After 14 Years Man Walks Free

The Gazette

Tim Kennedy walked away from jail Friday night after spending 14 years behind bars for what he maintains was a wrongful conviction in a 1991 execution-style shooting death of a Colorado Springs couple.

It might not be for long.

Kennedy posted the $250,000 bond set Tuesday by Judge Thomas Kane, who granted Kennedy a retrial April 21 after being presented with new evidence, including DNA tests that showed that another man's DNA was on the sponge used as a gun silencer and also on the two bodies. Kennedy's DNA was not present in either sample.

"Tim's a free man," Kennedy attorney John Dicke said after his client walked out of the El Paso County jail. Kennedy was taken to Denver on Friday night.

A jury convicted Kennedy in 1997 on charges that he killed 15-year-old runaway Jennifer Carpenter and her boyfriend and legal guardian, Steve Staskiewicz, in 1991.

Kennedy was sentenced to two life terms in prison. The Colorado Court of Appeals later upheld the conviction.

The retrial is scheduled to begin Sept. 21.

Prosecutors maintain that despite the new DNA evidence, Kennedy was linked to the scene of the crime by DNA found on a cigarette butt inside a beer can that had been crumpled several hours before the murders. Prosecutors also say that evidence proved that Kennedy's gun and ammunition were used to kill the couple.