Jurors deliberated less than two hours Friday on the first-degree murder charge faced by Troy Dean Willoughby, 46, before returning to Pinedale’s Ninth District Courtroom.

Afterward, several jurors stated they could have come back in 15 minutes.

After Willoughby’s nine-day trial about the June 21, 1984, shooting death of Elisabeth “Lisa” Miles Curtis Ehlers, then 25 of Jackson, the prosecution and defense completed their closing arguments at 11:15 a.m.

Just before 1 p.m., phones began ringing: “The jury’s reached a verdict!”

People were nervous, tense and expectant as they entered the courtroom to await the verdict.

Julie Applegate, Ehlers’ sister, arrived in Pinedale for the trial Wednesday. She sat beside their childhood friend Mimi Singleton, an elegant gold bracelet showing on her wrist, and behind the

prosecution team of County Attorney Lucky McMahon, Tony Howard and Randall

Hanson.

Across the room, Willoughby poured himself a glass of water as he waited with state defenders Kerri Johnson and Todd Oldham, who had vigorously attacked many trial witnesses.

They rested their case Thursday right

behind the state, choosing to not call any witnesses after Willoughby confirmed he would not testify about Ehlers’ early-morning shooting death in a highway pullout near Bondurant.

Friday at 1 p.m., as the court reporter came through a door, Tony Howard stood silently until the six men and six women took the seats they’d held for nine days. Foreman Greg Ptasnik handed a bailiff the verdict, which was then passed to Judge Nancy Guthrie and read aloud.

“… We find the defendant Troy Dean Willoughby ‘guilty.’”

Willoughby’s mouth worked briefly; the defense team appeared stunned, Applegate and Singleton slumped and everyone turned toward each other almost disbelieving the 25-year-old unsolved murder case had reached its grand finale.



Sense of relief

“The jury got it right,” exclaimed Captain Brian Ketterhagen, whose Sublette County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) investigative team began the cold-case journey at the request of Sheriff Bardy Bardin in 2008, leading to Willoughby’s March 2009 arrest. Ketterhagen wasn’t allowed in the courtroom for the trial; defense subpoenaed him as a witness but never called or released him.

Bardin said he wanted to close the case because he knew how important it was to his former boss Sheriff Hank Ruland.

“The verdict is ‘guilty.’ I’ll talk to you later,” said Applegate in a call to family.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I’m glad. I’m relieved. I was so afraid if he got off, I’d never feel safe for the rest of my life.”

She held out her wrist and the gold bracelet, saying it was given to Lisa on her 16th birthday. It was in Ehlers’ purse when she was killed and Ketterhagen returned it - to her sister.



‘On same page’

An hour later, five jurors discussed the trial and why they reached a “guilty” verdict so quickly.

“I think all the jurors were on the same page,” said juror Keith Scharff.

Juror Cody Roberts said they didn’t want to rush into a vote. “We looked at

everything.”

He and others said they started entrenched with the defense, assuming Willoughby’s innocence and waiting to be persuaded by the prosecution.

“Even halfway through I wasn’t on the fence,” Roberts said. “I was still on his side.”

“We looked at every angle,” added Scott Sherwood. “The amazing thing is, there were 12 jurors and we were all on the same page.”

Most were reluctant at first to state their positions, they said, bringing up questions that “might have tripped us up (before voting),” said Tom Curry. “We didn’t have any conflicting votes (in a show of hands and a secret ballot).”

What were their turning points?

“The interview with the FBI guy,” said Sherwood. “Troy just recanted his whole alibi and put himself at the crime scene.”

Another juror asked to not be named. “He in his own evidence put himself at the scene; therefore, he couldn’t be at work at the same time. And more people saw him at the crime scene and Jackson than saw him on the rig. He put himself there by a series of lies.”

Other deciding factors were testimony from a blood-spatter expert, former friend Tim Basye, ex-wife Rosa Hosking, her sister Brenda Marple and at the end, fellow Sublette County Jail inmate Brandon Cope.

