The Tom Fallis Case: Confession, Trial, and Not Guilty Verdict

The Tom Fallis case is a Colorado criminal matter in which a former Weld County corrections officer was indicted for the second-degree murder of his wife, Ashley Fallis, more than two years after her 2012 death was ruled a suicide, and was acquitted by a jury in 2016. The case became widely known because a local television reporter’s investigation exposed witness statements that Evans police had missed or misrepresented, prompting the department to reopen a closed case and hand it to outside investigators.

What Happened on New Year’s Day 2012

Ashley Fallis, 28, was a respiratory therapist and mother of three. She and her husband Tom hosted a New Year’s Eve party at their home in Evans, Colorado. Guests later described Tom as angry and aggressive toward his wife and others during the evening.¹

At 12:50 a.m. on January 1, 2012, Tom Fallis called 911. On the recording he could be heard shouting, “You’re staying here! You are not leaving me!” He told police he had been in a bedroom closet when he heard a gun being loaded and then a single shot, and found Ashley with a gunshot wound to the head from her 9mm Taurus handgun, which she kept under their mattress.¹

Officers noted divorce papers in the home, bruises on Ashley’s legs, and broken family photos near her body. Even so, the Weld County coroner ruled the death a suicide on January 5, 2012, and Evans police closed the case two months later.²

How the Suicide Ruling Fell Apart

Ashley’s parents, Jenna Fox and Joel Raguindin, refused to accept the ruling. Fox began working with Justin Joseph, a Fox31 (KDVR) reporter in Denver who had received a tip from a law enforcement source that “something isn’t right about this case.”¹

Over roughly twelve months, Joseph re-interviewed neighbors and uncovered statements Evans police had either missed or written down differently than witnesses recalled saying them. Neighbor Chelsey Arrigo said she had told another neighbor that night, “Your neighbor just shot his wife,” and had heard Ashley scream “Get off me!” The Evans police report recorded her as saying the neighbor “shot herself.”³ The most consequential new statement came from neighbor Nick Glover, who told Joseph in April 2014 that he had heard Tom Fallis say “I shot her” shortly after the shooting.⁴

Evans Police Chief Rick Brandt later acknowledged “serious errors” in the original investigation, including failing to interview key earwitnesses and closing the case before forensic lab results were in. Ashley’s fingernails were collected but never tested for DNA, and a police-style Maglite flashlight found at the scene was not documented in the autopsy despite pre-death bruising on Ashley’s legs that a later forensic analysis called “similarly shaped” to the flashlight.¹⁵

Brandt said he first learned of problems with the investigation when Fox31 called for an interview. On April 8, 2014, he formally reopened the case and transferred the criminal investigation to the Fort Collins Police Department. The Loveland Police Department was separately tasked with reviewing the conduct of Evans detective Michael Yates, who had led the original work.⁶

The Deputy Who Heard a Confession and Said Nothing

On March 19, 2015, more than three years after Ashley’s death, Weld County sheriff’s deputy Chris Graves came forward and told investigators he had heard a blood-covered Tom Fallis say at the scene, “I can’t believe I just shot her, I can’t believe she’s dead.” Graves admitted he had written no report, had not handcuffed Fallis, and had told no one for more than three years. Asked at trial why he did nothing, he said it was because the scene “wasn’t yours.” He was fired from the Weld County Sheriff’s Office in 2015 for “lack of candor, lack of honesty and lack of truthfulness.”⁷

An internal sheriff’s office investigation followed. Two deputies were fired, and three deputies and one supervisor who had responded to the scene were placed under review for failing to follow protocol and file reports. A sheriff’s office spokesperson said the deputies involved could face criminal charges for obstruction of justice.⁸

Indictment and Arrest

In November 2014, the Weld County District Attorney’s Office presented the case to a grand jury over four days. The panel indicted Tom Fallis on one count of second-degree murder, alleging he had become “irate” at the end of the New Year’s Eve party, entered the master bedroom, grabbed a 9mm handgun, and shot his wife.³

Fallis had moved with the couple’s three children to Bloomington, Indiana, after Ashley’s death. He was arrested there in November 2014 and appeared at an extradition hearing on November 20, 2014, before being transferred to Colorado. He faced a possible 48-year prison sentence and was required to remain in Colorado for more than a year awaiting trial.⁹¹⁰

The Trial

Tom Fallis’s trial began on March 15, 2016, at the Weld District Court in Greeley, with Judge Thomas Quammen presiding. Weld District Attorney Michael Rourke led the prosecution. Iris Eytan and Dru Nielsen of the Denver firm Eytan Nielsen represented Fallis. The trial ran about two and a half weeks and featured more than 40 witnesses.¹¹¹⁰

The Prosecution’s Case

Prosecutors argued that forensic evidence contradicted a suicide. Retired Denver police investigator Jonathyn Priest testified that blood on the bedroom wall indicated Tom Fallis was in contact with or near Ashley when she was shot. A forensic animator’s trajectory analysis found a “severe upward trajectory” suggesting Ashley was on her knees when the bullet entered her head.¹²⁵

Nick Glover, 15 at the time of the shooting, testified he had crouched beneath an open window of the Fallis home and heard Tom say, “Oh my God, what have I done?” and “I shot my wife.” Former deputy Chris Graves also testified to hearing a confession. Prosecutors pointed to fresh bruises on Ashley’s legs and scratches on Tom’s torso as evidence of a struggle.¹³

