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03-01-2017, 12:58 PM
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Orem Man Convicted, Then Cleared, in Wife's Death
On the night of September 30, 2012, Conrad Truman called 911 from his home in Orem, Utah, just before 11 p.m. to report that his wife had been gravely wounded. Heidy Truman, 25, died of a single gunshot wound to the head. Truman told dispatchers and responding officers that he had heard a loud pop and turned to find her collapsing, and he suggested the shot was either self-inflicted or had come from outside the house, according to court records. Investigators were skeptical of his account. In July 2013, Orem police arrested Truman on suspicion of murder. Detectives said at the time that they believed he had killed his wife to collect on life insurance, and prosecutors later presented policies on her life at trial. The defense maintained the couple had spent the evening watching television and drinking whiskey and that Heidy had taken her own life. A jury convicted Truman of murder and obstruction of justice in 2014. Judge Samuel McVey sentenced him to 15 years to life on the murder count, plus a year for obstruction. A central part of the state's case was expert testimony that Heidy could not have shot herself and then reached the spot where her body was found. That testimony rested on crime-scene measurements that later proved wrong. Defense attorneys showed the distance was roughly 11.6 feet, not the nearly 14 feet police had recorded, short enough for the wound to have been self-inflicted. Utah's chief deputy medical examiner, Dr. Edward Leis, signed an affidavit saying he could no longer rule out suicide and changed the manner of death from homicide to undetermined. McVey granted a new trial in 2016. At the retrial, a new jury deliberated about eight and a half hours before finding Truman, 35, not guilty of murder and obstruction on February 24, 2017. He had spent roughly four years in custody and was released.
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