Statement of Facts
This is a case of escalating shocks. March 29th marks one year since my son Dammion Heard, Western State College University Student/Athlete went missing from a WSCU wrestling team house party. Dammion was found on April 2, 2014 hanging from a tree, 8 miles east of Gunnison Colorado on BLM Road 3106. Keep in mind that most of the witnesses that were at that party spoke of alcohol/drug use along with several physical altercations involving Dammion. No one at the party claims to have seen any drug use by Dammion. This coincides with our toxicology report that shows Dammion was negative for everything. Some have described this party as a "chaotic and really crazy place with a lot of arguing" and a place where the team captain was "more angry" than anyone else.
The Gunnison Police closed the case in late October 2014. The GPD ruled it non-criminal and suicide.
While we have been very vocal with the facts as we have been given them, NOT one of our facts has ever been disputed or discredited by anyone. Our questions to authorities have only been answered with a question. The Gunnison Police Department and the FBI office in Grand Junction, Colorado have only been able to say, "It is what it is", and "What difference does it make?" The Grand Junction FBI office called me in December 2014 and requested everything that I had on Dammion's case. I gave it to them and stayed silent. They specifically requested that I DO NOT to talk with the media. I did as they requested. After many weeks they informed me that they were not going to re-open Dammions case. It was the opinion of the Grand Junction FBI office that the case was handled properly by the Gunnison Police Department. The facts speak for themselves so I cannot share this analogy. It was my hope that the FBI would be as appalled with the mishandling of Dammion's death investigation as we are, but apparently they are not. The special agent in charge stated, "The totality of it all is that Dammion killed himself".
For me, looking at the "totality" of facts, the most charitable interpretation I can put on this whole experience is that maybe when large bureaucracies start moving in one direction, in this case suicide, they reach a point when they can no longer resist their own momentum. Someone at the Police Department and or WSCU made a bad judgement about the death of my son, the suicide story clanked into motion and from then on there was no stopping it.
We are definetly caught in a situation where there is no guilt about telling multiple lies, no inhibitions about destroying children and families. This not only includes destroying Dammion and his family but also the ones whose hands are dirty from the death of my son.
And as far as I can see, there is no reason for this case to have not been properly investigated other than carelessness and arrogance, and in the end, self-protection.
Upon extensive review of the 187 page GPD report and the review of the witness interviews, both audio/video, we have written the following factual statements with our questions and concerns.
After you read the statement of facts, we feel you will agree that the questions and concerns we have are still justified and unanswered. Now, the question is, where do we go from here?
During the Missing Persons
During this time, WSCU Assistant of Student Affairs, Mr. Luekenga had told Gary Heard, Dammion's father, that WSCU had conformation that Dammion attended classes at 10:00am and 1:00pm on 3/31/14. He also told Gary that Dammion's meal card had been used at approx. 11:00am on 4/1/14. Then Mr. Luekenga told GPD that WSCU had made a mistake on both accounts. (pg. 3) The police report states that Gary was called on 4/1/14 and told of WSCU's "mistakes". Gary was in fact called on 4/2/14 in the early morning. There was no explanation as to how these "mistakes" occurred. So Who/What originally indicated that Dammion was in classes? Who/What originally indicated that Dammion's meal card was used?
Witnesses were allowed to change their stories about what occurred the night of 3/29/14. Some did this 3-4 times. When this happened the officers did not question their changing stories. Some of these students said they weren't even at the party. We were given pictures of that night and these people were in the pictures. We have text message content where Dammion is asking them why they left. Why were these adult students allowed to get away with such behavior?
Officer Ashe told Gary Heard that on 4/1/14 during his search for Dammion, some of the information he had received was strange. (pg.8)
Officer Ashe told Gary on the phone that he felt like he was getting the run around and "these kids were lying". He also told Gary that when he spoke with Marlena Romero, Dammion's ex girlfriend from November 2013, "she appeared to be very nervous and I could see her chest pounding in her low cut blouse".