The Defense’s Case

Iris Eytan told jurors in opening statements that Ashley was a “depressed, self-destructive woman” who had previously contemplated suicide. The defense produced a note Ashley had written six months before her death: “I can no longer go on living this life. I have so much pain on the inside.” The defense also told jurors Ashley had recently miscarried, had stopped taking psychiatric medication while believing she was pregnant, and was intoxicated on the night of the shooting.¹⁴

Larimer County crime scene investigator Dan Gilliam testified for the defense that blood spatter, bullet trajectory, and the location of the spent cartridge were all consistent with a self-inflicted wound. He said the position required for Tom to have pulled the trigger would have been unnatural, and the shell casing would have struck Tom’s body rather than landing where police found it. Co-counsel Dru Nielsen physically reenacted the prosecution’s theory in court, arguing it would have required Ashley to be standing on a dresser.¹⁵¹⁶

The defense also worked to undermine both confession witnesses. An Evans officer who had interviewed Nick Glover, his mother, and his sister shortly after the shooting testified that none of them had reported hearing any confession at the time. Glover answered “I do not recall” repeatedly during roughly an hour of cross-examination. Three other officers who responded to the scene testified they never heard Fallis confess.¹²¹⁷ On Graves, the defense pointed to his three-year delay in coming forward, inconsistencies in his account of when he heard the confession, and his firing for dishonesty.⁷

The Verdict

On March 31, 2016, after about three hours of deliberation, the jury found Tom Fallis not guilty of second-degree murder and all lesser included offenses. Fallis hugged his attorneys in the courtroom. Eytan wiped away tears and mouthed “thank you” to the jury. Ashley’s family lowered their heads, linked hands, and left.¹⁸¹⁹

Eytan said in a statement, “Tom Fallis was falsely accused of murder. The jurors paid close attention to the prosecution’s ‘evidence’ for three weeks, and they got it right. Tom is innocent. And, always has been.” District Attorney Michael Rourke said, “I think the criminal justice system worked.”¹⁸²⁰

Ashley’s parents said they were in “complete shock.” Raguindin told ABC News his “heart sunk” when the verdict was read, saying, “Part of what I know to be the truth, which is Tom Fallis murdered her, and he is walking free.” Fox maintained that officers had omitted information from reports to protect “one of their own.” The couple’s three children remained in Tom Fallis’s custody after the acquittal, with Ashley’s parents granted visitation.²¹¹

The Civil Lawsuit Against Evans Police

Before the criminal trial concluded, Ashley’s parents filed a federal civil rights suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, Raguindin and Fox v. Yates et al. (No. 15-cv-00635). The complaint, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, named Detective Michael Yates, Sergeant Jason Phipps, Commander Mike Parkos, Commander Patrick Haugse, and Chief Rick Brandt. It alleged the defendants conspired to cover up Ashley’s murder by suppressing witness accounts, altering evidence, and falsely labeling the death a suicide, denying the family due process and access to courts under the Fourteenth Amendment.²²²³

A separate Loveland Police Department review found that Detective Yates “did not commit any criminal wrongdoing,” though investigators noted their review was “narrowly focused on investigating the officer and not the overall investigation.” The available record does not show a final resolution of the civil suit.⁶

1
CBS News. Ashley Fallis Death: 48 Hours Investigates New Year’s Shooting of Colorado Mom
2
CBS News. 48 Hours: Ashley Fallis Case — Investigative Missteps in Death Ruled Suicide
3
ABC News. Witness Testifies She Heard Deputy Tom Fallis Shot Wife
4
Adweek. KDVR Reporter’s Story Reopens Police Investigation Into Local Woman’s Death
5
CBS News. Forensic Animators Seek Clues in Colorado Mom’s Death
6
Fort Collins Coloradoan. Tom Fallis Murder Case
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Denver7. Former Weld County Deputy Said He Didn’t Write Report or Arrest Tom Fallis After Alleged Confession
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CBS News. Deputies Fired Amid Internal Investigation in Colorado Mom’s Death
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ABC News. Sheriff’s Deputy Accused in Wife’s 2012 Shooting Death
10
5280. Wrongly Accused: One Man’s Tragic Journey Through the Colorado Legal System
11
Greeley Tribune. Ashley Fallis’ Daughters Will Testify in Trial Against Her Accused Killer and Husband Tom Fallis
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CBS News Colorado. Jury Reaches Verdict in Tom Fallis Murder Trial
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Denver Post. Witness Testifies He Heard Tom Fallis Confess to Killing His Wife
14
Greeley Tribune. Tom Fallis Murder Trial: Attorneys Present Stories of an Angry Husband and a Depressed Wife During Opening Statements
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Greeley Tribune. Tom Fallis Murder Trial: Investigator Says Evidence Was Consistent With Suicide
16
Super Lawyers. The Force of Nature and the Steadying Hand
17
Greeley Tribune. Tom Fallis Murder Trial: Star Witness Isn’t Backed by Others’ Testimony on Alleged Confession
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Greeley Tribune. Jury Takes Little Time to Decide Tom Fallis Is Not Guilty
19
ABC News. Colorado Deputy Tom Fallis Found Not Guilty in Wife’s Shooting
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Greeley Tribune. With Tom Fallis Trial Over, Its Shadow Starts to Leave Evans Police Department
21
ABC News. Tom Fallis Murder Trial: Wife’s Parents Say They’re in Complete Shock
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Denver7. Was Ashley Fallis’ Death Murder or Suicide? Closing Arguments Thursday in Case of Tom Fallis
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KDVR. Family of Ashley Fallis Sues Evans Police Alleging Misconduct in Murder Investigation