Vinnie Chacon knows that’s when her 64-year-old brother James Hunter will telephone her from Colorado’s Territorial Correctional Facility in Cañon City. Hunter has been incarcerated for more than 21 years, ever since his 2003 conviction and sentence of 168 years in prison for a heinous attack and rape he continues to claim he did not do.
Chacon said she believes her brother’s claims of innocence because she knows the type of person he is and because she saw him about an hour before the 1 a.m.
break into a trailer and terrorize a woman and her 5-year-old daughter for over four hours, as prosecutors successfully convinced a jury he did.
She said that before his incarceration, her brother gave homeless people jobs, bought flowers to cheer up depressed people he met in bars and let the downtrodden sleep at his trailer, where he and his wife lived.
“He was a very sincere person,” Chacon said. “Always trying to help somebody out.
“I’ve stayed by my brother’s side throughout this whole thing, just trying to keep him positive, and hoping something would happen,” she said.
Now, something has happened, giving a boost to the push by Chacon and defense lawyers to exonerate her brother. They are pinning their hopes on the recent announcement from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation of the discovery of “anomalies” in the work of state crime lab scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods, which state officials in a prepared statement said put “all her work in question.”
“Did she tamper with evidence? Did she contaminate evidence potentially? No one knows,” said Phillip Danielson, a professor in DNA science at the University of Denver and a nationally recognized court expert who has administered over $13.5 million in research grants and funding, including for the National Institute of Justice.
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