Fmr. deputy not guilty in death of wife, first ruled suicide
GREELEY, Colo. --Jurors have found a former Colorado sheriff's deputy not guilty of killing his wife in 2012.
They deliberated the fate of Tom Fallis for three hours Thursday before finding him not guilty of second-degree murder. Jurors heard about two weeks of testimony in the case, in which defense attorneys argued that Ashley Fallis shot herself, and prosecutors said her husband was behind the shooting after a New Year's Eve party at their home in Evans. "48 Hours" investigated the case in the episode, "Death after Midnight."
WATCH: "48 Hours:" Death after Midnight
Ashley Fallis' death was initially ruled a suicide, but the case was reopened after a teenage neighbor said he overheard Tom Fallis, a former Weld County deputy, confess. Ashley Fallis' parents also pushed to have authorities re-investigate her death.
Neighbor Nick Glover, who was 15 when Ashley Fallis died, testified that he overheard his neighbor confess to shooting his wife as he was crouched beneath an open window.
However, the Evans police officer who interviewed Glover, his sister and their mother said none of them mentioned anything about a confession.
Tom Fallis, 36, who moved to Bloomington, Indiana after his wife's death, didn't testify during his trial.
Prosecutors portrayed Fallis as an angry man who was set off when his wife wanted to step outside and smoke a marijuana joint.
But defense attorneys told jurors his wife was a depressed, self-destructive woman who had in the past contemplated suicide.
READ: "48 Hours:" Investigative missteps in death ruled suicide?
"Ashley wasn't on her mental health medication. She was intoxicated. She had just suffered a miscarriage. She was a pressure cooker," defense attorney Iris Eytan said in opening statements, reports CBS Denver.
During closing arguments, Eytan told jurors the former Weld County correctional officer loved his wife and argued that she took her own life, pointing to a suicide note she had written months before her death.
But Chief District Attorney Anthea Carrasco argued that did not fit with what she called the key evidence in the case -- the amount of blood found in the couple's bedroom and on Tom Fallis' shirt.
Jurors heard conflicting testimony about that over the past two weeks.
This week, retired Denver police investigator Jonathyn Priest testified that the amount of blood found on a bedroom wall indicates Tom Fallis was either in contact with his wife or near her when she suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head on Jan. 1, 2012. But last week, Larimer County crime scene investigator Dan Gilliam said he thought the blood found on the wall and clothes as well as the trajectory of the bullet were consistent with a suicide.