A man serving a life prison sentence in a 1994 Boulder murder this week claimed he was wrongfully convicted based on false evidence created by a now-discredited Colorado Bureau of Investigation scientist.
Michael Clark’s innocence claim appears to be the first assertion of a wrongful conviction since CBI uncovered widespread misconduct by its longtime DNA scientist, Yvonne “Missy” Woods, in late 2023.
Investigators found that Woods — for decades a top scientist at CBI — mishandled DNA testing in more than 650 cases by cutting corners and omitting relevant facts, data and some results. The discovery of Woods’ widespread misconduct sent shockwaves through the state’s criminal justice system and has fueled calls for statewide action to review her work.
Woods, through her attorney, Ryan Brackley, has for months maintained that no one was wrongfully convicted because of her flawed work.
But Clark now claims he is serving a life prison sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.
“It is so obvious that he didn’t do this and there is not evidence that he did,” said Clark’s attorney, Adam Frank. “If you take the DNA evidence out of the case, there is nothing to say he did this.”
Clark, 49, was convicted in a 2012 jury trial of first-degree murder in the 1994 cold case killing of Boulder city employee Marty Grisham, 48, who was shot to death at his Boulder home on the evening of Nov. 1, 1994.
Clark for years has maintained his innocence. He was convicted based in part on DNA evidence collected, tested and presented by Woods.
Brackley — now Woods’ attorney — was at the time a prosecutor in the Boulder County District Attorney’s office and prosecuted the case against Clark. He declined to discuss the 2012 prosecution and referred questions to his then-co-counsel, now 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner. Kellner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brackley also declined to comment about Woods’ role in Clark’s case and said she is cooperating with the various investigations into her actions.
In 2012, Brackley and Kellner alleged that Clark stole blank checks from Grisham, wrote $4,500 in false checks from Grisham’s account, then killed Grisham when the older man discovered the theft. They alleged that Clark, then 19, dreamed of joining the Marine Corps and believed he could not do so if he was caught committing check fraud.
Grisham answered a knock at his door at 9:34 p.m. and was shot multiple times by someone who never entered the apartment. Investigators later found small tub of lip balm under the stairs outside the apartment, next to the shell casings from the attack.
Investigators considered Clark as a suspect shortly after the attack because of the check fraud and because he had access to a 9mm gun, the same caliber that was used in the killing. A jailhouse informant also later claimed Clark had admitted to the killing while jailed in the check fraud case.
But Clark had been in Denver at 9 p.m. that night, then at his home in Boulder making phone calls to friends by 9:45 or 10 p.m., Frank said. Investigators initially believed it was possible Clark shot Grisham at 9:34 p.m. that night, but “the timeline was very tight,” Frank wrote in a Tuesday motion for post-conviction relief.
The case went cold, and no one was arrested in Grisham’s killing for nearly two decades. The investigation was reopened in 2009, and CBI tested the lip balm tub for DNA in 2011.
Woods conducted the testing and concluded that the DNA in the lip balm tub excluded 99.4% of the world’s male population but could include Clark.
Frank says that conclusion was wrong and that the DNA in the lip balm tub actually could not have been Clark’s.
He alleges Woods wrongly concluded the DNA in the tub was contributed by two people. Woods used only some of the DNA results to match the DNA to Clark, Frank said. She disregarded a key part of the results — the part that showed the DNA in the tub could not belong to Clark — on the grounds it was contributed by a second person, Frank said.
Woods went against CBI’s internal quality controls when she concluded the DNA in the lip balm tub was contributed by more than one person, Frank said.
“Far from incriminating Mr. Clark, Ms. Woods’ DNA testing exonerated him. In Ms. Woods’ apparent desire to help law enforcement, she chose to ignore this. Instead, acting with a despicable disregard for the life of an innocent man, Ms. Woods informed law enforcement that her DNA testing placed Mr. Clark at the scene of Marty Grisham’s murder,” Frank’s motion reads.
CBI has identified problems in more than 650 cases Woods handled between 2008 and 2023, but did not flag Clark’s case for misconduct, Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty said in a statement Wednesday.
“However, I am not surprised that formerly convicted defendants want to challenge the basis for their conviction – especially given the incredibly egregious conduct by the analyst with the state lab,” he said. “…Our commitment to do justice will always include a thorough and transparent process to ensure that no one has been wrongfully convicted. That review will now get underway.”
Frank said the misconduct he alleges in Clark’s case is different from the type of misconduct CBI was focusing on in its broad review of Woods’ work, and so it is “unsurprising” the case was not flagged. CBI would not say whether it would expand its review of Woods’ work to include such allegations of misconduct, Frank said.
In a statement Wednesday, CBI spokesman Rob Low said the agency was aware of Clark’s innocence claim and that the court system is responsible for “any decision about its merits.”
None of Woods’ nearly three decades of work for CBI can be considered reliable, Frank said.
“She is not credible at all,” he said. “Her analysis and work should not be trusted.”
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