Federal Judge Orders Jury Trial on Claim that Kentucky Exoneree Who Was Threatened With Death Penalty Was Framed for Murder

A fed­er­al judge has ruled that a civ­il rights law­suit against a detec­tive who alleged­ly framed a Kentucky woman for a mur­der she was phys­i­cal­ly inca­pable of com­mit­ting may pro­ceed to a jury trial. 

On April 1, 2020, U.S. District Court Judge Claria Horn Boom denied a motion filed by for­mer Kentucky State Police detec­tive Todd Harwood to dis­miss claims of mali­cious pros­e­cu­tion brought by Susan Jean King (pic­tured) in con­nec­tion with the mur­der of Kyle Breeden in 1998. King alleges that Harwood fab­ri­cat­ed evi­dence against her and, accord­ing to the court’s opin­ion, ​“told her he would make sure she spent the rest of her life in jail and that she would get the electric chair.” 

Court pro­ceed­ings show that Harwood affir­ma­tive­ly mis­led the court to obtain a war­rant to search King’s house and to arrest her. Harwood false­ly argued that two bul­let holes in the floor of King’s house were grounds for a search, fail­ing to tell the judge who issued the war­rants that the bul­lets that killed Breeden had been ​“non-exit­ing” — that is, they were still lodged in his head. Harwood also omit­ted infor­ma­tion about King’s ​“small stature and phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ty” — she weighed 108 pounds at the time of the mur­der, had lost a leg below the hip as a result of a car acci­dent, and required a wheel­chair for loco­mo­tion. Moreover, the court said, Harwood knew, but did not dis­close, that King did not own a car. All of these facts, the court found, would have been ​“square­ly rel­e­vant” to Harwood’s false asser­tion that King would have been able to kill Breeden, then ​“tie him up, drag his body out of the house to an unknown car, and dri­ve 40 miles to dump his body in the Kentucky River.”

Harwood also claimed that King had killed Breeden in her home, dragged him across the floor of the house, and then used an indus­tri­al sol­vent to clean the floor, which left the floor stained. But tests of the stain found no evi­dence of any solvent.

In 2008, after King’s court-appoint­ed lawyer said he did not believe she was inno­cent and that ​“she would get the death penal­ty if she went to tri­al,” King entered an Alford plea — a deal in which she main­tained her inno­cence but was sen­tenced to 10 years impris­on­ment for manslaugh­ter and destruc­tion of evi­dence. Four years lat­er, a ser­i­al mur­der­er con­fessed to the killing and pro­vid­ed accu­rate details of the killing and his dis­pos­al of the body that had not been publicly reported.

Based on this new evi­dence, King — now rep­re­sent­ed by the Kentucky Innocence Project — sought to over­turn her con­vic­tion. Because of her guilty plea, the tri­al court reject­ed King’s peti­tion. However, in July 2014, the Kentucky Court of Appeals grant­ed her a new tri­al, find­ing ​“with rea­son­able cer­tain­ty” that the killer’s con­fes­sion would have changed the out­come of the tri­al. King was for­mal­ly exon­er­at­ed on October 9, 2014, when pros­e­cu­tors dis­missed the charges against her.

In 1998, King was iden­ti­fied as one of 27 sus­pects in Breeden’s mur­der based upon their pri­or volatile roman­tic rela­tion­ship and that they had tak­en out pro­tec­tive orders against each oth­er. However, police lacked evi­dence suf­fi­cient to estab­lish prob­a­ble cause for a judge to grant a war­rant to search King’s home. Seven years lat­er, Harwood was assigned to the cold case. According to state court records and Judge Boom’s opin­ion, Harwood then fab­ri­cat­ed rea­sons to search the house and arrest King. 

In 2012, while King was still incar­cer­at­ed, ser­i­al killer Richard Jarrell, Jr. told Louisville Detective Barron Morgan that he had killed Breeden and two oth­er men. Morgan report­ed the con­fes­sion to the Kentucky Innocence Project, which was work­ing on King’s inno­cence case. Harwood sub­se­quent­ly inter­viewed Jarrell and claimed that Jarrell had recant­ed the con­fes­sion. Harwood claimed to have record­ed the recan­ta­tion but said that his recorder had failed. He also claimed that the recorder had since been stolen.

Morgan alleged that the Louisville Metro Police Department then retal­i­at­ed against him for inform­ing King’s lawyers about Jarrell’s con­fes­sion, rel­e­gat­ing him to night-shift work. The City of Louisville paid Morgan $450,000 to set­tle his claim. Harwood retired from the state police in 2017, while fac­ing a charge of ​“con­duct unbe­com­ing” based upon alle­ga­tions of sex­u­al mis­con­duct with a dispatcher. 

In 2009, Kentucky State Police Commissioner Rodney Brewer award­ed Harwood a ​“Commissioner’s com­men­da­tion” for his ​“out­stand­ing achieve­ment in solv­ing Breeden’s mur­der … in keep­ing with the high­est tra­di­tion of the Kentucky State Police.” Despite the alleged mis­con­duct, Brewer told the Louisville Courier-Journal in a recent e‑mail that he ​“absolute­ly” believes Harwood deserved the commendation.