{"id":126836,"date":"2021-02-13T14:08:54","date_gmt":"2021-02-13T19:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=126836"},"modified":"2021-02-13T14:42:42","modified_gmt":"2021-02-13T19:42:42","slug":"he-spent-23-years-in-prison-for-a-murder-he-didnt-commit-now-hes-suing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/he-spent-23-years-in-prison-for-a-murder-he-didnt-commit-now-hes-suing\/","title":{"rendered":"He Spent 23 Years In Prison For A Murder He Didn\u2019t Commit. Now He\u2019s Suing."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhe-spent-23-years-in-prison-for-a-murder-he-didnt-commit-now-hes-suing%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=126836&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-91698461-1200x800-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>On March 11, 1995, 35-year-old Rodney Gochanour\u2019s body was discovered on the Burke-Gilman Trail in Washington State. Just four days later, then 16-year-old Ian Simmers and his 14-year-old friend were arrested for vandalism, which included shooting a flare gun they had stolen from a boat, which caught fire during the teens\u2019 crimes.<\/p>\n<p>The teens were questioned about several fires in the area, and said that during questioning, Simmers\u2019 younger friend implicated him in the murder of Gochanour, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.umich.edu\/special\/exoneration\/Pages\/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5538\">reported<\/a> The National Registry of Exonerations, a website maintained by the University of Michigan\u2019s Law School. By March 20, just nine days after Gochanour\u2019s body was found, Simmers was charged with first-degree murder. Detectives claimed Simmers confessed to the murder, saying he was looking to rob someone the night Gochanour died and stabbed the victim six times with a knife.<\/p>\n<p>Additional charges of burglary and arson were also pinned on Simmers relating to Bothell, Washington marinas, were multiple boats were burglarized, with one being burned and another stolen.<\/p>\n<p>One year later, Simmers was tried as an adult in King County Superior Court, the NRE reported.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo physical or forensic evidence linked him to the crime. Blood on the knife recovered from the scene did not come from Simmers. A pair of boots by the river that police said may have left boot prints near Gochanour\u2019s body did not belong to Simmers,\u201d the registry reported.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the prosecution\u2019s case was based on claims from Kevin Olsen, a jail-house snitch with multiple prior convictions who claimed Simmers confessed to killing Gochanour and stealing his shoes. When details of the crime told by Olsen didn\u2019t match the evidence, he claimed Simmers told him he confessed to wrong details in order to mislead police.<\/p>\n<p>Simmers suffered from attention deficit disorder, had an inhalant abuse problem, and an alcohol and drug problem. He was apparently interrogated for 10 hours \u2013 and was even taken to the trail where Gochanour\u2019s body was found \u2013 before police took his final statements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAccording to notes from the detectives of the interrogation prior to the recording, Simmers made numerous false statements. He told them that he had previously killed 13 people, and that he suffered a bruise on his abdomen from where Gochanour struck him during the struggle. His description of the knife did not match the knife found at the scene. He said that the murder occurred on Saturday night, March 11, even though the body was discovered on that Saturday afternoon and the time of death was said to be just after before 1 a.m. Simmers initially said the crime occurred in Woodinville\u2014nearly three miles from the murder scene,\u201d the NRE reported.<\/p>\n<p>Further, Simmers incorrectly described Gochanour as a \u201cbum\u201d and was wrong about the number of stab wounds. Simmers said he stabbed Gochanour six times, when there were eight holes. Also, no blood was found on Simmers clothes even though he told police those were the clothes he wore when he allegedly killed Gochanour.<\/p>\n<p>Simmers\u2019 mother testified at trial that he was home with family the night of the murder, 20 miles away from the crime, and had no way to have gotten to the trail. His stepfather testified that if Simmers had left the house, the dogs would have let everyone know when he had returned.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the lack of evidence, Simmers was convicted and sentenced to 46 years and eight months in prison.<\/p>\n<p>As the Associated Press <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/lawsuits-seattle-washington-crime-08fe6cc415594b49202193017945c9b5\">reported<\/a> Friday, Simmers was exonerated after serving about 23 years of his sentence after new DNA evidence found he could not have committed the crime. He was released from prison two years ago and last week filed a lawsuit against King County, the city of Bothell, and several members of law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit alleges that police and sheriff\u2019s deputies disregarded rules for questioning children, kept Simmers in custody for 10 hours while interrogating him and refusing to allow him to speak to his mother or an attorney, used \u201cmanipulative and coercive interrogation tactics,\u201d and \u201cfed Ian details about the crime in an effort to force and fabricate a confession,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<p>Simmers is demanding \u201cunspecified compensatory damages, attorneys\u2019 fees and costs,\u201d the AP reported.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On March 11, 1995, 35-year-old Rodney Gochanour\u2019s body was discovered on the Burke-Gilman Trail in Washington State. Just four days later, then 16-year-old Ian Simmers and his 14-year-old friend were &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1893379,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[6625,4352,4349,3891,4341,4346],"class_list":["post-126836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-commit","tag-didnt","tag-murder","tag-prison","tag-spent","tag-years"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1893379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}