He Spent 23 Years In Prison For A Murder He Didn’t Commit. Now He’s Suing.

On March 11, 1995, 35-year-old Rodney Gochanour’s body was discovered on the Burke-Gilman Trail in Washington State. Just four days later, then 16-year-old Ian Simmers and his 14-year-old friend were arrested for vandalism, which included shooting a flare gun they had stolen from a boat, which caught fire during the teens’ crimes.

The teens were questioned about several fires in the area, and said that during questioning, Simmers’ younger friend implicated him in the murder of Gochanour, reported The National Registry of Exonerations, a website maintained by the University of Michigan’s Law School. By March 20, just nine days after Gochanour’s body was found, Simmers was charged with first-degree murder. Detectives claimed Simmers confessed to the murder, saying he was looking to rob someone the night Gochanour died and stabbed the victim six times with a knife.

Additional charges of burglary and arson were also pinned on Simmers relating to Bothell, Washington marinas, were multiple boats were burglarized, with one being burned and another stolen.

One year later, Simmers was tried as an adult in King County Superior Court, the NRE reported.

“No physical or forensic evidence linked him to the crime. Blood on the knife recovered from the scene did not come from Simmers. A pair of boots by the river that police said may have left boot prints near Gochanour’s body did not belong to Simmers,” the registry reported.

Much of the prosecution’s case was based on claims from Kevin Olsen, a jail-house snitch with multiple prior convictions who claimed Simmers confessed to killing Gochanour and stealing his shoes. When details of the crime told by Olsen didn’t match the evidence, he claimed Simmers told him he confessed to wrong details in order to mislead police.

Simmers suffered from attention deficit disorder, had an inhalant abuse problem, and an alcohol and drug problem. He was apparently interrogated for 10 hours – and was even taken to the trail where Gochanour’s body was found – before police took his final statements.

“According to notes from the detectives of the interrogation prior to the recording, Simmers made numerous false statements. He told them that he had previously killed 13 people, and that he suffered a bruise on his abdomen from where Gochanour struck him during the struggle. His description of the knife did not match the knife found at the scene. He said that the murder occurred on Saturday night, March 11, even though the body was discovered on that Saturday afternoon and the time of death was said to be just after before 1 a.m. Simmers initially said the crime occurred in Woodinville—nearly three miles from the murder scene,” the NRE reported.

Further, Simmers incorrectly described Gochanour as a “bum” and was wrong about the number of stab wounds. Simmers said he stabbed Gochanour six times, when there were eight holes. Also, no blood was found on Simmers clothes even though he told police those were the clothes he wore when he allegedly killed Gochanour.

Simmers’ mother testified at trial that he was home with family the night of the murder, 20 miles away from the crime, and had no way to have gotten to the trail. His stepfather testified that if Simmers had left the house, the dogs would have let everyone know when he had returned.

Despite the lack of evidence, Simmers was convicted and sentenced to 46 years and eight months in prison.

As the Associated Press reported Friday, Simmers was exonerated after serving about 23 years of his sentence after new DNA evidence found he could not have committed the crime. He was released from prison two years ago and last week filed a lawsuit against King County, the city of Bothell, and several members of law enforcement.

The lawsuit alleges that police and sheriff’s deputies disregarded rules for questioning children, kept Simmers in custody for 10 hours while interrogating him and refusing to allow him to speak to his mother or an attorney, used “manipulative and coercive interrogation tactics,” and “fed Ian details about the crime in an effort to force and fabricate a confession,” the lawsuit says.

Simmers is demanding “unspecified compensatory damages, attorneys’ fees and costs,” the AP reported.

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