The officers went to the wrestlers’ house at 620 North Taylor St., the last place Dammion was seen alive, to retrieve 2 skateboards that Dammion had left there. These skateboards were labeled as evidence. When GPD were at the house, they did not ask to search the house for Dammion or to search the garage for his car. Why? This was a missing persons. (pg.42)
Officer Ashe attempted to contact Devon "Bubba" Zavala on 4/1/14. Bubba did not return his call. The police again attempted to call him on 4/2/14 at 8am. He did not answer. The police contacted WSCU officials to get in touch with Bubba. He called the police about 15 minutes later. When the police requested his presence at the police station, Bubba wanted to wait until after 2pm. The police told him that they needed him to report "now". He showed up approx. 15 minutes later. (pgs.8,9) Bubba was avoiding the police during the missing persons. If Bubba was so concerned with missing classes and not wanting to meet police until 2pm, Then why is it, after he left the police station, he beat the police to Kyle Piatt's house? The police went there as soon as their interview concluded and Bubba was on the front porch of the house when police arrived. (pg. 42)
Scene Evidence
Gunnison County Sheriffs Department located Dammion's car. (pg.58) Sheriff Department Investigator Bob Summer gave jurisdiction of the case to GPD Detective Chris Danos. Danos said from the scene that "Dammion's death appears to be self inflicted" (pg.59) The Gunnison Sheriff's report pg.4 also shows that Danos says "that at this point he did not see any indication that this was going to be anything other than suicide". This shows the mindset of the lead detective from the beginning.
If all suspected suicides are to be treated like a homicide and worked there way to suicide, then the GPD did not follow proper policies and procedures. This is based upon the following:
***Refer to picture #14-0486 099 ungloved hands on Dammion's driver’s license
***Refer to picture #14-0486 100 personal, winter gloves on Dammion's wallet
***Refer to picture #14-0486 101 personal, winter gloves on Dammion's neck, ligature, and hooded sweatshirt
***Refer to picture #14-0486 085 Dammion's left hand has a much longer hair than his, between his ring finger and middle finger. This hair was NOT collected as evidence.
GPD said they did NOT find one single identifiable, latent print inside or outside the vehicle. (pgs. 49, 69) NOT even Dammion's. And Dammion owned this car for 3 years.
GPD found a latent print on Dammion's cell phone face. On page 49, they say they photographed and lifted the print. And put it in an evidence envelope. On page 70, they say the lift attempts were unsuccessful. Throughout this investigation Detective Danos told Gary Heard and the private investigators that GPD had obtained one good latent print off the cell phone. So did they or not?
According to Detective Danos, CBI determined what evidence was to be submitted. They did not take Dammion's vehicle, clothes, and the sleeping bag from the scene, or the uncollected hair from Dammion's hand at the scene. There was also hair on the hooded sweatshirt and Dammion's bare skin that was never collected.
***Refer to Montrose Autopsy Picture ‪#‎DSCN‬ 9562 & #DSCN 9563 dark hair much longer than Dammion's on the hooded sweatshirt
***Refer to Montrose Autopsy Picture #DSCN 9589, #DSCN 9590 & #DSCN 9598 dark hair much longer than Dammion's on his bare skin. Danos told Gary Heard in a recorded phone call that he knew nothing about any hair and it was not his place to have collected the hair. He instructed Gary to call the pathologist, Dr. Benziger. He followed up by saying that the hair would not mean anything anyway because Dammion was at a party and it would be considered "incidental contact". Seriously?
CBI evidence report shows that Dammion's DNA matched the Partial DNA profiles on several samples that they tested. This is to be expected considering the items tested belonged to Dammion. These items include: car keys, ID, swabs from steering wheel, and cell phone case and battery. There was a Mixture of DNA found on the jumper cables and the tree branch. And it was NOT determined that Dammion's DNA was on the tree branch. Why would there be a mixture of DNA on the tree branch? The Grand Junction FBI Special Agent told us, "What difference does it make? The tree is in a public place". Again, Seriously? We believe that possibly whoever hung Dammion touched the branch when they were tying off the ligature? Or maybe they were pulling on it to determine if it would hold Dammion's weight? Or maybe it was the police or coroner, touching it with their bare hands like they did other key pieces of evidence and causing fingerprints to get smeared beyond use?
Witness Interviews and Lack of GPD Follow Up
As you read through the GPD 187 page report, Note how long it took for GPD to interview most of the witnesses. anywhere from 1 to 6 months. 6months?? The police were told all the information that we gathered from the private investigators early on in the case. Yet, they neglected to act on any of it.
Refer to Morgan Lambert Interview with GPD on 7/9/14 (pg. 170) where she tells police that she witnessed Kyle Piatt dragging Dammion through the house in a "headlock". This headlock is described as a rear naked choke. And note that Morgan told the private investigator this on May 4th. The police were told immediately about this. With persistence from Gary Heard it still took 2 months for GPD to finally contact Morgan for an interview. And when she told them about the headlock, they did NOT follow up with Kyle Piatt on this. WHY?
