BOULDER, Colo. — Prosecutors in Boulder County on Thursday agreed to a plea agreement in a triple homicide case after learning their DNA analyst at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had manipulated data.
After an internal affairs investigation found Yvonne "Missy" Woods altered or omitted test results in more than 600 cases, this trial was one of the first tests to see how her conduct will impact the criminal justice system.
In 2019 a jury found Garrett Coughlin, now 31, guilty of felony murder for killing three people at a home in 2017. The victims were Wallace White, his wife Kelly Sloat-White, and his brother Emory Fraker. Coughlin was sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole.
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In 2020, a higher court granted Coughlin a new trial due to juror misconduct. The case was sent back to district court, and in the fall of 2023, prosecutors learned the forensic and scientific data they relied on was going to present "significant challenges" in the new trial.
Citing the investigation into Woods, prosecutors and defense attorneys entered a plea agreement Thursday to sentence Coughlin to 42 years in prison. Instead of spending the rest of his life behind bars, Coughlin will most likely be eligible for parole after 31.5 years of his sentence. He's already been behind bars for seven years and two months.
Deputy District Attorney Catrina Weigel said her team believes they could have met the burden to convict Coughlin again. While explaining her reasoning for agreeing to a plea deal, she told the court that going to trial is more difficult because the forensic analyst's credibility is compromised and evidence in the case is circumstantial. She said this decision guarantees he takes responsibility.
"It is hurting the victims of this crime, and they are being victimized again by all of this," Weigel said.
Family of the victims spoke during the sentencing hearing. Relatives said Coughlin was "getting off easy" and shared that the "outcome is a complete failure and highlights how broken the system is." A niece of the victims said, "Because of the incompetence of CBI, this man gets a lesser sentence."
Weigel said she was put in a position to evaluate this case and the possible outcomes.
An intern at CBI uncovered anomalies in Woods' work during a research project in September 2023. That led to the internal and criminal investigations.
Woods remains under criminal investigation for her work at CBI during her 29-year career. During the internal affairs investigation, coworkers said they expressed concerns about her analysis years earlier.
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In 2018, Woods was accused of data manipulation. She was removed from casework and given other duties. After the review, she was reinstated. The results of the review in 2018 were never escalated to the former CBI director or Colorado Department of Public Safety leadership, according to CBI.
"There had been years of deception," Weigel said in court Thursday. "What we learned in addition to her conduct is there are the failures of CBI to act."
CBI has initiated additional investigations into the 2018 incident.
Weigel said DNA evidence was useful during the trial in 2019 because it helped disprove the involvement of alternate suspects. She told a judge on Thursday that Woods deleted data from one of the DNA profiles in the case against Coughlin.
"That information was never shared with law enforcement and never shared with the district attorney," she said. "We had no idea this was going on until 2023."
If you would like to share information about this case or the investigation into Missy Woods, please reach out to Kelly Reinke at kelly.reinke@9news.com.
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