Woman Wrongly Locked Up for Murder Sues State Trooper

One-legged Susan King said to have thrown man's body from bridge
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 28, 2017 7:47 PM CDT
Woman Wrongly Locked Up for Murder Sues State Trooper
Susan King is suing a Kentucky state trooper for malicious prosecution.   (Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy)

A Kentucky woman with one leg who was wrongly locked up for murder is now free to sue the state trooper who testified she somehow dragged a dead body from her home and tossed it off a bridge, the Courier-Journal reports. The 1998 murder of Kyle Breeden went unsolved for eight years, but it only took Lt. Todd Harwood three weeks to determine Susan King was guilty when he was assigned the cold case. King claims Harwood lied to get a search warrant and left out important evidence during testimony, according to the AP. That includes testifying there was no way to tell if bullets in Breeden's skull matched bullets in King's floor despite a forensics examiner having already told Harwood the bullets didn't match.

It didn't end there. Harwood never mentioned in testimony that King only had one leg. He also accused her of trying to get rid of evidence first by cleaning her floor (despite no evidence of cleaning solvents) and later tearing it out (despite knowing she had to replace the floor due to flood damage). Facing life in prison, King pleaded guilty to manslaughter and got 10 years. She spent eight years behind bars before she was exonerated. A serial killer pleaded guilty in 2012 to killing Breeden (though Harwood allegedly forced the serial killer to recant his confession). On Monday, an appeals court found King brought up "genuine issues of material fact" in her suit against Harwood for malicious prosecution, allowing the suit to move forward. (More Kentucky stories.)

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