Acacia Lyn-Darr’s 2025 exoneration came after a co-defendant testified that investigators forced him to falsely implicate her

A woman exonerated of a 2009 murder says Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office employees and a Colorado Springs detective fabricated evidence and intimidated witnesses to get her convicted.

Acacia Lyn-Darr, 47, spent 11 years and 10 months in prison after she was wrongfully convicted of murder in the killing of Robert Piserchio in Pueblo.

Piserchio, 50, was stabbed, bound with duct tape and set on fire at his home on Dec. 10, 2009, after being robbed. Prosecutors primarily relied on the testimony of Matthew Barnes, a co-defendant in the case, and Becky Jo Willson to convict Lyn-Darr, as there was no physical or scientific evidence that linked her to the home.

Lyn-Darr appealed her conviction to Pueblo County District Judge Thomas Flesher, who held a series of hearings that lasted two years after Barnes recanted his confession and testimony, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, an organization composed of attorneys, professors and researchers that collects and analyzes information about all known exonerations in the United States.

Lyn-Darr, who was released from prison in February 2025, filed suit in May against Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office employees, as well as a Colorado Springs Police Department detective. She is being represented by law firms Kaplan & Grady and Johnson & Klein.

In the 50-page lawsuit, Lyn-Darr and her attorneys accuse the peace officers of maliciously prosecuting her to get her arrested, then convicted.

“Defendants fabricated evidence, manipulated and intimidated witnesses and withheld material exculpatory evidence,” attorneys write in the lawsuit.

It states investigators violated her Sixth, 14th and Fourth Amendment rights.

The Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office and Colorado Springs Police Department declined to comment on the pending litigation.

According to the registry, the main evidence used to place Lyn-Darr at the scene was the false testimony of Barnes, who implicated her after what the lawsuit claims was a “coercive eight-hour interrogation.”

Barnes maintained his and Lyn-Darr’s innocence for more than four hours. Around that time, according to the registry and lawsuit, the recording of the interview stops but later resumes after about 30 minutes. When it does, Barnes confesses to having participated in the murder. He gives a statement that implicates himself, Lyn-Darr and two others — Aaron Wilkerson and Brandon Armijo.

Years later, Wilkerson told private investigator Nicole Terry, while in prison, that he acted alone in the murder, according to testimony from Terry.

In 2022, Barnes testified during Lyn-Darr’s appeal that he was eventually worn down by the questioning of Pueblo Sheriff’s Sgt. John Pannunzio and other investigators and, through the detectives’ presentation of false evidence implicating Barnes in the crime, he believed the authorities were going to make sure he was found guilty. At the time, Barnes said investigators also falsely told him the other co-defendants implicated him, which led him to implicate Lyn-Darr.

Barnes testified as well that he was high on meth at the time and had not slept in weeks.

There were discrepancies in Barnes’ testimony during Lyn-Darr’s trial, according to the lawsuit and registry. Barnes said the group took walkie talkies to pick up police radio traffic, but the ones found belonged to the victim and were unable to monitor police frequencies. Additionally, Barnes said he heard Piserchio’s screams of agony when he was set on fire, but the autopsy showed he died of a heart attack before that.

The lawsuit also accuses the investigators of using similar coercive methods to convince Willson, then nine months pregnant, into falsely implicating Lyn-Darr throughout the course of multiple interviews.

Willson implicated no one else in the case besides Wilkerson until her third interview, when she named Lyn-Darr, Barnes and Armijo, according to the registry and lawsuit.

The interview, which wasn’t recorded even though Colorado law requires it, happened over the course of two days while she was in custody, according to the registry. Police said the recording allegedly malfunctioned, and the only record of the questioning was in a police report created after.

During the hearings for Lyn-Darr’s appeal, Willson said she had no memory of the interviews, but she did recall that she changed her story after police threatened charging her with a crime and mentioned she would have to have her baby in prison.

The lawsuit further accuses Pannunzio and Pueblo County Sheriff’s Capt. Don Leach of threatening to strip Lyn-Darr naked and photograph her if she did not provide them with the information that they wanted during her seven-hour interview.

Lyn-Darr and her attorneys accused the investigators of “tunnel vision,” ignoring contradictory evidence that pointed to her not being involved. They pointed to the initial statements from Barnes and Willson and there being no physical evidence linking her to the crime. Even when confronted with contrary evidence, the defendants maintained their “false narrative,” the lawsuit states.

“The individual Defendants’ misconduct was motivated by evil motive or intent and involved reckless or callous indifference to Plaintiff’s federally protected rights,” attorneys write in the lawsuit.

Lyn-Darr is asking for a jury to determine what should happen.

Specifically, she is looking for compensation of past and future economic losses, compensatory and consequential damages for emotional distress and other pain and suffering and punitive damages, according to the lawsuit.

The impact of her wrongful incarceration was so “profound” it is almost indescribable, the lawsuit states.

“While defendants went on about their lives, Plaintiff’s life was effectively frozen,” attorneys write in it. “She was forced to endure the stress and stigma of being labeled a murderer.”

The lawsuit goes on to say she was subjected to harsh and dangerous prison conditions because she was housed in the men’s prison since she is a transgender woman.

Who are the defendants?

Seemingly, none of the law enforcement officers named in the lawsuit have faced disciplinary action in light of Lyn-Darr’s exoneration, public records indicate.

The lawsuit lists 14 defendants. Ten of them are law enforcement employees; then Pueblo County, its commissioners and Sheriff’s Office and the city of Colorado Springs are listed.

Colorado’s statewide public accountability and certification database for peace officers, POST, and an online search show that at least two of the employees are still with the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office: Detectives Jeremy Bacor and Ronald Thurston.

According to the Sheriff’s Office directory, Bacor is now a captain in the Judicial & Intake Division.

According to a Facebook post by the Sheriff’s Office, Leach was named 2016 Sheriff’s Deputy of the Year, four years after Lyn-Darr was wrongfully convicted of murder.

At least two others, former Detective Byron Franklin and Capt. Leroy Mora, have found employment with other law enforcement agencies, POST shows.

Mora is running for Pueblo County sheriff as an independent. According to his website, he retired as a captain after 27 years with the agency. He serves as a special deputy with the office, helping build a chaplain program to provide “emotional, spiritual and peer support for deputies and their families,” the website states.

Colorado Springs police Detective Bradley Pratt is also still employed at the department, POST shows. In 2015, a jury acquitted Pratt of criminal trespassing after he was arrested on suspicion of entering his ex-girlfriend’s house without permission.

Pannunzio and Pueblo County Sheriff’s Detective Troy Kochevar are no longer certified. In 2009, the Pueblo Chieftain reported that Pannunzio was placed on administrative leave after a 30-mile chase with a driver of a stolen trash truck. The driver died after smashing into a convenience store in Florence.

The Gazette could not find two others named in the lawsuit in the POST database, Sheriff’s Detectives Greg Purkett or JC Williams.

None of the law enforcement employees named in the lawsuit had any documented POST actions against them.

The Sheriff’s Office and Colorado Springs Police Department declined to comment about whether either agency conducted an internal investigation into the claims made in the lawsuit or by Barnes and others at the hearings held by Flesher.

The 10th Judicial District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on if it pressed charges against any of the involved officers or if it cleared its prosecutors of any wrongdoing, citing the pending litigation.

Lyn-Darr’s federal case will be heard by Magistrate Judge Timothy P. O’Hara.

Her next scheduled court appearance is set for Nov. 2 at the Alfred A. Arraj U.S. Courthouse in Denver.