Michigan Department of Corrections
Jeff Titus was released from prison after being convicted of a double murder in Kalamazoo County in 2002.
Jeff Titus, a 71-year-old former Marine and police office who spent more than 20 years in prison for a double murder in Kalamazoo County, was set free Friday.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul D. Boman signed an order granting Titus a new trial and his release from prison.
During his trial in 2002, critical evidence about an Ohio serial killer’s possible role was withheld, and Titus was convicted of murdering two hunters.
The University of Michigan Innocence Clinic took up Titus’s case, prompting the Michigan Attorney General’s Office to conduct an investigation. The office’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) discovered evidence that was never turned over to the defense during the trial.
“There is new evidence which undermines the integrity of the original conviction, and justice requires that Mr. Titus be granted a new trial,” Nessel said Friday. “I commend Assistant Attorney General John Pallas as well as the members of the Conviction Integrity Unit for their hard work in a multi-state, multi-victim investigation which involved the meticulous review of decades of documents.”
It’s the first case in which the CIU discovered new evidence that undermined an original conviction, leading to a new trial. CIU was involved in four other wrongful conviction cases that have been overturned.
Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting agreed with the decision to release Titus and said a new trial was the appropriate remedy.
“I appreciate the thoroughness of the investigation and the opportunity to work with the Attorney General’s team to corroborate its findings,” Getting said. “While it is difficult to admit when a legal error has occurred, being a Prosecutor requires that we always find it within ourselves to do the right thing. Jeff Titus did not receive a fair trial in 2002. When that happens, we have to act.”
In November 1990, the bodies of two hunters were found in the Fulton State Game Area (FGA) in Kalamazoo County. There were no witnesses to the killings, and the murderer left behind no physical evidence.
Titus was investigated but initially ruled out as a suspect, and the case went cold. But when the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office revived the case, Titus was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.
An AG investigation revealed that the sheriff’s office withheld records related to an alternate suspect, Thomas Dillon, a serial killer convicted of killing multiple hunters and outdoorsmen. Dillon was arrested in 1993 and pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder in Ohio.
He was a suspect in multiple other cases.
Those records showed that two witnesses had identified Dillon as having been near the crime scene on the day of the murders. Two of his co-workers said Dillon borrowed a gun from each of them to use while hunting on the same day the bodies were found.
Turns out, the victims were killed with two different types of ammunition.
Previously withheld documents also showed that Dillon would drive hundreds of miles to commit murders, and he never left any evidence behind, picking up the spent shell casings.
He confessed to murders both a week before and a week after the Kalamazoo County murders.
“I am grateful to the AG’s Conviction Integrity Unit for conducting a thorough investigation and agreeing that Mr. Titus did not receive a fair trial because of undisclosed information,” Dave Moran, co-director of the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic and defense counsel, said. “At the time of the killings, Mr. Titus was hunting with a friend nearly 30 miles away from the Fulton Game Area. But several people saw a man who had driven his car into a ditch near the FGA shortly after the shots were fired and who behaved suspiciously. When Mr. Titus was convicted, the jury never learned that the man in the ditch had been identified by two witnesses as Thomas Dillon and other evidence connecting Dillon to the FGA murders.”
A new trial date for Titus has not yet been set.
Coming soon: Metro Times Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting Detroit stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
