on the administration of justice, quality of US justice vs public opinion etc and then release a full account. To that analysis I d advise the commission to look into possible collusion, police law enforcement cover up, operation of "code of silence", incompetence, payola etc etc . Both Colorado cases wreak of rotten fish. And such inquiry does not even go into the equally disturbing phenomenon of crime trials murder as modern American Day or Night Time Entertainment - or Politics and Justice - the New Reality TV. Here the problem is equally vexing since Crime Shows are HUGE business; big ratings. Network and cable TV entertainment are concentrated into largely 4 hugely profitable corporations. Comcast, CBS Holding, Disney Inc, and Murdoch's NewCorp wield outsized influence. Throw
in Google, Yahoo, AT&T, Amazon, Apple and you have a handful of CEO's who are nearly "masters of the universe".


I welcome opposing thoughts ideas and theories.
 
  • #42
I agree with your thoughts. It seems to be Ashley parents have reasons and cause to bring suit for "wrongful death" and Fox or any other responsible news outlet should join them in bringing suit against Evans Police Department etc if for no other reason than to shed light on internal communications, relationships with sheriff's department, country corrections prison systems looking for "favoritism, covert cover up, suppression of evidence etc. I just do NOT understand why the DA did not exploit the forensic evidence, nevermind, the assorted "witnesses" "hearsay" " furtive telephone callers and messaging ". For the most part suicides are cut and dried; and not problematic. When a suicide scene doesn't make any sense, it is highly likely, that the scene is NOT what it seems. ( Although, the Curt Cobain case is a thought provoking challenging case.)
 
  • #43
Since one of the attorneys representing Barry Mophew also represented Tom Fallis, I figured other WSers would do a little research about that case, so I thought I'd link this article that dispels some of the myths about Ashley Fallis's suicide.

Because I do think it was a suicide.

From the article:

Wrongly Accused: One Man's Tragic Journey Through the Colorado Legal System

Important to note:
The medications Ashley was taking also made Tom uneasy. She’d been prescribed a regimen of antianxiety meds and mood stabilizers when she began having four or five panic attacks each week. Tom suspected she wasn’t following the prescriptions correctly, but he had no idea his wife was surreptitiously seeing two psychiatrists and a primary care doc and doubling up on her scripts.

But the drugs, no matter the dose, didn’t always alleviate the feelings of failure that crept up in Ashley. Five months before she died, she typed out a four-paragraph-long suicide letter addressed “Dear Tom.” In it she apologized for “all that I have caused” and “for your pain.” She explained, “I can no longer go on living this life. I am a failure at everything, a wife, a mom, at having a career, at school. Everything. I have so much pain on the inside; I can no longer take it.”

Perhaps it should have, but that suicide note—as well as another dire letter penned a few weeks later in which Ashley expressed feelings of failure about her inability to find a job; mentioned her discontent with being a stay-at-home mother; and explained that she felt “broken” and couldn’t “dig deeper”—didn’t give Tom pause about the semiautomatic pistols the couple had purchased together earlier that year. Although her grandmother and uncle had both shot themselves in the head, it never occurred to him that Ashley would use the gun she often carried in her purse to hurt herself. “She always said if she were to kill herself,” Tom says, “she would’ve taken a bunch of pills and just fallen asleep.”

Note: Shaklee was a detective who investigated the case.

Although Shaklee testified she believed the information she gave Wilkerson to be true at that time, she acknowledged she was ultimately mistaken about some of the nuances. Nevertheless, Shaklee also left out critical details in her interactions with the coroner, who relied on law enforcement to provide him the information he needed to make his determinations. She didn’t tell him that the scratches could’ve come from Tom himself, who had recently shaved his chest and had been complaining about how it itched. She didn’t tell the medical examiner that they had swabbed the scratches on Tom’s chest and found none of Ashley’s DNA on him. She didn’t tell him that Tom had tried to stanch Ashley’s bleeding for about four minutes, which could have explained why there wasn’t the typical amount of blood on the carpet. As juror McEvers puts it, “I remember not believing Shaklee. Her missing notes, her missing interviews were suspicious.”
 
  • #44
Since one of the attorneys representing Barry Mophew also represented Tom Fallis, I figured other WSers would do a little research about that case, so I thought I'd link this article that dispels some of the myths about Ashley Fallis's suicide.

Because I do think it was a suicide.

From the article:

Wrongly Accused: One Man's Tragic Journey Through the Colorado Legal System

Important to note:
The medications Ashley was taking also made Tom uneasy. She’d been prescribed a regimen of antianxiety meds and mood stabilizers when she began having four or five panic attacks each week. Tom suspected she wasn’t following the prescriptions correctly, but he had no idea his wife was surreptitiously seeing two psychiatrists and a primary care doc and doubling up on her scripts.

But the drugs, no matter the dose, didn’t always alleviate the feelings of failure that crept up in Ashley. Five months before she died, she typed out a four-paragraph-long suicide letter addressed “Dear Tom.” In it she apologized for “all that I have caused” and “for your pain.” She explained, “I can no longer go on living this life. I am a failure at everything, a wife, a mom, at having a career, at school. Everything. I have so much pain on the inside; I can no longer take it.”

