BY MICHAEL VIGH
© 2003, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

    A pair of fingerprints that prosecutors said implicated the alleged triggerman in the 1996 slaying of a Woods Cross motel clerk has turned out to belong to the victim, the Davis County Attorney's Office confirmed Tuesday.
    Though the mistake calls into question the case against David Valken-Leduc, 23, prosecutors said they were not dropping a murder charge against him. Valken-Leduc was charged in November 2001 with murdering Matthew John Whicker, 30, during a botched robbery at a Motel 6 on Oct. 29, 1996. A second defendant is charged as an accomplice.
    "While this change in the status of the fingerprint evidence in the case is significant, the Davis County Attorney's Office does not intend at this time to dismiss any of the charges," prosecutors said in a prepared statement.
    "All evidence is being reviewed with the intent of taking the cases to trial," the statement said.
    The mistake was made by Scott Spjut, a West Valley City forensic expert who died earlier this year after being shot by a rifle he was examining in the West Valley City crime lab. Spjut previously testified in a preliminary hearing that the prints belonged to Valken-Leduc.
    Spjut's former colleagues were at a loss Tuesday to explain how the forensics expert could have made such a gaffe. Crime scene analysts usually compare prints with those of the victim first, said Rich Townsend, director of the Utah Crime Lab.
    "We're mystified as to how he came up with this conclusion with his level of training and expertise," Townsend said about the identification of two bloody prints that were found on a wall of the motel. "We wish he were here so we could ask him these questions."
    Valken-Leduc's newly appointed attorney, Aric Cramer, learned Tuesday that prosecutors were acknowledging the blunder. He said he already was planning to raise the misidentification of the print in court.
    "I thought the evidence was manufactured," Cramer said.
    "I'm glad they caught it, because our first line of attack was going to be that [Spjut] had manufactured evidence in other cases," he added, refusing to give specifics.
    After Spjut died Jan. 2, many in Utah's law enforcement community told The Salt Lake Tribune that Spjut had provided key evidence in several cases.
    Salt Lake County deputy attorney Kent Morgan disputed any allegation that Spjut had ever manufactured evidence, saying "I have never seen that . . . We have to be careful about making these kinds of judgments on one mistake in a man's career."
    Morgan's office is investigating the circumstances surrounding Spjut's death.
    Morgan said the death also is being investigated by the West Valley City Police Department and the Utah Medical Examiner's Office, but no conclusions have been drawn.
    Cramer said the only remaining evidence against his client is the testimony of Todd Jeremy Rettenberger, who last year pleaded guilty to second-degree felony manslaughter.
    In a deal that set him free, Rettenberger, who admitted to acting as a lookout and a getaway driver, agreed to testify against his co-defendants, Elliot Rashad Harper, 23, and Valken-Leduc.
    Cramer said he is confident that a jury will determine that Rettenberger is "not very credible."
    The revelation is the second involving the same fingerprints in the troubled prosecution.
    Valken-Leduc was charged after Rettenberger's defense team discovered -- nearly five years after the killing -- that fingerprints purportedly belonging to Valken-Leduc had been lifted from the wall in the motel lobby.
    A photo of the fingerprints had remained unexamined in the police file in the intervening years.
    After Spjut's death, the Davis County Attorney's Office asked the state crime lab to review his findings and discovered the prints actually came from Whicker.
    Prosecutors suffered a previous setback at the Utah Supreme Court, which threw out Rettenberger's confession as coerced by police.
    Prosecutors also have charged four other men as accomplices, but three cases were dismissed for lack of evidence.
    mvigh@sltrib.com
   
   Key Dates in Case
   
   October 1996: Matthew John Whicker is shot to death during a botched robbery attempt at Motel 6 in Woods Cross.
   
   November 2001: David Valken-Leduc is charged with the crime.
   
   January 2003: Scott Spjut, the West Valley City forensics expert who had linked prints found at the crime scene to Valken-Leduc, dies in a shooting incident.
   
   February 2003: The Davis County Attorney's Office acknowledges that the fingerprints were not Valken-Leduc's.