Exonerated one-legged woman settles wrongful conviction lawsuit with Kentucky State Police for $750,000

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- For years, Susan King maintained she could not possibly have killed Kyle Breeden and thrown his body into the Kentucky River, in part because she has one leg and no prosthetic.

But King spent six years in prison and even though another man eventually confessed to the murder and King's conviction was overturned, Kentucky State Police maintained there was no wrongdoing on the part of the department.

Now, five years after the Spencer County woman filed a wrongful conviction lawsuit against KSP, the case was dismissed in U.S. District Court earlier this month after the department agreed to pay her $750,000 in damages, according to King's attorneys, Thomas Clay and David Ward.

"The whole criminal prosecution was a great injustice," said Clay in an interview. "There were serious errors and intentional acts committed by the Kentucky State Police detective involved in this case. And Susan King suffered horribly as a result of this miscarriage of justice. An innocent woman served over six years in prison and had her life ruined."

A spokesman for KSP did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Former Det. Todd Harwood, who was the lead investigator, is no longer with KSP and couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

King claimed state police failed to investigate other possible suspects in the 1998 slaying of Breeden, used false evidence to convict her and then covered up other evidence showing she was innocent, including a confession to the murder from another man.

Breeden's body was found on Nov. 5, 1998 by two fishermen on the border of Henry and Owen counties.

King could not have committed the murder, according to her suit, in part because she weighs 108 pounds and her left leg was amputated at the hip, leaving her either on crutches or in a wheelchair. She would not have been able to drag a 187-pound man, place him into the trunk of a vehicle and throw him off a bridge, her attorneys have argued.

King, who was facing life in prison, had pleaded guilty in 2008 to manslaughter, though she continued to maintain her innocence.

During a separate 2012 investigation of a man named Richard Thomas Jarrell Jr., for firing a shotgun into a house, Jarrell told Louisville Metro Police Officer Barron Morgan and other detectives he'd killed Breeden and described details about the murder.

Morgan, with permission from his supervisor, former LMPD Lt. Richard Pearson, contacted the Kentucky Innocence Project on behalf of King.

But Morgan claimed he was demoted for helping King and eventually won a $450,000 settlement in a lawsuit against LMPD.

"That officer that did this to me -- he didn't want to hear any of that. He wanted to frame me and get this case solved whether it was right or wrong," King has said about the investigation.

Breeden had been shot in the head, his legs bound with cord, when he was found. The case went cold for eight years until Det. Harwood picked it up in 2006. Harwood and several other officers were named as defendants in the federal suit.

Harwood determined King was responsible for the murder and through an investigation fraught with mistakes and intimidation, obtained a conviction, the suit claimed.

After Jarrell confessed to Morgan and other LMPD officers that he had killed Breeden, Harwood interviewed Jarrell on May 11, 2012, according to the suit.

But Harwood "intimidated Jarrell into recanting his prior confession," the suit claims. A recording of the interview with Jarrell and Harwood went "missing" and has never been found, according to the suit.

But based on the initial confession, the Kentucky Court of Appeals threw out the conviction on July 14, 2014, and sent the case back to circuit court.

That same year, the commonwealth's attorney for Spencer and Shelby counties agreed to dismiss the charges against King.

This story may be updated.