48 Hours: Investigative missteps in death ruled suicide?
Erin Moriarty is a "48 Hours" correspondent. She investigated the death of Ashley Fallis Saturday in an all-new episode, "Death after Midnight."
EVANS, Colo. -- The first hours after a death are crucial to an investigation. Every unexplained death has to be treated as a homicide or important evidence could be lost. For some reason, that basic rule wasn't followed in Evans, Colorado more than three years ago and as a result, we may never know for sure what happened to 28-year-old Ashley Fallis.
Did she, in fact, kill herself as her husband claims? Was it a horrible accident or was it homicide?
Ashley was the mother of three children when she died suddenly and unexpectedly after a New Year's party, Jan. 1, 2012. Her husband, Tom, a corrections officer employed by the Weld County Sheriff's Office, made the 911 call at 12:50 a.m., no more than ten minutes after the last guests left their home.
Tom Fallis told Evans police that he was in the bedroom closet when his wife entered the room, got on her knees next to the bed, pulled out her gun from under the mattress and shot herself once in the head.
He was passionate and convincing, but his story didn't explain all the evidence. There were pictures seemingly torn off the bedroom wall. A young neighbor heard Ashley yell " get off me." A large flashlight was found next to her body. Ashley's legs appeared to have fresh bruises. And Tom had fresh scratches on his body that he told investigators he had done to himself after shaving the hair on his chest.
Ashley's mother and stepfather insisted to anyone who would listen that their daughter would not commit suicide.
Yet, just days after Ashley's death, even before testing of evidence was completed, the Weld County coroner's office ruled Ashley's death a suicide. In March of 2012, the case was closed, with some evidence returned to Ashley's husband. And it would have remained closed if not for a young reporter at the local Fox television station, Justin Joseph.
Joseph, a lawyer and former assistant district attorney, got a tip and decided to re-interview the witnesses who lived near the Fallis home, including Kathy Glover and her son Nick. According to the official report filed by Evans officer Michael Yates, Glover told him that a neighbor called, asking her to call police because " her neighbor just shot herself."
But Glover told Joseph a radically different story. Yes, a neighbor called, but she asked Glover to call the police because " her neighbor just shot his wife."
More shocking was what Glover's son Nick had to say. He told Joseph that he overheard Tom Fallis tell his parents that he had shot Ashley. But that part of Nick Glover's statement did not appear in Yates' report.
When Joseph reported his findings on television, the story hit the airwaves like a bombshell.
Evans Police Chief Rick Brandt asked that the case be reopened. Two different police departments would take over: Fort Collins Police Department was asked to re-investigate Ashley's death. Loveland Police Department was asked to look into the apparent discrepancies between the police reports and what witnesses told reporter Justin Joseph.
Loveland would later clear Yates of any criminal wrongdoing, but the Fort Collins Police Department investigation changed everything. Last year, the death certificate that listed the death of Ashley Fallis as a suicide was changed. And Tom Fallis, who had moved to Indiana with the couple's three children, was arrested and charged with second degree murder.
No trial date has been set. Tom Fallis' attorney has said in emails that her client is innocent and that Justin Joseph was mistaken in his reporting.
To try to determine what did happen in the Fallis home, "48 Hours" asked a respected forensic animator, using crime scene photos and measurements from the bedroom, to try and reenact the death. He was able to come up with two possible scenarios, but no one single answer.
Evans Police Chief Rick Brandt, who admitted during a recent interview that his department made "mistakes," told me that he still believes that a future trial will ultimately determine guilt or innocence.
In the meantime, a young father lives under a cloud of suspicion. And Ashley's parents and children have been left with a terrible legacy: grief without answers.
