Robert Dewey reportedly cleared of rape, murder after sixteen years in jail
Robert Dewey always insisted that he didn't rape and murder nineteen-year-old Jacie Taylor in Palisade circa 1994 -- and now authorities have reportedly reached the same conclusion.
Big photos below.
Unfortunately, this determination comes after he's spent almost sixteen years in jail for the crime.
The details of the shocking case can be found in this trove of newspaper clips covering Dewey's arrest and conviction. They're from either the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, which broke the news of Dewey's exoneration, or the Denver Post.
Taylor died in her Palisade apartment in June 1994, As noted by the Post, her body was found in a half-filled bathtub, naked from the waist down. She had been beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled with what the Sentinel now describes as a nylon dog leash, but which was initially dubbed a dog collar by the paper back in 1996, when Dewey's month-long trial took place.
A screen capture of a Daily Sentinel photo of Dave and Jackie Taylor looking at a photo of their late daughter, Jacie.
As this passage of time suggests, Dewey wasn't immediately arrested for the crime. Indeed, the Sentinel reports that the official charge didn't come until April 1995, five days after he was released from jail after serving a sentence for an unrelated weapons charge.
In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Rich Tuttle noted that Dewey, nicknamed "Rider," had been staying with the family of Cynthia "Sam" Mallow, Taylor's roommate, in a residence near the apartment. He added that the Mallow clan recalled him being visibly nervous on the night of the murders and saying, "They'll be coming for me" as he looked in the direction of Jacie's place. Tuttle argued that Dewey had provided investigators with false information and given bogus information about a wound on his arm that prosecutors believed had been inflicted during the slaying.
The Mallows also provided a work shirt of Dewey's stained with what one lab concluded was a mixture of his and Taylor's blood.
Page down to continue reading about the Robert Dewey case.
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