Conrad Truman Case: Conviction, Overturned Verdict, and Acquittal

The Conrad Truman case is a Utah homicide prosecution in which a husband was convicted in 2014 of murdering his wife, won a new trial after the defense discovered that a detective’s crime scene measurements were off by more than two feet, was acquitted at a second trial in 2017, and then spent eight years litigating a federal civil rights lawsuit that ended in June 2025 with summary judgment for the prosecutor.

The Shooting on September 30, 2012

Heidy Truman was fatally shot in the head inside the Orem, Utah, home she shared with her husband Conrad on the night of September 30, 2012. Conrad, then 32, called 911 shrieking. He told officers he had been in the kitchen when he heard a door open and a “pop,” turned, and saw his wife falling near the kitchen entry. Heidy’s own gun was on the floor next to her.¹ The couple had spent the evening drinking and watching television.²

Responding officers treated the scene as a possible suicide at first, but Conrad’s behavior struck them as strange. He kissed his wife’s feet, apologized to her, and threatened officers if they did not save her. Police said he tried to take control of the scene, let the couple’s dogs walk through evidence, and went into the bathroom alone after investigators arrived.² His account shifted, too. At different points he suggested Heidy shot herself, that a bullet may have come through a wall from outside, or that someone had been yelling outside the home.³

The medical examiner, Dr. Edward Leis, initially listed the manner of death as “undetermined.”³

The Measurement Error That Changed the Case

Ten months of forensic work later, on July 17, 2013, Orem police and Deputy Utah County Attorney Craig Johnson met with Dr. Leis and walked him through a PowerPoint that included a crime scene diagram by lead Detective Thomas Wallace. The diagram placed Heidy’s body more than twelve feet from the hallway entrance where the shot was said to have been fired. Dr. Leis told them a person with that wound could not have traveled that far. He changed the manner of death from “undetermined” to “homicide.”¹

The twelve-foot figure was wrong. Detective Wallace had used a Canadian measurement system called FX-3, which relies on a ten-inch foot rather than a standard twelve-inch foot. When he transcribed the hallway into a computer diagram, 139 inches came out as 13.9 feet, inflating the distance by more than two feet.⁴ Heidy’s body was actually about three and a half feet from the hallway entrance, and she had moved roughly nine inches from where Conrad said he first saw her collapse. That short distance matched Dr. Leis’s own testimony that a person with such a wound could take only a step or a step and a half before losing consciousness.¹

With the death reclassified, Conrad was charged in July 2013 with murder, a first-degree felony, and obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony. Prosecutors alleged a financial motive. Charging documents said Conrad stood to receive $878,767 from life insurance and other benefits tied to Heidy’s death, even though her salary was $43,000 a year.⁵

The 2014 Conviction

Conrad went to trial in Utah’s Fourth District Court in October 2014. The prosecution leaned on Dr. Leis and on the diagrams. Dr. Leis told jurors Heidy could not have shot herself and then covered the distance shown in the diagrams, effectively taking suicide off the table.¹ Officers testified about Conrad’s erratic behavior on the night of the shooting. Neither Conrad’s defense attorney nor the defense’s private investigator questioned Detective Wallace’s measurements.⁴

The jury convicted on both counts. Conrad was taken into custody on October 22, 2014. On February 9, 2015, he was sentenced to fifteen years to life for murder and one to fifteen years for obstruction of justice, to run consecutively.⁶

How the Conviction Was Overturned

After the trial, Conrad’s post-conviction lawyers found the measurement problem. At a June 2016 evidentiary hearing, Detective Wallace admitted he had used the FX-3 system and had never written a report explaining the unconventional scale. He said he believed the diagrams were accurate at the time and did not realize the mistake until later.⁴ Dr. Leis filed an affidavit saying his homicide finding had rested on the wrong distances. With the corrected measurements, he could not rule out self-infliction.¹

Judge Samuel McVey granted a new trial. He wrote that the “incorrect dimensions presented to the jury in essence removed from its members the issue of reasonable doubt on the theory of suicide” and that accurate measurements could have changed the outcome.⁷

The 2017 Acquittal

The retrial ran in February 2017 with a new prosecution team led by Utah County Prosecutor Tim Taylor. The inaccurate diagrams were not used, and Dr. Leis did not testify. Defense attorney Mark Moffat argued that the corrected measurements showed Heidy moved only inches after the shot, consistent with a self-inflicted wound.⁸ The defense also pointed to the gunshot residue evidence: only one of Heidy’s hands tested positive, and the investigation had been compromised when an officer let Conrad wash his hands shortly after the shooting, making any comparison unreliable.⁹

The jury acquitted. Conrad was released on February 24, 2017, after roughly three years and seven months in custody.⁴ Heidy’s mother, Janet Wagner, told reporters, “The murderer of my daughter has been freed.”⁸

The Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit

Conrad sued in federal court in 2017 under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, naming the City of Orem, five Orem police officers including Detective Thomas Wallace, and prosecutor Craig Johnson. The suit alleged that the defendants violated his due process rights by fabricating evidence that produced the wrongful conviction, and that Johnson knowingly presented the false measurements and a false financial motive to the jury.¹⁰¹¹

The claims against the police officers did not survive. The district court found their role in the measurement errors amounted to “ineptitude and carelessness” rather than intentional falsification, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed that ruling in the officers’ favor in a June 25, 2021 decision.¹

The claim against Johnson survived, at first. In the same 2021 ruling, the Tenth Circuit revived the fabrication-of-evidence claim against him, calling it “obvious” that a prosecutor violates the Constitution by knowingly feeding false information to a medical examiner to shape a homicide finding and then using that opinion at trial. The court held the right was clearly established under its 2004 decision in Pierce v. Gilchrist and refused Johnson qualified immunity at the pleading stage, describing the alleged conduct as behavior that “shocks the conscience.”¹⁰¹²

On June 16, 2025, Judge Dale A. Kimball granted Johnson summary judgment and ended the lawsuit. The court found “no evidence” that Johnson actually knew the crime scene measurements were wrong before or during the first trial. Johnson had relied on Detective Wallace as an experienced investigator, had not helped create the PowerPoint or diagrams, and the error went undetected by everyone in the case, including the defense’s own private investigator. “Mere negligence or inadvertence is insufficient as a matter of law,” the court held, to sustain a fabrication claim. The record showed that when Johnson learned of the FX-3 error after the first trial, he “lost faith in Detective Wallace and asked to be taken off the case.”⁴ The case was formally terminated the same day.¹³

1
FindLaw. Truman v. Orem City
2
ABC News. Utah Man Talked to Wife’s Feet After Shooting, Police Say
3
Deseret News. Orem Man Ordered to Stand Trial in Wife’s Death
4
GovInfo. Truman v. Johnson, Memorandum Decision and Order
5
Deseret News. Orem Man Charged With Murdering Wife for Insurance Appears in Court
6
KUTV. Judge Sentences Utah Man Up to Life in Prison for Murder of His Wife
7
Salt Lake Tribune. Conrad Truman Granted a New Trial
8
Fox 13 Salt Lake City. Conrad Truman, Accused of Murdering His Wife in 2012, Acquitted in Second Trial
9
Daily Herald. Truman Case Proof the Justice System Works
10
10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Truman v. Orem City, No. 19-4133
11
Salt Lake Tribune. Conrad Truman Files Lawsuit
12
ABC4 News. Allegations of Prosecutor Misconduct Shock the Conscience
13
PACER Monitor. Truman v. Orem City et al