“That was the final nail in his coffin,” the unnamed juror stated. “That just confirmed everything against him.”

All five said they believed Basye, Hosking, Brenda Marple and Cope.

“I thought they were very compelling witnesses,” Scharff said.

Once the guilty verdict was confirmed, the jury decided to return to the courtroom.

“I don’t think anybody wanted to be there, especially once we reached the verdict,” said Roberts.



Early days

Former Division of Criminal

Investigation (DCI) Agent Mark Hollenbach testified in 1993 he was given “several case files and one was this case.”

He stated he had a heavy case load and met with Teton and Sublette county officers, Basye and Hosking, but he had to move on.



FBI interview

FBI Special Agent Stacy Smiedala led an interview Feb. 27, 2009, in Montana at Willoughby’s request, he testified. He wanted to confirm three things: if Willoughby was at the murder scene, if he had seen Lisa Ehlers’ vehicle and if he’d seen her body.

Willoughby denied all of the three but eventually admitted he drove by the scene, the agent testified. Then he saw the car but not Ehlers; then he did see her body but didn’t stop.

He eventually told Smiedala he’d seen Bob Crews and another man at Battle Mountain Lodge and they said they “had taken care of (Ehlers).” He left and next saw a car in the Bondurant pullout.

“I did not stop,” he told Smiedala. “… I could see her laying there (as did Basye and Rosa). She was kind of on her side, (near the) back quarter panel, door open, pretty close to the car … on the driver’s side … on her right side.”

Expert witnesses



Experts did not fare well at the hands of the defense, irritating some jurors, as did the judge’s insistence at times they hurry through “irrelevant” or “repetitive” testimony.

Forensic pathologist Dr. Ruth Kohlmeier testified, showing why she believed Ehlers’ nose was broken that morning and that she was hit twice before she died, contrary to the 1984 pathologist’s report.

Johnson objected to her entire testimony, requesting it be stricken. She called the pathologist’s testimony “trial by ambush” and said the witness was “testifying as to accident reconstruction.” Howard and McMahon argued reports and witness lists were filed in a timely manner.

The prosecution and defense butted heads several times and Oldham stated he would request a mistrial. After hearing both sides, Judge Guthrie asked him if he was making a motion for a mistrial.

“No,” he said.

Forensics document examiner George Throckmorton, after examining True Drilling logs and handwriting samples, stated one person made most entries in the log – and that Willoughby’s initials on June 21, 1984, were made at two “settings” and not because the first pencil broke, or he would have seen that evidence on the original. He could not state with certainty who wrote the initials.



‘They’ll recant’

In the 11-hour interview Feb. 26, 2009, with Ketterhagen, SCSO Deputy Sarah Brew and Hanson in Montana, Willoughby had asked why people like Tim Basye and Rosa Hosking were “pointing their fingers” at him.

So the investigators showed him videos of interviews in which they implicated Willoughby as Ehlers’ killer.

“Get you, me, Tim and Rosa in the same courtroom and they’ll say ‘no way,’” he told Ketterhagen. “They’ll recant their story, I’ll bet you.”

“A fat puke and a tweaked-out woman,” he called Basye and Hosking.



Old friend

Tim Basye was called Thursday afternoon. A large man dressed in jeans, glasses and long black leather jacket, Basye responded to McMahon’s questions about his past, including prison time, previous interviews and his ruined marriage.

He confirmed he called Crime Stoppers anonymously, lied in previous interviews and spent “12 years looking over his shoulders” after the first talk with

Hollenbach.

Basye admitted he lied because “if I gave enough wrong details they’d figure I was wrong and this thing would just go away.”

He recounted the night of June 20, 1984, saying he, Willoughby and Hosking partied in Jackson and headed home in the dark the next morning. They stopped at a pullout past Hoback Junction where another car pulled in and Willoughby received a pistol that he “put along or under his front seat.”

