In new legal filings, Michael Clark, now facing a second trial for a 1994 murder, seeks to link alleged Boulder police missteps in his case with the city’s most notorious cold case: JonBenét Ramsey.

The unusual claim came within a flurry of 12 subpoenas to Boulder authorities seeking documents and other information connected to the Clark case in advance of his scheduled 2026 retrial on charges in the killing of Marty Grisham — a crime he has said for more than 30 years he did not commit.

Clark was convicted in 2012 and sent away for life without parole for Grisham’s murder. While Clark was a suspect at the time of the murder, the case went unsolved for 17 years. It was resurrected largely on the strength of later DNA analysis and testimony from now discredited Colorado Bureau of Investigation forensic scientist Yvonne Woods.

Those findings by Woods, who goes by “Missy,” are now in dispute after an independent lab earlier this year retested the evidence and found inconsistencies

In April, Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty agreed to have Clark’s original conviction set aside because of what he described as the “totality” of problems with the case. Juror misconduct was also alleged. Clark was released from prison on bail after serving more than 12 years.

Then, in September, Dougherty — who is running for state attorney general — announced his office would retry Clark.

On Oct. 16, Clark’s attorney Adam Frank sought a string of documents from the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, the Boulder Police Department, and CBI. The next day, the Boulder County District Attorney moved to block all of the subpoenas, calling the information being requested was already provided or soon to be, or irrelevant, and categorizing some of the requests as a “fishing expedition.”

A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Tuesday.  

The biggest twist within the requests was defense’s attempt to show connection between the police’s handling of the Clark case with the handling by the same department two years later in the death of the 6-year-old child beauty pageant contestant found dead in her house on Christmas 1996.

The unsolved murder of JonBenét Ramsey and questions surrounding the investigation have long fascinated and horrified people worldwide.

Frank asked for “all records during the first 48 hours of the investigation into the death of JonBenét Ramsey that relate to, describe, or would reflect upon any Boulder Police Department Officers’ choices, actions, and/or decisions, whether or not to secure the Ramsey’s house, whether or not to search the Ramsey’s house, how comprehensive a search of the Ramsey’s house should be conducted, and what considerations played into the officers’ decisions concerning the securing and searching of the Ramsey’s house.”

It remains unclear if Woods had any involvement in later DNA testing in the Ramsey case.

The Clark defense argued that the police response and alleged “colossal mistakes” in the Ramsey case mirrored the alleged similarly flawed handling of the Grisham case, since many of the same officers worked both cases and their actions reflected a culture in the department at the time.

Grisham, a city employee, was shot and killed on Nov. 1, 1994 in the doorway of his apartment. There were no witnesses, no physical evidence and no weapon was recovered. Clark emerged as a suspect quickly because he admitted having stolen and forged checks from Grisham and once owned the kind of gun that could have fired the fatal shots.

But, back then, authorities acknowledged they could not make the case.

Frank argued that like in the Ramsey case, police did not adequately investigate Grisham family members as potential suspects, especially in the immediate aftermath of the crimes.

Grisham’s ex-wife and daughter — both of whom were said to have animosity towards the victim and lived a short distance from him — were notified of his death soon after the murder. Louisville police told 911 dispatchers that the lone car in their driveway was warm, even though both women said they had not left the home.

Previously, the family said it had no comment on the Clark retrial.

Frank argued in his client’s appeal of the first conviction that an alternate suspect defense was not pursued by Clark’s original defense public defender. That argument for ineffective counsel on the so-called “warm car” theory was ultimately not taken up by the Colorado Supreme Court.

Chuck Heidel, the now-retired Boulder police officer who reopened the Grisham case in 2009, told The Denver Gazette last year that, while it was always a circumstantial case, he remained confident Clark was guilty.

In addition to the Ramsey material, the defense also seeks discovery material in the Jefferson County criminal case against Woods. Frank said Jefferson County had was prepared to release the discovery but the Bolder County District Attorney’s office intervened and blocked the release.

In its subpoenas, the defense also asked for information on the inner workings of the CBI lab during the time Woods tested Clark’s DNA in 2011.

Clark was arrested after police sent a jar of Carmex lip balm found near Grisham’s apartment the morning after the murder to CBI for testing. Woods concluded there was a partial match between Clark’s DNA and what was found inside the Carmex container.  

But since the CBI scandal broke in 2023, Dougherty agreed to have the Carmex retested by an independent lab.

In April, the Boulder District Attorney said in a motion that Clark was, in fact, “statistically excluded” when the outside lab did its own test on a new swab.

The defense has asked for any CBI records between Aug. 31, 2009 and Aug. 31, 2011, where a DNA quantification result test was found to be invalid or undetermined.

Frank also raised the question of possible contamination of evidence in the CBI lab, citing that Wood tested Clark’s cheek swab on the same testing plate as the swab from inside the Carmex.

“I’ve never known that to be Okay,” an analyst from the independent lab doing the retesting this year told a prosecution investigator, according to the defense filing, “You’re asking for contamination.”

CBI, however, maintained in June that its review showed that Woods followed all policies and procedures appropriately in her testing in the Clark case.

CBI has acknowledged finding 1,045 problems in Wood’s work, or roughly one-in-10 of the more than 10,780 cases she was involved in during her nearly three decades at the lab. But the Clark case was not among the problem cases, CBI has said.

The state agency also maintained that no false profiles were ever created by Woods and, as recently as last month, its new director Armando Saldate III, told Fox31 television station he had been assured there “absolutely was not” anyone wrongfully in jail because of the lab scandal.

“I hope we can continue to say that and that nothing is ever learned that changes that,” he told the station.