Gary Benn
Pierce
County, Washington
Date of Alleged Crime: February 10, 1988
Gary Michael Benn was sentenced to death for the shooting
murders of his half-brother, Jack Dethlefsen, and his half-brother's friend,
Michael Nelson. The shootings occurred in Dethlefsen's house. At
trial Benn did not testify directly, but he made statements to a third party
who testified to his version of events. According to this version, the
killings were in self-defense. Benn's version was reasonably
corroborated by the position of the bodies relative to the guns in the
house. The killings were presumably not premeditated as Benn did not
use his own gun, but had left it in his car. Dethlefsen had a
reputation for violence.
The prosecution presented another version of events through the testimony of
Roy Patrick, a jailhouse informant, who shared a cell with Benn as he was
awaiting trial. According to Patrick, Benn had perpetrated two
insurance scams together with Dethlefsen and Nelson involving the burglary
and arson of Benn's trailer. Benn allegedly refused to share the
proceeds of these scams with Dethlefsen and Nelson, and then killed them
because they threatened to disclose the crimes to the police. Benn did
report a burglary on Oct. 12, 1987 and had a fire on Dec. 11, 1987. There was some dubious evidence presented that these events occurred for
insurance fraud purposes, but explanations for this evidence emerged after
trial.
In 2002, the Federal Ninth District Court overturned Benn's conviction
because of multiple Brady violations, which were failures by the prosecution
to turn over exculpatory evidence. Patrick's identity was not
disclosed to the defense until the day before trial. The prosecutor
had told the defense that it could not disclose his identity because he was
in the witness protection program. However, Patrick was never in such
a program.
The prosecution failed to inform the defense of extensive evidence that
would have severely undermined Patrick's credibility as a witness. One
example: a week before trial, Patrick received $150 from detectives in
advance payment for a nonexistent videotape that Patrick said would show
Benn committing one of the Green River serial killings. The Court
characterized Patrick as “completely unreliable, a liar for hire, [and]
ready to perjure himself for whatever advantage he could squeeze out of the
system.” The prosecution also failed to turn over a fire
investigator's report that conclusively stated that the fire in Benn's
trailer was accidental and could not have resulted from arson. Benn
was scheduled for retrial in Sept. 2003. [7/07]
________________________________
Reference: Benn
v. Lambert
Posted in:
Victims of the State,
Washington Cases,
Self-Defense Cases, Career
Informant Cases, Favorite Case Stories
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