The defendant then drove “at a very high rate of speed” and as he approached the Bondurant turnout, said something “to the effect, ‘I’ve been looking for her.’”

After pulling in, Basye stated, he saw “a small sedan with something tied on top.”

“(Willoughby) walked up to the car parked in front of us and the door was opened up. … He pulled her from the car. When he pulled her from the car he was holding onto her hair with his right hand… and there was a struggle.”

“I seen Troy hit her in the face twice,” Basye continued. “… There was some screaming by her.”

Basye said the woman fell and “Troy came back to the car quick-step” and got the gun. “The gal was getting up … off the ground, and there was a shot fired and a second shot fired.”

“After the first shot, I closed my eyes thinking what the hell is going on?” He stayed in Daniel several days, he said, “afraid of what I might run into going back to Jackson and I was afraid … he would run me down.”

Basye said he never told anyone else about the incident. After the DCI interview, he recanted on an attorney’s advice and didn’t speak of it again until 2008. Even after receiving immunity he still lied until he was sworn in that day, he testified.

“Because I didn’t have enough faith in the system,” he said.



Former wife

In a closed hearing Judge Guthrie appointed Betsy Greenwood as Hosking’s attorney – because she had no immunity for testifying about the murder.

As she entered the courtroom, very slim and nervous in a black suit, Willoughby stared at the woman he’d married on her 16th birthday in 1982. Hosking admitted she had felonies and just began a six-year sentence on drug charges.

“I’m a drug addict,” she stated. “I’ve used since I was 9.”

Hosking testified quietly about Ehlers’ murder, looking down often. She said she recalled Willoughby talked to someone while stopped along the road before Hoback Junction. Then they headed down the canyon.

“I think we passed a vehicle, I thought it was an orange government vehicle, larger like a truck,” she said.

When they stopped at the Bondurant pullout, Hosking said, she sat up and glanced out the window and saw exhaust from a running vehicle. She didn’t see anyone and lay back down.

Then she heard voices after Willoughby got out of the car.

“People talking rather loud. It sounded like somebody was angry, upset.” She recognized her husband’s voice because she had heard him “angry.”

“I heard a gunshot. … I asked him what the f**k did he do,” she said.

He was “irritated.” So she asked no more questions. “I didn’t want the repercussions. ... I didn’t want no trouble from Troy.”

Later she heard him talking about Ehlers’ death and when Willoughby asked her to help him hide a gun he had wrapped up, she refused and they argued. He hit her in the face with the butt of a rifle.

“At one time there was a handgun hidden in our septic tank outside the house,” Hosking said. She knew “because I heard and was around when it happened.”

She thought, as did Basye, that Willoughby worked only part of that day although True Drilling records show he was there from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Hosking did talk to previous investigators and might have told a friend; she did warn her sister after she and Willoughby split up.

“I made comments to her when we were going through the canyon that Troy had killed somebody there,” she said. “… I was scared for her.”

Johnson asked Hosking, facing six years in a Colorado prison, if the prosecution offered “to help.”

“I knew nobody could help me with my problems in Colorado,” she replied. “I haven’t been helped for nothing. Ma’m. I’ve been sentenced to the max.”

Johnson asked Hosking if she was “fed details.”

“I’ve been questioned over the years and the questions have always remained the same,” she answered. At least two investigators told her “he would never admit he did it.”

Howard asked, “When you were still married would you have told them

anything?”

“No.”

Younger sister

Brenda Marple followed her sister and was asked about her drug-related convictions. She said she has been clean “a good five years if not longer.”

She testified she was in a bedroom with Rosa and Troy’s baby son when she heard a fight after Hosking “said she wanted nothing to do” with hiding a gun and Willoughby hit her with the rifle.

Some time later, she said, Hosking didn’t want to stop at the pullout for a break on their way to Jackson and “she didn’t want to speak about it.”

“(Later) she told me that was where Troy Willoughby had shot the girl.”

