Bond hearing continues for mother whose 30-year-old murder convictions were vacated
A Colorado judge vacated Deborah Nicholls' triple murder conviction two months ago over a withheld 2007 state lab report, but her bond hearing has stretched across months and will not conclude until mid-October. Nicholls has spent decades in prison for a 2003 house fire that killed her three children, Jay, Sophia, and Sierra; she says it was an accident involving candles, while prosecutors built their case on an arson theory backed by a jailhouse informant.
On the stand this week, fire investigator Jeff Berino defended his original findings, including his recollection that Nicholls asked about insurance money shortly after the fire. Defense attorney Kathleen Lord pressed him with alternate explanations for behavior he had read as suspicious, and Berino acknowledged the possibilities without changing his conclusion.
The hearing will resume Oct. 13 so prosecutors can call their final witness, extending a case already defined by a Brady violation and three decades of incarceration.
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