And he knew she had stopped taking her mood stabilizers-clonazepam, quetiapine, and amphetamine to treat anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and bipolar tendencies-for fear of hurting the fetus. Tom didn’t understand what was going on medically-he’d begged his wife to see a doctor, to no avail-but he knew Ashley believed she was miscarrying. This was the third time in the past nine months Ashley had believed she was pregnant, despite the fact that she had taken her mother’s advice and undergone a tubal ligation after giving birth to their son three years earlier. Tom took a seat on the tub next to his wife of three years. Just a few days earlier, the 28-year-old had taken a home pregnancy test and gotten a positive result. Ashley was sitting on the toilet, her pajama bottoms around her ankles. The bathroom door was closed, so Tom knocked quietly before opening it. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard crying. But before servers had cleared away plates of half-eaten tacos and baskets of chips, a call came from the courthouse: The verdict was in. For Tom, his attorneys, and his family, a long lunch at the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant helped pass the time during what could’ve been hours and hours-even days-of deliberations. That didn’t diminish the counselors’ anxiety when, mid-morning on March 31, 2016, the jury began deliberating. At times, all 12 members of the panel, Eytan says, wore looks of absolute incredulity. To them, it was clear the jury-which, by the end of the two-and-a-half-week proceeding, had listened to testimony from more than 40 witnesses-was wise to the district attorney’s anemic case.
#Dateline the man who wasn t there trial#
In fact, so much had gone awry since January 1, 2012, it crossed his mind that simply for the sake of consistency, the jury’s verdict might fall that way too.Īs the trial wore on, though, Tom’s Denver-based defense attorneys Iris Eytan and Dru Nielsen became increasingly certain their client would be heading home to the Hoosier State. It felt good to be hopeful, even though he knew things could still go wildly wrong. After having been forced to remain in Colorado for more than a year while awaiting trial, he knew daydreams of loading those boxes into his black Dodge Caravan and driving it east on I-70 were premature. Only as he sat at the defense table during his second-degree murder trial at the Weld County Court House in mid-March 2016 did the then 36-year-old begin to let himself think about what life might be like without having to worry about serving a 48-year prison sentence. Meet the Local Author of More Than 70 Books.
The Coolest Solar-Powered Houses in Colorado.Four Issues Reshaping Denver Restaurants.Colorado Heads to the World Rafting Championship.Dozens of Miles of Boulder Trails to Reopen This Fall.Supporting Your Local Farmer Just Got Easier.Although he had been 1,100 miles away in Bloomington, Tom could feel the accusatory finger pointing in his direction. Then, more than two years after he watched paramedics try to save his wife from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities in Evans reopened the investigation into the cause of her death. When he decided to go back to college in Indiana, a year and a half after Ashley died, he thought the move from their home in Evans, Colorado, would be good for him and the kids. He tried but ultimately couldn’t return to work as a corrections officer at the Weld County Sheriff’s Office, not only because he needed to care for their three kids, but also because he wasn’t emotionally capable. Just days after her death, he began typing notes like, It’s been so hard without you. For several months after Ashley died, Tom had sent text messages to his wife’s cell phone so he could feel like he was talking to her. It had been a long, difficult four years. Once or twice he wondered what his mom would do with his belongings if he didn’t come home after the trial ended. He wasn’t in a hurry, so he’d toss a few things into a box each day and, when it was full, move it to the garage. It was surprising how much Tom Fallis had accumulated in a year and a half of living in his sister’s home in Greeley. Over the previous few weeks, he’d started to pack his things.
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