Nathan Baird's Story

Nathan Baird's Story

Please read the recent heart-curdling newspaper story written on Nathan Baird at

The End of Innocence

Nathan Baird took a trip with a killer not knowing about the murder. An attorney told us that the DA knows that Nathan is innocent, but that it is now an ego thing with them and because of his civil suit against them for the damage they have caused him. Nathan passed their polygraph; their star witness (Ursula) has not. Everyone here thinks that they are prosecuting Nathan to cover up for the police mishandling of the case the morning of the murder. Nathan kept the killer from going into Canada and helped get him apprehended.

This story is very well-written -- and chilling.

Thank you.

Karen Sommers

Some additional information about this case:

The promise of a dismissal if Nathan passed the polygraph was a standard bad-faith DA tactic. Nathan did not know this. Nathan had never been in trouble with the law and has no priors. He was told that he needed to give a statement to the CSPD polygraph administrator and he cooperated. After he made his statement, DDA Diana May reneged on her promise, and instead has subpoenaed the administrator as her witness. And the judge has ruled that his role in this cannot be revealed -- that he administered a polygraph or that Nathan passed it, and also denied the suppression of Nathan's statement, though it was induced by Diana May's promise. This same judge has detrimentally limited Nathan's rights, through his public defender, to call witnesses, to present evidence, to confront and cross-examine witnesses, and to use relevant impeachment information against the DA's "perjured" witnesses (e.g., Ursula Murray), and has denied other rights. (He has tried to ensure a conviction with his rulings.)

The DA asked for the court's permission to do consumptive testing (a test to use it all up) on the so-called "residue" that they said that they found in Nathan's house. This was requested only after Nathan filed his civil suit against them. Knowing that the last person in his house the morning of the search (some 19 months earlier) was a known coke user (Jesse Kaufman - the convicted murderer), the judge denied Nathan his motion to have a defense expert at the test or have it videotaped, further knowing that the police - who performed the test - are defendants in Nathan's civil suit. The sample is now destroyed. When Judge Shakes was told that the test was positive for cocaine, he encouraged the DA to add additional charges against Nathan. Thus Nathan is further charged with a higher felony (class IV vs class V) than the underlying charges, even though everyone who knows him knows that he does not drink, smoke, or do drugs.

An attorney told us that the DA is continuing to prosecute Nathan, not because he is guilty (because he's not), but because it is now an "ego" thing with them, and because of the civil suit. Nathan did not file his civil suit until a year after he was charged. The DA and police had a year to do right by him. And now the prosecution, being further incensed, have "dug their heels in" to ensure a conviction, adding additional charges in the hopes that because of the now many charges against him, though false, a jury will find him guilty of something. (It is not coincidental that the conviction rate in Colorado is over three times the national average. The conviction rate in El Paso County is even higher - - raising the state's conviction rate accordingly.)

Nathan acted wisely in preventing the killer from fleeing into Canada, and helped to bring him to justice. We don't understand what the DA wants from Nathan. It obviously is not justice. If that were the goal, the right persons would have been prosecuted in this case. Maybe it's his life they want. I keep feeling that the police would rather have had Nathan not survive the trip. If he had not survived, their mishandling of the case upfront could have been kept secret. Nothing else in this makes any sense.

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