‘I don’t feel free yet’: Woman testifies in trial alleging detectives framed her in ‘01 killing

Kirstin “Blaise” Lobato’s freedom still doesn’t feel real, she told a jury Tuesday as she testified in a federal civil trial over her lawsuit against two Las Vegas police officers she accused of framing her for a 2001 murder.

She was released from jail nearly seven years ago, after spending more than 15 years incarcerated for a killing a judge has recently declared her innocent of. Her lawsuit against retired Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle began this week, with Lobato spending part of Monday and most of Tuesday testifying.

Lobato has accused the officers of causing her intentional emotional distress and fabricating evidence in connection with the killing, which she was arrested for at 18 years old. The crime dominated headlines with sensational details — Lobato was accused of killing Durham Bailey, a homeless man who was found dead on July 8, 2001, with multiple stab wounds and a severed penis.

She was granted a third trial in the case after new evidence showed she was actually with her parents in Panaca at the time of Bailey’s death in Las Vegas. Prosecutors dropped the charges against her instead of pursuing a new trial.

“I don’t feel free yet,” Lobato, now 41, said from the witness stand on Monday, explaining that her freedom doesn’t feel real even after District Judge Veronica Barisich signed a certificate of innocence for her in late October.

When David Owens, one of Lobato’s attorneys, asked how being wrongfully convicted impacted Lobato’s life, she paused, shook her head and glanced at the courtroom ceiling.

“It’s taken everything from me,” Lobato said quietly, wiping tears from her eyes.

Lobato was tied to the case after she told several people that she fought off a man who attempted to sexually assault her in the parking lot of an east Las Vegas Budget Suites in May 2001, and that she slashed at his lower body with a knife. Detectives interviewed several witnesses who said they had heard Lobato had cut off a man’s penis, the detectives’ attorneys have argued in court.

But Lobato’s attorneys argued that Lobato never told police she had severed the man’s penis, and that the attack happened over a month before Bailey was killed.

Her attorneys have alleged that detectives “manipulated” Lobato during her interview, when she spoke to police without an attorney, and then misrepresented witness statements and omitted facts in police reports.

Lobato testified on Tuesday about going through two trials, and how she sometimes regretted not taking a plea deal that would have resulted in her spending three years in prison.

“I turned them down because I didn’t do it,” she said. “I didn’t want to admit to something I didn’t do.”

Attorney Craig Anderson, who is representing Thowsen and LaRochelle, questioned her about the interview she gave police in 2001. Lobato disputed several details of police reports, including quotes attributing her saying that she “snapped” when she was attacked and “cut it off,” referring to the man’s penis.

Lobato said the detectives never threatened her, but that their investigation and police reports were not fair to her. She said she cooperated with the detectives in that 2001 interview because she trusted police officers.

“I thought that they were the good guys,” she said.

The jury also listened to a recording of the interview, when Thowsen was heard quickly asking Lobato questions as she cried. The detective also referenced a conversation he and LaRochelle had with Lobato before the recorded interview began. Lobato’s attorneys have argued that the detectives destroyed notes of the conversation that was not recorded.

Anderson confronted her about several statements she made to detectives, and asked why she didn’t tell detectives she was attacked in May 2001, instead of July, when Bailey was killed. Lobato, who said she was using methamphetamine around the time of the attack, said she believed detectives had more information than her, and that their repeated questions made her doubt her memory.

“I was very overwhelmed, very young and in a very emotional state,” she said.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.