Missy Woods, former CBI forensic scientist, booked into jail Wednesday on 102 felony charges
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(Colorado Springs)
Missy Woods, former CBI forensic scientist, booked into jail Wednesday on 102 felony charges
Former top Colorado Bureau of Investigations forensic scientist Yvonne Woods turned herself into Jefferson County authorities and was booked into county jail early Wednesday afternoon on a 102-count indictment, according to county sources and court documents.
Felony charges include attempt to influence a public servant and forgery.
- Carol McKinley and Jenny Deam carol.m...@gazette.com jenny...@denvergazette.com
- Jan 22, 2025 Updated 1 hr ago
Former top Colorado Bureau of Investigations forensic scientist, Yvonne, Woods, turned herself into Jefferson County authorities on Wednesday and was booked into jail on an 102-count felony indictment, according to county sources and court documents.
Woods, 64, was being held in Jefferson County Jail on a $50,000 cash only bond, according to a Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson. She is scheduled to make her first court appearance at 10 a.m. Thursday.
In the 35-page indictment, Woods — who goes by Missy — faces felony charges that include attempt to influence a public servant, perjury, forgery and cybercrime, according to court documents.
District Attorney Alexis King said Wednesday in a statement that CBI estimated Woods’ alleged misconduct has cost the state more than $11 million.
The embattled former CBI forensic DNA analyst has been at the center of a massive state scandal after it was disclosed in November 2023 that the once revered scientist had deleted data, skipped steps and manipulated DNA evidence in more than 1,000 instances over her nearly three-decade career.
There has long been speculation that Woods could face criminal charges as the scandal unfolded over the past year, but it was unclear until now what those charges would be. The South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation reviewed her case for more than a year to determine what, if any, criminal charges were involved.
“Based on the available facts and after careful legal analysis, we have filed charges and will now proceed with a criminal prosecution,” King said in her statement, “My office remains committed to reviewing all affected cases within our jurisdiction on behalf of the defendant and victims involved.”
In the fall of 2023, an intern in the CBI lab reported suspicions that Woods was manipulating data which prompted a sweeping internal review of Woods’ work dating back to 1994. It was later revealed by the agency that her work had been flagged to supervisors in both 2014 and 2018, but those instances were never reported to the public and Woods was permitted to continue her work.
For much of her career she was considered the state’s go-to-expert in analysis of DNA criminal cases.
CBI said she worked on more than 10,000 cases during her 29-year tenure at the agency. She was allowed to retire in November 2023 just before the scandal broke. Woods has no prior criminal history, according to charging document
A CBI spokesperson had no immediate comment on the arrest and charges on Wednesday.
As of late last year, CBI acknowledged it had uncovered 1,003 “anomalies, or irregularities, in roughly 10 % of all of her work."
The embattled agency, though, has continued to say that its internal investigation did not show that she had ever falsified DNA matches or fabricated profiles.
Still, the ongoing judicial crisis has thrown the fate of an undetermined number of criminal cases into limbo, infuriating both prosecutors and defense attorneys alike. Legal experts have said it could take years to untangle the fall-out.
Not only is there deep concern that defendants may have been wrongfully imprisoned based on her DNA conclusions and testimony, but also prosecutors in at least three cases so far have said they felt forced to offer reduced charges and lighter sentences to murder suspects once headed for trial.
Just last week, the case against a murderer in Douglas County dissolved into a plea deal because neither prosecutor nor the defense attorney wanted to risk going to trial because of Woods’ original DNA analysis in the case and the lingering cloud over CBI.
Roger Dean was killed during a botched robbery at his Lone Tree home in November 1985. The case had gone cold until Woods analysis of DNA found on a ski mask led to the arrest of William Jefferson, who has been held in Douglas County jail county since 2021.
Jefferson faced life in prison on a first-degree murder charge. But District Attorney George Brauchler said last week he felt he had no choice but to offer Jefferson a reduced sentence of 32 years on a single count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Michael Faye, Jefferson’s defense attorney, told The Denver Gazette on Wednesday that the scandal enveloping CBI does not end with Woods’ arrest.
“It’s hard to have faith in anything they do at this point, especially since they seemingly didn’t know this was going on” Faye said. “It’s remarkable that they dropped the ball on this completely. When you’re talking about the public trusting an entity like this, how can you have faith in anything CBI is affiliated with at this point.”
Throughout the scandal, Woods has said little about allegations against her except that she often felt overworked. It was not unusual for her to handle a larger caseload than her colleagues in the lab, a distinction she said gave her pride.
During a 2023 interview with investigators about suspected wrongdoing, Woods remained vague in her responses, saying she either did not remember specific instances or said it “was possible.
The Denver Gazette obtained a transcript of her interview.
“You literally can be the person whose work brings down CBI Forensic Services,” Kellon Hassentab, assistant director in the investigations unit at CBI, told Woods during questioning.
“Obviously everyone’s biggest fear,” Hassentab said during his interview with Woods, “is that we have somebody in prison that shouldn’t be there.”
When asked if CBI should be concerned about wrongful imprisonments, she replied: “absolutely not.”
But in at least case, the murder conviction of Michael Clark could now be in question because of her work on that case. Clark is now serving life without parole for the 1994 murder of Marty Grisham, which he has said he did not commit.
Clark was convicted in 2012, in the long-dormant case, in large part on the strength of a DNA analysis conducted by Woods. That analysis has since been disputed by an outside DNA expert.
After the scandal broke, the Boulder County District Attorney asked that DNA in the case be retested. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Jan. 30. Adam Frank, Clark’s defense attorney has asked that his client’s conviction be overturned.
“Missy Woods is personally responsible for the ongoing nightmare of Michael Clark’s wrongful conviction,” Frank told The Denver Gazette on Wednesday.
When he learned of her arrest, he added: “Missy Woods will finally face the consequences for the horrors she has committed.”
Woods faces 52 counts of forgery, 48 counts of attempt to influence a public servant, one count of first-degree perjury and one count of cybercrime.
The sweeping indictment listed 58 instances of criminal misconduct which touched jurisdictions across the Front Range, from Pueblo to Fort Collins to Gilpin County, and from Aurora to Denver to Boulder.
One sexual assault case listed was a federal investigation in Rocky Mountain National Park.
As news of Woods arrest spread on Wednesday, some families touched by the scandal reacted in shock.
Tamara Harney, Roger Dean’s daughter and last surviving relative, said she felt relief on the heels of last week’s plea deal which had left her troubled.
Harney told The Denver Gazette she plans to follow development in the Woods case as it moves through the judicial system: “She had a huge impact on my Dad’s case as well as so many other victims’ families.”
Colorado DNA scandal: Review of former CBI DNA scientist's 10,786 cases causes rape evidence logjam
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has found that nearly 10% of the 10,786 criminal cases that the state's once most revered forensic DNA scientist worked on over the past three decades have been compromised due to skipped steps, deleted data, or other deceptions. The internal review of all of Woods' cases is now complete, and the full impact of the CBI scandal on the state's judicial system may take years to untangle as there is deep concern among legal and scientific experts that an unknown number of people may now be falsely imprisoned due to her false conclusions. Additionally, the time it takes CBI to evaluate DNA in rape cases has now nearly doubled in the wake of the scandal, rising from an average of 275 days in November 2023 to an average of 517 days.
- CBI finds more than 1,000 cases impacted by DNA mishandling during scientist investigation
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