Despite Gary Heard's attempts to get GPD to call Kris Nieto, they would not contact him. Detective Danos tells Gary, "we were unable to get in touch with him". We obtained some information from the interview Kris gave the private investigator in May 2014. The GPD were told immediately. Kris was also mentioned by several people in their interviews with GPD, so GPD knew he was someone of interest. ***Refer to Laci Miller Interview (pg.109) where she tells GPD some of the things that Kris told her about the party night. We also have screen shots of text messages between Laci and Kris. They are talking about what happened at the party/to Dammion. Kris is telling her that he doesn't want to get Kyle into trouble. In trouble for what? Gary has a recorded phone call with Kris from mid October. Kris denies the police ever trying to contact him. Why didn't they interview him?
Anthony Rios-Thomas was the WSCU cross country student that had a physical altercation with Dammion on 3/29/14. Anthony was only interviewed during the Missing Persons. After Dammion was found, the GPD did NOT follow up with Anthony regarding any questions based on other witness interviews.
***Refer to Dylan Weihnacht Interview (pg. 47) where he tells GPD that after the Dammion/Anthony fight he saw Anthony at another party at Mountaineer Village. He says that Anthony was upset with Dammion. Dylan told Anthony not to "go after him" referring to Dammion, because Dylan was fairly confident that Dammion was getting "beat up for beating him up".
***Refer to Stefano Ballesteros Interview (pg. 113) where he tells GPD that after the Dammion/Anthony fight he went to the Mountaineer Village party and he observed Anthony to be upset. Stefano told Anthony "not to worry about it, the wrestlers were taking care of it internally". NO GPD follow up with Anthony after these interviews. WHY? Obviously Anthony was holding a grudge or trash talking about the fight, or these guys would not have had to tell him these things.
Gary Heard also tried to get the GPD to contact WSCU student Emily Foster and WSCU student Daniel Posner. These two were at the party on 3/29/14 and had contact with Dammion. We have talked with both of them. They are people of interest. Daniel was texting Dammion 8 times during the party, which he said he was also at. Daniel Posner was found dead in his car on November 16, 2014 from a sinlge gunshot wound. GPD report page 173, makes reference to Gary asking them to interview Daniel. They did NOT interview him. We told them about Daniel and Emily in May 2014. Why didn't GPD interview them?
WSCU wrestler, Devon "Bubba" Zavala was only interviewed during the missing persons. He was NOT interviewed after Dammion was found dead.
WSCU wrestler, Sam Mangum was NOT interviewed at all. He was mentioned (pg.73) as someone who had talked to Kyle Piatt and was told that Dammion's phone was dead, and that's why Dammion wasn't answering his dad's calls.
WSCU student, Samuel Van De Velde was NOT interviewed at all. He was mentioned (pg. 112,113) as someone who was with Dylan Weihnacht and Stefano Ballesteros at the party on 3/29 where Dammion was and also at the party at Mountaineer Village.
WSCU wrestler, Frankie Dunbar called Gary several weeks after Dammion was found. He told Gary that he had "just remembered" that some "big time drug dealers from Denver" were supposed to be meeting Dammion. Frankie thought that maybe these guys had something to do with what happened to Dammion. Gary shared this information with GPD (pg.151). GPD did NOT follow up with Frankie regarding his statements to Gary.
Linda Nienhueser, Gunnison County Finance Director (pgs. 51-54) was not taken seriously over her statement of seeing a person with Dammion's body on 3/30. The FBI say the same thing as Detective Danos about this, "it is what it is, sometimes people think they see something".
***Linda was at the location walking her dogs when she noticed what was later determined to be the body of Dammion Heard. She told GPD that she saw a second person kneeling beside the person standing up(Dammion).
*** She also saw a white late model pick up truck with a camper shell and a breast care awareness ribbon on the license plates. She told police she had been looking for the vehicle when she was in town. She said she would recognize it again if she saw it.
***A few days later, The Gunnison County Coroner, unknowingly to the GPD, took this witness back out to the scene. And a few days after that, Detective Grace Cowan took her back out to the scene again. They repeatedly question her about the second "kneeling" person she saw. And not in a way that says the GPD were trying to get a description. It appears Linda gets confused about what she saw. She never recants seeing the second person, she only says things dont make sense. The police didn't like the idea of a second person with Dammion's body, because that second person didn't fit their ideation of suicide.
***Linda spoke with Gary Heard in a recorded phone call in late October 2014. Linda does NOT tell Gary that she may have been mistaken about the second person. In fact, she tells Gary that she can't remember if the second person had long or short hair, was a male or female, or what type of clothing they were wearing. Now, if she truly thought she was mistaken about this second person, why didn't she tell Gary this?
***Detective Danos told Gary in a recorded phone call that the person Linda saw was probably "nothing more than a passer by who stumbled across the dead body, got scared and left because they didn't want to get involved". He also said, "Gary, it is what it is, I have no reason to believe that Linda would lie about this". What does Danos mean by this?
