After just 4 1/2 hours of deliberation, an eight-member jury this afternoon returned a verdict of not guilty for Dan L. Petersen, who was charged in the cold case murder of Tiffany Hambleton, 14.
Family members on both sides of the case wept in the courtroom after the verdict was read.
Petersen, 44, had been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the 1986 slaying.
In closing arguments earlier today, prosecutor Kent Morgan reminded the jury that Petersen has consistently lied to police about having sex with the girl and asked why anyone would believe him now.
Morgan also challenged Petersen's testimony that he tried to give the girl a ride home, his truck ran out of gas, she decided to walk to her own home, and Petersen slept in his truck.
Morgan said it was hard to believe someone would sleep in a truck on a cold February night when his own warm home and bed were only a 20-minute walk away.
The case was built on forensic evidence, Morgan said, but that doesn't mean such evidence is weak or hard to understand.
"It is not complicated at all," Morgan said.
Petersen's sperm was on Hambleton's clothing and his DNA was under her fingernails. There also were severe bruises on her knees that were still visible when her body was found in a ditch 41 days later.
"This isn't somebody who gently went to their knees. This was someone slammed to the ground during the course of a sexual encounter."
Morgan said Petersen killed the girl because she was the only witness to the "terrible crime" of a grown man illegally having sex with an underage girl, and she could identify him.
Morgan urged the jury to use common sense and render a verdict of guilty, something that "Tiffany Hambleton has waited 21 years" to receive.
But defense attorney Randall Skeen said the case against Petersen was like an often-broken and much-repaired kite string. "The state's entire case is nothing but cobbling together pieces of string and trying to make it into a rope."
What really counts, Skeen said, is the concept of reasonable doubt.
A jury cannot convict someone without deciding that person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and Skeen said the prosecutors simply did not have convincing evidence that Petersen killed the girl.
It is true that Petersen lied about having sexual contact with her, and that is inexcusable, but understandable, because anyone would be frightened when questioned about that by police, Skeen said.
Skeen also said everything Petersen said was backed up by other witnesses: A housemate saw him come home the next day with no blood on his clothes or shoes, and two other people helped him gas up his truck. One sat next to him in a vehicle and also observed no blood.
Two expert witnesses testified that such a brutal stabbing, with more than 15 wounds, would have resulted in blood spurting everywhere.
Skeen said the area where the girl's body was placed was muddy that night, but there was no mud on Petersen's shoes or his truck. Skeen also said there would not have been enough time for Petersen to take Hambleton to the place where the murder supposedly took place, kill her, cover her body with weeds, wash or change clothes, clean the truck thoroughly, make it run out of gas and then walk home.
Another witness questioned by police in 1986 said he had seen Hambleton alive the night after prosecutors contend she was dead.
"As the father of three daughters, I cannot imagine anything more horrific than what this family has gone through," Skeen said about Hambleton's relatives. "But I don't think we want to continue this tragedy by convicting an innocent man."
E-mail: lindat@desnews.com