Perhaps it should have, but that suicide note—as well as another dire letter penned a few weeks later in which Ashley expressed feelings of failure about her inability to find a job; mentioned her discontent with being a stay-at-home mother; and explained that she felt “broken” and couldn’t “dig deeper”—didn’t give Tom pause about the semiautomatic pistols the couple had purchased together earlier that year. Although her grandmother and uncle had both shot themselves in the head, it never occurred to him that Ashley would use the gun she often carried in her purse to hurt herself. “She always said if she were to kill herself,” Tom says, “she would’ve taken a bunch of pills and just fallen asleep.”

Note: Shaklee was a detective who investigated the case.

Although Shaklee testified she believed the information she gave Wilkerson to be true at that time, she acknowledged she was ultimately mistaken about some of the nuances. Nevertheless, Shaklee also left out critical details in her interactions with the coroner, who relied on law enforcement to provide him the information he needed to make his determinations. She didn’t tell him that the scratches could’ve come from Tom himself, who had recently shaved his chest and had been complaining about how it itched. She didn’t tell the medical examiner that they had swabbed the scratches on Tom’s chest and found none of Ashley’s DNA on him. She didn’t tell him that Tom had tried to stanch Ashley’s bleeding for about four minutes, which could have explained why there wasn’t the typical amount of blood on the carpet. As juror McEvers puts it, “I remember not believing Shaklee. Her missing notes, her missing interviews were suspicious.”
Thanks for this. I was hoping someone had analysed this case in light of the attorneys recent appointment by BM.
 
  • #45
Since one of the attorneys representing Barry Mophew also represented Tom Fallis, I figured other WSers would do a little research about that case, so I thought I'd link this article that dispels some of the myths about Ashley Fallis's suicide.

Because I do think it was a suicide.

From the article:

Wrongly Accused: One Man's Tragic Journey Through the Colorado Legal System

Important to note:
The medications Ashley was taking also made Tom uneasy. She’d been prescribed a regimen of antianxiety meds and mood stabilizers when she began having four or five panic attacks each week. Tom suspected she wasn’t following the prescriptions correctly, but he had no idea his wife was surreptitiously seeing two psychiatrists and a primary care doc and doubling up on her scripts.

But the drugs, no matter the dose, didn’t always alleviate the feelings of failure that crept up in Ashley. Five months before she died, she typed out a four-paragraph-long suicide letter addressed “Dear Tom.” In it she apologized for “all that I have caused” and “for your pain.” She explained, “I can no longer go on living this life. I am a failure at everything, a wife, a mom, at having a career, at school. Everything. I have so much pain on the inside; I can no longer take it.”

Perhaps it should have, but that suicide note—as well as another dire letter penned a few weeks later in which Ashley expressed feelings of failure about her inability to find a job; mentioned her discontent with being a stay-at-home mother; and explained that she felt “broken” and couldn’t “dig deeper”—didn’t give Tom pause about the semiautomatic pistols the couple had purchased together earlier that year. Although her grandmother and uncle had both shot themselves in the head, it never occurred to him that Ashley would use the gun she often carried in her purse to hurt herself. “She always said if she were to kill herself,” Tom says, “she would’ve taken a bunch of pills and just fallen asleep.”

Note: Shaklee was a detective who investigated the case.

Although Shaklee testified she believed the information she gave Wilkerson to be true at that time, she acknowledged she was ultimately mistaken about some of the nuances. Nevertheless, Shaklee also left out critical details in her interactions with the coroner, who relied on law enforcement to provide him the information he needed to make his determinations. She didn’t tell him that the scratches could’ve come from Tom himself, who had recently shaved his chest and had been complaining about how it itched. She didn’t tell the medical examiner that they had swabbed the scratches on Tom’s chest and found none of Ashley’s DNA on him. She didn’t tell him that Tom had tried to stanch Ashley’s bleeding for about four minutes, which could have explained why there wasn’t the typical amount of blood on the carpet. As juror McEvers puts it, “I remember not believing Shaklee. Her missing notes, her missing interviews were suspicious.”

Suzanne Morphew case also brought me here, and OP link to the 5280 Article was well worth the long read.

I've also watched bits and pieces of the trial (March 2016) archived on Court TV and Denver news networks.

I think E & N defense attorneys will add interest to the Morphew trial. Strategic players indeed as evidenced with the touchy-feely closing argument for their client, Tom Fallis. (Hands-on was pure theatre but effectively humanizing) ... MOO
 
  • #46
Last edited:
  • #47
Pot v. Miscarriage in Tom Fallis Acquittal: "You...Wanted to Get Her F*cking High!"

April 4, 2016

In the beginning, as we reported in our original post, authorities determined that Ashley had killed herself early on January 1, 2012.

But the case began to show cracks in 2014 courtesy of Fox31, which raised questions about an Evans police detective suspected of altering evidence in the case.

Specifically, a neighbor said Tom told him he'd killed Ashley — and while the neighbor passed that information along to the detective, the statement didn't appear in arrest reports.

[..]

In November 2014, Tom was arrested in Bloomington, Indiana, where he'd moved with the couple's kids.

The following March, we detailed a lawsuit filed by Ashley's parents against the Evans Police Department over the alleged coverup. That claim is still alive, as noted in a Fox31 piece from earlier this month also seen here.

But efforts to prove that Tom killed Ashley fell short despite a vigorous prosecution kicked off by what 7News described as a dramatic opening statement.

[..]

Look below to see the 7News account of the opening arguments, followed by the reaction of Ashley's parents to Tom's acquittal in a Fox31 interview. These videos are followed by the original indictment.
 
  • #48

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