LAKEWOOD, Colo. -- A special prosecutor who is re-examining a controversial 1999 Fort Collins murder conviction is recommending that the defendant get a new trial because of new DNA evidence that has surfaced.

Adams County District Attorney Don Quick, who is acting as a special prosecutor in the case for the state, said in a news conference Friday afternoon that there is new DNA evidence in the Tim Masters case that excludes Masters and points to another suspect.

"It is our belief as special prosecutors in this case... that this new evidence requires a vacation of the original conviction... and entitles Mr. Masters to a new trial," special prosecutor Don Quick said.

Quick said details would be released Tuesday at a court hearing where he'll ask that the conviction be vacated and that Masters be released on a personal recognizance bond.

Masters is currently serving a life sentence.

Masters' defense attorneys said they were working to have him released from prison as soon as possible.

Quick said Masters' defense team had DNA evidence independently analyzed in the Netherlands and found that it matched a different suspect from early in the case, and their results were confirmed Friday by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

The Denver Post is reporting that the suspect DNA belongs to the victim's former boyfriend.

A decision on whether Masters is released or granted a new trial would be up to a judge.

Masters was convicted in 1999 of murdering Peggy Hettrick, a manager at a women's clothing store, twelve years earlier.

Hettrick, 37, was stabbed in the back, sexually mutilated and left in a vacant field in south Fort Collins in 1987. Masters lives near the area.

"She was just a nice, good, caring, generous person," said Devetta Delinger who worked with Hettrick in the early 1980's.

"She was about fairness, she would want the right person in jail, whoever that is," Delinger told 7NEWS Friday.

Masters, a 15-year-old high school student at the time, was the focus of the investigation from its first hours, but it wasn't until 1998 that Fort Collins police detectives obtained an arrest warrant.

Masters' attorneys this fall had been arguing for a new trial, citing problems with the 1999 trial that focused mostly on circumstantial evidence.

Troy Krenning, a former Fort Collins police detective who worked on the case, has long maintained Masters was not responsible for Hettrick's death, citing what he said was a lack of physical evidence linking Masters at the scene or to Hettrick. As a teen, Masters was physically incapable of committing one of the most gruesome murders in Fort Collins, Krenning said.

"I have been in shock that it has taken this long to reach this conclusion," Krenning said Friday. "This is a good day."

Prosecutors based their case on a psychological analysis, violent pictures he had drawn, the fact that he lived 100 feet from where Hettrick's body was found, and that police said he had seen the body but didn't report it.

In a filing early this year, Quick said that lawyers who had originally prosecuted Masters improperly withheld documents from his defense team.

Part of Masters' defense is that investigators may have overlooked a potential suspect, an eye doctor who lived nearby and who had a sexual fetish. Dr. Richard Hammond committed suicide in 1995 immediately after police accused him of secretly videotaping the genitalia of female visitors who used the bathroom at his home.

During his brief news conference Friday, Quick said DNA excluded Hammond as a suspect. Quick did not take questions.

Some of the wounds on Hettrick's body originally were described by the county's medical examiner as "surgical" in nature. Later that was changed to wounds of "mutilation" that could have been done by anyone with a knife and a desire.

Legal analyst Scott Robinson said it was unlikely Masters would be retried.

"There's so much evidence pointing in other directions. I don't think any prosecutor saddled with this case will be enthusiastic about dragging this back to court based on doodles," Robinson said, referring to Masters' drawings.

Additional Resource:

FreeTimMasters.com