Attorney: Client was wrongly convicted of murder due to CBI analyst's misconduct

DENVER — An attorney is requesting that the Colorado Bureau of Investigation expand its investigation into a former DNA analyst, who is now under investigation for allegedly falsifying samples, after he said his client was wrongly convicted for murder as a result of her misconduct.

This week, Frank Law Office out of Denver said former CBI DNA analyst Yvonne “Missy” Woods, a 29-year veteran of the CBI, wrote a false report and provided false testimony that ultimately led to the wrongful conviction of his client, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2012. The law firm is asking CBI to widen its investigation to include all cases where Woods declared that a DNA sample contained a mix of multiple people's DNA.

The 20th Judicial District Attorney's Office told Denver7 that CBI examined this specific case and found no testing issues.

Authorities discovered anomalies in Woods' work in September 2023, which was publicly announced in November. She retired just before the announcement.

An internal affairs investigation's 94-page report accused Woods of omitting facts in official criminal justice records, tampering with DNA testing results by omitting or altering some results, deleting data to conceal her failure to troubleshoot issues, failing to provide documentation in case records, and violating CBI’s Code of Conduct and CBI laboratory policies. As of March, CBI had found more than 650 cases impacted by her alleged tampering between 2008 and 2023.

Watch more about the internal affairs investigation in our June report below.

CBI releases internal affairs report into former scientist Missy Woods

In a letter sent to CBI and shared with Denver7 on Thursday, attorney Adam Frank of Frank Law Office said the case involving his client, Michael Clark, began with the investigation of the 1994 homicide of Marty Grisham, 36, in Boulder. Frank's letter reads that in the years afterward, authorities did not find any evidence that linked Clark, who lived in Summit County, to the crime. However, in 2011, Woods falsely claimed Clark's DNA was present at the crime scene while excluding 99.4% of the world's male population, Frank wrote.

According to The Denver Post , Boulder police arrested Clark — who was 19 years old at the time of the crime in 1994 — in January 2012 in Summit County on suspicion of first-degree murder. Clark was dropping one of his children off at school when he was handcuffed, Frank's letter reads. He was formally charged with first-degree murder a few days later.

At his trial in the fall of 2012, prosecutors referred to crime scene DNA as a match for Clark throughout the trial, which "led directly to Mr. Clark’s false conviction for a murder he did not commit," Frank wrote.

Clark was sentenced to life in prison. As of Thursday, he remains in the Department of Corrections.

"Ms. Woods’ misconduct stole Mr. Clark’s life from him and deprived a good family of a loving husband and a caring father," the letter reads. "Since then, for the last 12 years Mr. Clark has done everything he can to reverse this miscarriage of justice and undo his wrongful conviction. He has never wavered in asserting his innocence."

Frank Law Office explained that this sort of misconduct is different from what CBI is currently investigating.

"In Mr. Clark’s case, Ms. Woods declared that a DNA sample she tested contained a mixture of two people’s DNA even though CBI’s lab protocols prohibited that conclusion," the letter continues. "Ms. Woods then used her false declaration of a mixture to disregard the portion of the DNA test result that did not match Mr. Clark. With the non-matching part of the DNA profile ignored, Ms. Woods wrote and later testified that the DNA profile found at the crime scene was consistent with Mr. Clark and inconsistent with just about everybody else."

Because a CBI DNA analyst's work must be reviewed by another peer, somebody else signed off on Woods' work, which raised a "serious concern that this additional type of misconduct was widespread," Frank's letter reads.

The Denver Post

In the final paragraphs of the letter, Frank asked CBI to expand its investigation into Woods' work to include all cases where she concluded that a sample contained a mix of different people's DNA.

Shannon Carbone, spokesperson for the 20 Judicial District Attorney's Office, said the office confirmed CBI examined Clark's case and "found no testing issues or misconduct."

"Even though this case was not directly impacted, it highlights the general concerns caused by the analyst’s misconduct," Carbone said. "Our office is committed to doing justice and will continue to monitor this situation closely."

Ryan Brackley, Woods' attorney and one of the prosecutors in Clark's trial, also issued a statement to our Denver news partners:

"Every criminal defense attorney has an obligation to determine if the CBI issues should impact each of their clients’ cases or even change the outcome of any case. Ms Wood’s will not comment on assertions made in any open cases, particularly as to contested issues in any such case.  Ms Woods continues to cooperate in any internal or external investigations regarding her work."

The Denver Post reported that Woods was was involved in some of Colorado’s most high-profile criminal cases in recent decades, including the 2004 Kobe Bryant rape case, 1994 murder of Rhonda Maloney, 2009 prosecution of Aaron Thompson in the death of his daughter, and 2009 murder of University of Colorado student Susannah Chase.

CBI has not released any potential motive for the manipulations but said in March that they appear to have been intentional. The Denver Post reported that CBI began making moves early this year to retest all the lab work across the thousands of criminal cases Woods worked on — a task that will cost at least $7.5 million.

In addition to the internal affairs investigation, a separate criminal investigation began late in 2023. The internal affairs report, which Denver7 requested and received in early June, is embedded in full below.

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