LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Nearly a decade after she was released from prison, a wrongfully convicted Nevada woman has reached a $29.5 million settlement with Las Vegas police.
That's after a civil trial jury determined that two detectives, Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle, had fabricated evidence during a 2001 murder investigation.
In December 2024, court records show that jurors ruled in favor of Kirstin "Blaise" Lobato and awarded her $34 million. However, attorneys for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department then appealed that ruling.
The $29.5 million settlement was reached last month, according to the Sept. 9 agenda from the Metropolitan Police Committee on Fiscal Affairs.
Attorney David Owens, who represented Lobato in these proceedings, sent Channel 13 the following statement.
"This settlement ends this litigation, which could have continued for years further despite the jury’s verdict in 2024. After more than 25 years, Lobato can finally move on with her life with this some sense of justice and finally knowing this horrific series of events and wrongful conviction is behind her."
Channel 13 reached out to LVMPD and they have not responded to our request at the time of publication. Typical department policy is not to comment on litigation.
So how did we get here?
This all started in May 2001, which is two months before the murder.
Lobato grew up in Panaca, Nevada, which is about three hours north of Las Vegas. She told multiple people in her hometown that she was attacked in a motel parking lot by a man who attempted to rape her. Using a small knife, she slashed at the man's groin area and got away.
Two months later, police found the mutilated corpse of Duran Bailey, who was unhoused at the time, near a trash bin with a slashed neck, cracked skull, and missing genitals.
Las Vegas police then received a call from someone in Panaca saying they heard from another Panaca resident that Lobato had told her she cut off a man's genitals in Las Vegas. Police drove to Panaca to speak to Lobato.
"Under the mistaken belief that police were informing her that the man who tried to rape her had died, she expressed remorse, and made other comments that the detective took as a confession for Bailey's murder, even though the event Lobato described was glaringly at odds with the basic facts of the killing," according to The Innocence Project, an organization that works to free or exonerate innocent people from prison as well as advocate for reform.
While there were no witnesses or physical evidence linking Lobato to the killing and she maintained that she never met Bailey, police maintained she confessed in jail that she had killed a man who tried to rape her during a three-day methamphetamine binge.
Lobardo was 19 years old when she was convicted of murder in 2002. The Nevada Supreme Court overturned that conviction and her sentence in 2004. That's because her lawyers weren't able to cross-examine a prosecution witness who testified that Lobato made the jailhouse confession.
However, she was tried again in 2006 and found guilty of manslaughter, mutilation and weapons charges and was sentenced to spend between 13 and 45 years in prison.
Lobato's supporters argued her DNA was not at the crime scene and that additional DNA that had been collected wasn't tested.
CHANNEL 13 ARCHIVES: Supporters ask District Attorney's Office to reexamine the evidence
"Whether she's guilty or whether she's innocent, DNA doesn't lie," Helen Caddes, a member of the group Justice4Kirstin, told Channel 13 in 2012. "I don't understand why they wouldn't allow this testing to occur."
Another friend of Lobato's told Channel 13 at the time that an online petition received more than 125,000 people wanting the evidence to be reexamined.
"This isn't just about Kirstin's innocence," said Michelle Ravell, a long-time friend of Lobato's. "It's about finding the real killers."
Lobato's supporters also claimed that police didn't look at alternative theories or suspects. For example, one week before his death, court records stated Bailey had raped a woman who lived in an apartment building next to the bank where his body was found and several neighbors had "an ongoing dispute" with Bailey about that attack.
The Innocence Project, as well as Las Vegas attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, took up Lobato's case after the Nevada Supreme Court ordered an evidence hearing in late 2016.
According to the court, Lobato's trial lawyers failed to hire expert witnesses to pinpoint Bailey's time of death and there was "strong alibi evidence" from people who testified they saw Lobato in Panaca around the time Bailey was killed.
She was released in 2018.
"I feel overwhelmed. I feel excited. I feel grateful. I'm just so happy," Lobato told Channel 13 in 2018. "I don't think I can get those years back. All I can do is move forward."
CHANNEL 13 ARCHIVES: Kirstin Lobato is released from prison