As he was dying that day in November 1985, Roger Dean tore what would become a critical clue in his own murder from his killer’s head — an orange ski mask dotted with DNA evidence.

It would take decades, though, and steady advancements in DNA science before investigators were able to solve a case that had gone cold.  At long last, a DNA match was made by one of Colorado’s leading forensic scientists and suspect Michael Jefferson was arrested for the murder in Los Angeles in 2021.

But then in November 2023, a scandal broke within the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, when it was revealed that the forensic scientist who made the match had been found to have been manipulating DNA evidence for nearly 30 years, throwing into question the outcome of an unknown number of past criminal cases across Colorado.

On Thursday afternoon, 67-year-old Jefferson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and was sentenced to 32 years in prison, with credit for more than three years of time already served. It was a significantly lighter sentence than what he might have faced if convicted at trial for first-degree murder. Jefferson has maintained his innocence throughout. 

Yvonne Woods, who goes by “Missy,” the forensic scientist at the heart of the ongoing CBI scandal who the agency said mishandled more than 1,000 DNA samples in her career, has now gone from star witness in the Dean case to the one that officials blame for its implosion.

Dean, 51, died when a masked man caught him having coffee in his garage at 7 a.m. that day, led him at gunpoint upstairs and then demanded $30,000.

Years later, his widow, Doris “DJ” Jean Dean was the victim of an alleged extortion attempt presumably by the killer. According to an affidavit, the investigators found that Jefferson, who had a criminal history, lived in Colorado in 1985. He also was having a relationship with an employee of Dean’s and may have thought her boss was wealthy.

Dean’s killer never got any money.

“He was a lazy thief,” said former Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock, who guarded the door that day as a newly sworn deputy. He never gave up the hunt for the man who surprised Dean in his garage, led him upstairs, and tied up his wife.

The DNA match tying Jefferson to the crime was the crucial moment in the perplexing case of a businessman with a troubled marriage and plenty of people who may have wanted his money, authorities said. Compounding the confusion was a nine-year-old neighbor, a girl who said she witnessed a Black man running to his car that morning and speeding off, leaving Dean dying on the cul-de-sac.

Investigators, though, discounted the child’s eyewitness account and for years looked for a White man. When Jefferson was arrested, the child, now adult, felt relief.

“No one had ever believed her,” said Spurlock.

During Thursday’s sentencing, she cried when he apologized for the error. 

Untangling a complex case

When genetic DNA became an investigative tool, the FBI advised Douglas County authorities to take another look at the ski mask left in the snow that day. Investigators tied Jefferson to the Dean murder after they followed him, watched him drink from a water bottle on a flight from Denver to New Orleans, and sent the bottle to have it compared to the ski mask through genealogical DNA with a Denver company called United Data Connect.

That sample matched Jefferson’s brother, which led investigators to conclude a familial match.

The DNA was then sent to CBI’s Woods. She verified the findings a year after Dean’s widow died.

Spurlock said he felt solace because there was a time when he suspected DJ Dean in her husband’s murder, often questioning her.

“When she became sick, I’d visit her. I said, ‘We’re gonna solve this thing. We’re gonna do it.’ It’s unfortunate,” he said. “She passed before it could happen.” 

“I’m here to tell you right now CBI collected the evidence way before Missy Woods was there,” Spurlock said. “They did a great job of caring for the evidence.”

Jefferson was free for three decades, raising a family and holding down a variety of jobs — including as a pharmacist’s assistant and as an investigator with the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. He was arrested once Woods found a DNA transfer on the ski mask.

It is the rare case where a police investigator, a prosecutor and a defense attorney agreed on something.

Michael Faye, Jefferson’s defense attorney, told The Denver Gazette he would have liked for the case to go to trial instead of dissolving into a plea deal. But he acknowledged this week that “the DNA was too problematic.” 

Faye ordered the DNA on the ski mask to be retested at a private lab, but Woods’ original findings came back unchanged.

“There were no inconsistencies between original testing and retesting,” he said.

The attorney said he believes his client was not in South Denver at the Dean residence.

“Michael was never near the victim, never had affiliation with him, and there were alternate suspects,” Faye said.

Had the case gone to trial, he had planned to stress that investigators did not initially consider looking for anyone who was not White.

“There is no motive and no evidence,” he said.

Faye added that his client did not want to take the plea deal because he insists he is innocent. But the defense attorney said he knew the DNA evidence would be damning because “juries love DNA.”

“They pack it up and go home and say what a fascinating case — he’s guilty,” Faye said.

In the end, Faye advised Jefferson to take the plea because there were too many questions to ensure that he would not walk out of the courthouse a free man.

Headed for conviction

“This case was a case headed to trial before the Missy Woods issue came to light,” George Brauchler, the district attorney for the newly created 23rd judicial district, told The Denver Gazette earlier this week.

He called the decision to offer a plea deal “100% frustrating.”

He put the blame squarely with Woods. CBI has said of the more than 10,700 cases she worked on in her 29-year career at CBI, roughly 10%, or just over 1,000 “anomalies” or irregularities were found in her analyses and procedures going back to 1994.

Still, the agency has maintained that despite the more than 1,000 irregularities in her work, it found no evidence she falsified DNA matches or fabricated profiles. It has also said it is unlikely that convictions in cases where data discrepancies were found would change.

Yet just like in the Jefferson case, the scandal is having another major repercussion, as defendants are now being offered plea deals for lighter sentences and reduced charges rather than go to trial.

Prosecutors have acknowledged it is risky introducing DNA evidence in such cases at a trial — even if it has been retested and corroborated — because Woods was no longer a credible witness to testify about her original findings and questions could linger about the overall integrity of the CBI lab.

So far, the Jefferson case is at least the third murder case in the past year where a plea and reduced sentence have been offered.

In June 2024, Garrett Coughlin, who was previously sentenced to life without parole for a triple homicide, was given a deal in Boulder County. After juror misconduct was discovered during his original trial in 2019, Coughlin was granted a new trial. But before that happened, and in the wake of the scandal, the district attorney in the case offered Coughlin a reduced sentence of 42 years in prison on the lesser charge of second-degree murder, rather than risk a re-trial.

With credit for time already served, he could be eligible for parole in roughly half that.

Then in November, in Weld County, James Herman Dye — accused of a 1979 rape and murder — was freed from custody after being allowed to plead no contest to the reduced charge of felony manslaughter.

In that case, Dye, who had been in jail and awaiting trial since 2021, was given credit for time served and released from custody. His defense attorney at the hearing in November said that a DNA retest excluded Dye. CBI has since disputed that.

Final curtain

As a “grunt sheriff deputy,” Tony Spurlock was the first on scene to guard the Dean’s door on the sleepy Lone Tree cul-de-sac.

Spurlock, who served two terms as Douglas County Sheriff before he retired in 2022, has come full circle.

On Thursday, he sat with Tamara Dean Harney — the couple’s daughter and the only immediate family member still alive to represent Roger.