Marple said Deputy Brew told her she would go to Marple’s parole board if she didn’t cooperate but Marple had already been granted parole, she said.



Blood tells

Several jurors said Friday one of the most compelling expert witnesses was Rod Englert, a crime scene “reconstructionist” with an expertise in blood patterns and accepted as such in 26 states.

They felt the defense and judge cut short his explanation of blood stains, especially when the defense then asked about “fabric swipes” after Englert was told to skip it. Oldham jumped up to say he was worried about “saying some things three times.”

“I won’t allow that,” said Guthrie.

“That’s what a trial’s all about,” responded Howard, “getting information in front of a jury.”

Englert said he believed Ehlers, standing, was hit in the nose and swiped the blood across her lip, then held her nose, stood a moment and moved away to where she was shot the first time through her hand into her chest. In his opinion, he stated, she was on her back, one knee bent with her arms in front of her during the first shot. She rolled to her left and was shot again behind her right ear.



Campfire tale

Dale Stewart of Pinedale testified he went hunting with Willoughby and others in 1984 and they gave their theories on how Ehlers was murdered. Willoughby said “we had it all wrong.”

“He was pretty adamant his way was right,” he said. Afraid, Stewart talked to his father and then Deputy Joe Bollinger. He said he saw the defendant later at the Chevron and Willoughby threatened him if he “ever talked to the f**king cops again.”

Stewart borrowed money from his father and moved to California, he said.

Defense objected; the jury was sent out and the judge ruled that statement would be stricken, calling it a “pink elephant.”



‘Final nail’

SCSO Captain Brian Hughes testified Willoughby and inmate Brandon Cope shared a common area between late March 27 and late May.

Cope testified next, stating he was charged with 15 felony auto burglaries and had no deal from the prosecution. He said Willoughby did not show him court papers but was worried about a “signature.”

Two or three weeks after they began playing cards and talking, he said, Willoughby talked in “bits and pieces” about his case, several times going from beginning to end of Ehlers’ murder.

“He would put in like ‘I wouldn’t have’ or ‘I didn’t’ in front of the actions of the crime,” but he used “first person ‘I’” in his stories as well, Cope said.

Willoughby said he was at the Jackson party “to sell some dope … and he knew somebody who wanted to buy it.” Ehlers asked to try some, said “it was really good and she was going to grab money out of her car.”

He said Willoughby said he looked out the window and saw Ehlers drive off in her car, so he ran to his car with Hosking and found Basye asleep in the back. Willoughby then told him he met a friend, said he “might need that piece” and drove after Ehlers.

Willoughby said “he wouldn’t have flashed his brights and hazards to try to get her to pull over,” according to Cope.

He told Cope he passed a car – “the motherf**ker that ID’d the body.”

He said “he didn’t get out, he didn’t run over to her, didn’t pop her a couple times, didn’t pull her out of the car, didn’t beat her down,” said Cope.

Willoughby told him “something clicked inside and he realized he was out of control” and “raging.” He had the gun but set it down and “ran back to teach her a lesson, hitting her.”

“(Then) he got a case of the ‘f**k its’ and said, ‘F**k it, I’m going to kill the b**ch.’”

Cope said Willoughby used a firing stance to show he shot Ehlers twice. He then went through her pockets “to get mine and then some.”

“Paranoid,” Willoughby didn’t try to find “the dope” but flung the gun toward the river; it landed in some bushes so he left, Cope said.

Willoughby fretted about his initials on the 1984 drilling log but told Cope it was “basically impossible (to know if he worked or not) because the driller is dead.”

He also told Cope, who’d never had a misdemeanor before the current charges, “It was the first time I ever had to put two in somebody. Man, it really weighed on me.”

During these episodes, Cope said, Willoughby was “very agitated, white knuckles, stiff upper lips.”

So Cope asked him point-blank: Did he kill her?

“Well, it’s been 25 years and they can’t prove sh**,” Willoughby replied.



For the complete article see the 02-02-2010 issue.

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