LAKEWOOD, Colo. — A state DNA analyst’s admission that she committed perjury and other crimes is at the heart of a legal fight that could set the stage for an effort to overturn a 2014 murder conviction, 9NEWS Investigates has learned.
At issue is the guilty verdict reached in the disappearance and murder of David Noren, 49, who vanished from the Lakewood home where he was living in mid-May 2013. His body was discovered several weeks later off a desolate road in Clear Creek County.
A jury convicted Noren’s housemate, Ryan Hicks, in part based on the testimony of Yvonne “Missy” Woods – a forensic analyst for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for nearly three decades. During that time, she worked on more than 10,000 criminal cases – and testified as an expert witness in more than 600 felony trials…