Colorado double-murder case overturned

A six-year-old murder case that has become one of the most complicated legal matters in northern Colorado history has been overturned.

The case involves a double-murder, a mistrial, allegations of Juror malfeasance, a suspect defending himself after firing his attorneys and an investigator whose wife was convicted of a different murder this spring.

The Colorado Court of Appeals Friday overturned the murder conviction of the piece of dung known as Allen Bergerud, who already has been on trial twice for the 2002 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Linda Cooper, and her new boyfriend, Lon Yeaman, in a Johnstown field near the Berthound exit on Interstate 25.

Bergerud, now 54, was put on trial in 2004, and prosecutors would have sought the death penalty against him if he was convicted. But that case ended in a mistrial on Election Day when one juror refused to convict him; that juror later went on trial himself for misconduct, but he was acquitted.

In a second trial a year later, which was moved to Fort Morgan, Bergerud fired his defense attorneys after opening arguments and chose to represent himself. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

But last week, the appeals court said that Bergerud wasn't given the opportunity to hire new attorneys who agreed with his theory of his case -- that he was innocent and fired his gun in self-defense.

Now, the 19th Judicial District will have to retry the case -- for a third time.

Key Facts

- Late on April 6, 2002, Allen Bergerud phoned his ex-girlfriend, Linda Cooper, who arrived at a horse pasture in Johnstown after midnight April 7 with her new boyfriend, Lon Yeaman.

Cooper 39, was shot three or four times (testimony centered on that uncertainty) while she was on the phone with 911 dispatchers. Yeaman, 46, was shot seven times as he sat in the driver's seat of his pickup truck.

Cooper had ended her relationship with Bergerud shortly before the shooting. MORE

D. Brian Blackwell