***GPD told several stories in regards to searching for the white pick up truck that Linda placed at the scene. They told Private Investigators in a phone interview on May 30, 2014, "that they were still trying to track down the white truck, and they are in the process of preparing another press release concerning that truck". Gary Heard waited for a few weeks and when there was no indication that the search was being conducted, Gary called GPD and then ran his own ad in several local newspapers. The ad described the witness description of the truck and had Gary's personal cell number along with the GPD phone number. Gary received 5 license plate numbers from the ad. He had them ran to see who they belonged to. The last one that was run was registered to Kyle Piatt's parents. GPD was given all this information. The truck registered to Piatt's parents also parks outside the wrestlers’ house. While Kyle Piatt drives a red truck, Gary was told by a witness that Piatt's roommate, Andrew Morris drives a white one with a camper shell. The GPD said that NO one knowing Dammion in Gunnison drove a white truck with a camper shell. Clearly GPD had no intentions of searching for this white pick up truck. Every truck that matched the description of being late model, white and having a camper shell should have been thoroughly investigated. Even if the breast care ribbon wasn't seen. We all know license plates and surrounds can be changed.
***At the time the GPD processed Dammion's SUV, they found an unidentified set of Saturn car keys under the driver’s seat. (not belonging to Dammion's car) The GPD never had the key remote numbers checked with Saturn or a locksmith to see what model of Saturn the keys belonged to. Gary Heard has asked GPD to give him the numbers so he could forward them to a locksmith that he knows has the program to obtain this information. This request to GPD was denied.
***Possibly, the person who drove Dammion's car to the scene, and had the drivers seat pulled up to only 8 inches from the dash, dropped their own "Saturn" keys out of their pocket and they fell under Dammion's seat. The exact location of the keys was between the right side of the driver’s seat and the console, on the floor. And maybe that's why the white pick up truck and a second person beside Dammion's body was out there. They were searching the scene for the lost keys.
*** We had someone of the same height and weight as Dammion, sit in the car with the seat at this position, of 8 inches from the dash and even with the seat reclined back, like it was found, this would have been an uncomfortable position for Dammion. Especially since the GPD and Coroner Vader speculated that Dammion was "kicked back relaxing until he had the courage to kill himself".
Miscellaneous Facts
Detective Danos tells Gary Heard in a recorded phone call that he knows Kyle Piatt was lying. When Gary asked Danos what the plan was regarding this, Danos says,” I don't want to call him in again yet, this may be the last chance I get with him". We want to know why Kyle Piatt wasn't interrogated by proper police procedures. Instead he was interviewed on the comfy couch.
When the GPD continued to get changed stories about texts and other phone messages, they did not attempt to get cell phone information from the witnesses’ phones. They let several witnesses tell them, "I had to re-boot my phone and I lost all my messages, so I can't show you what Dammion and I talked about". Or they said, "I had to get a new phone". Or "I had to delete all my messages because it was full". Regardless of these reasons, the GPD could have obtained cell records and content from the time in question. And isn't it strange that all these witnesses had phone issues at the same time?
Detective Danos told Gary Heard that Dammion's vehicle was being kept in dry storage incase CBI wanted it for forensic testing. Refer to page 50, where Danos says that the vehicle was moved from long term storage to the impound lot on 4/4/14. NO dry storage.
Due to GPD's limited resources we offered to pay for polygraph testing on all the witnesses that kept changing stories. Just so they could be ruled out as a suspect. We also offered to have the evidence items that were not submitted to CBI, forensically tested, this was to include Dammion's SUV. These offers were declined.
Since the closing of Dammion’s case, I have requested the following from GPD: Dammion’s cell phone, case, and battery. The unidentified Saturn keys and the witness audio/video interviews. I have been given the audio/video interviews. These interviews were requested because the 187 page police report was NOT verbatim. Upon reviewing the interviews we found the following issues:
A tip call from Matt Marvel,On 3/31/2014 Matt was driving in the Cabin Creek area where Dammion was found. He stated in his audio that there were 2 vehicles at that location, and he gave somewhat of a description of the vehicles and there locations. Neither were described as black or blocking the entrance gate. So on 1/17/2015, we called Matt. He stated he did not remember seeing a vehicle blocking the gated entrance onto Cabin Creek Road. One vehicle was parked to the left and one was parked to the right of the road. Since he pulled into the area to drive down that road, he would have probably remembered that. We sent Matt a picture via text message of Dammion's SUV. His reply was, "I don't think that car was one I saw. Sorry." So now we have Matt Marvel saying Dammion's car was not at the scene on 3/31/14, along with WSCU wrestlers Collin McNally and Travis Bradford, they placed Dammion's car in town on 3/31/14, late afternoon speeding down the street. They could not see who was driving it.
A tip call from Samantha Braun, on 4/2/14 to Detective Grace Cowan. This call took place BEFORE the police had released information that they had found Dammion. Samantha Braun is wrestler Andy Fontenot's girlfriend. She wanted to let the Police know that she was at the party and had seen and talked to Dammion. She said she left the party at 10:30pm but in her audio she mentions a fight Dammion was in after 1:00am. If she wasn't there, who told her about the fight after 1? She says that Dammion was "for sure" on acid, but says she never saw him take it. She says Dammion would have taken the acid before the fight. And she thought Dammion felt shame for fighting. Question is, which fight? The one that took place around 11pm or the one that took place after 1? We know from survelliance video of Dammion pumping gas at 1:30 am, he was acting completely normal, texting on the phone, swiping his debit card and entering the PIN, removing the gas cap, gas nozzle and replacing it all with out missing a beat. She says the wrestlers are trying to keep the team safe. GPD never addresses this with any of the wrestlers, they also never question anyone about a fight after 1, although Kyle Piatt admits to having 2 altercations with Dammion that night. She then tells Detective Cowan that she will try to get more information from the team and call her back. Samantha Braun originally requested to remain anonymous because her friends would get mad at her for talking.
Samantha placing Dammion at the house after pumping gas goes along with what Kris Nieto tells Laci Miller and a friend of our family in February 2015. Kris says he was told by wrestler Francisco "Franny" Marquez that Dammion was for sure at the house after getting gas. Franny, however, tells the police that he left at 12-12:30. Kris was never interviewed.
Devon Zavalla, Dammion's friend and teammate said Kyle Piatt was mad and everything was CRAZY! Jessica D'Aquilla tells us in a phone conversation in May 2014 that the party was chaotic and there was alot of fighting going on so she left early. She didn't mention this to the police. These altercations were a pretty big deal. Not the laid back verbals that Kyle Piatt describes. The police never asked anyone to elaborate on the craziness or the chaos at this party.
Marlena Romero, was an ex-girlfriend of Dammion who went to the Police Station on the day Dammion was found. She wanted to let them know that she thought Dammion committed suicide. (The police had not told anyone how Dammion was found, so why did she think it was suicide?) After listening to her interview, it is clear that she does tell Detective Danos this. However, when she is asked to justify that statement, and asked point blank if Dammion ever mentioned suicide or had a plan of action or ever talked about wanting to end his life, she answered NO to all the above. She could only say that when she talked to Dammion about her wanting to end HER life, she "thought" because of Dammion's words to her that he may have been there at some point in his life too. She also stated that she and Dammion had not had any "real conversations" since December 2013. They only had a few text messages. These things never made it to the 187 page police report. Detective Danos used words from Marlena's interview that he could point in the direction of suicide. He even tells Marlena that "no matter what, this is not on you, this is choices that Dammion made." Marlena asks Danos this question before she leaves, "Why was Dammion's body found away from his car?"
Morgan Lambert, Dammion's friend and co-worker was at the party and witnessed Kyle Piatt dragging Dammion through the house in a headlock. She describes it as Piatt's arm around Dammion's neck, elbow towards his chest, (rear naked choke) as they were both in a standing position, walking sideways through the party people. She first says that she could not hear anything that Kyle Piatt was saying to Dammion. But later in her interview when she stands up and gives a visual demonstration of this headlock, she then says Piatt was saying, "You're Coming, You're Done". Piatt was NEVER interviewed about this.
In conclusion, we would like to quote a forensic expert;
"It is important that when performing a forensic analysis, the observers must not begin with a conclusion and seek supporting evidence. When pre-determined bias is involved, tunnel vision causes the observers to dismiss evidence and seek improbable explanations to reach the desired conclusions".
We believe that we have proven that the GPD and other Officials are guilty of doing exactly what the above quote says not to do. They began with their conclusion of suicide. They displayed tunnel vision and they dismissed evidence by their lack of follow up and by the destroying/dismissing of evidence.
We know that the display of sloppy, unethical police work alone does not prove that Dammion was murdered. But, with all the witnesses’ inconsistencies and mistruths, we feel if GPD would not have displayed such gross negligence on the part of witness interviewing, the collecting, preserving, and examining of evidence the outcome of the "investigation" would have been different.
Thank you for taking the time to read our Statement of Facts on the death investigation of my son, Dammion Heard.
Thank You to Everyone who continues to support us in this ongoing nightmare.
Again the question is, where do we go from here?
