Acacia Lyn-Darr

At about 1:45 a.m. on December 10, 2009, police and firefighters responded to a fire alarm at the home of 50-year-old Robert Piserchio in Pueblo, Colorado. They discovered Piserchio’s body. He had been beaten, stabbed, bound with duct tape, and set on fire. An autopsy would later show he died of a heart attack during the violent struggle.

Furniture was upended, bloodstains were found, a planter had been smashed and there were holes in the walls, at least two of which were caused by shotgun blasts. Numerous items were missing, including shotguns, a binder of business checks, and a video recorder.

The following day, police appealed to the public for help and noted that a week before his death, Piserchio, the brother-in-law of former Pueblo County Sheriff Don Cosentino, had filed a report that his wallet had been stolen when three women were in his home.

On December 14, 31-year-old Acacia Lyn-Darr attempted to cash one of the stolen checks at a bank in Colorado Springs. When the teller became suspicious, Lyn-Darr walked out of the bank, but left her identification behind. She was arrested the following day.

The police questioned Lyn-Darr at length about the murder. She maintained her innocence. In the first interview, she indicated that she had information about who she received the checks from, but said she was scared of what this person would do if Lyn-dar provided information to the police. In a second interview, Lyn-dar indicated to police that she got the checks from 25-year-old Aaron Wilkerson.

The police searched the trailer where Lyn-Darr was living. They recovered pawn slips signed by Lyn-Darr 's then-boyfriend, 30-year-old Matthew Barnes. Police soon determined these were for items taken from Piserchio’s home. Police also recovered a notepad showing that someone had practiced Piserchio’s signature.

On December 23, Wilkerson was arrested in Colorado Spring after crashing his car into a police squad car. He was captured following a foot chase. Police said he was a suspect in a December 7, 2009, robbery of a 62-year-old woman using a stun gun. He was indicted on charges of first-degree murder, first degree arson, first-degree burglary, aggravated robbery, and conspiracy to commit burglary and robbery.

Police were still looking for Barnes.

In January 2010, Lyn-Darr , Barnes, and 26-year-old Brandon Armijo were charged with first degree arson, first-degree burglary, aggravated robbery, and conspiracy to commit burglary and robbery. Lyn-Darr was charged under the name of Lyndarr.

About a week afterward, three women were charged in the theft of Piserchio’s wallet: Elizabeth Ann Abeyta, 38; Sheen Sann Baker, 45; and Karen Sue DePierre, 40. Police said that the women went to Piserchio’s home on November 30. Baker knew Piserchio because he had once dated Baker’s sister. Police said they went there ostensibly because Piserchio operated a dental lab and Baker wanted help with her dentures, but actually they were there to scope out the place for a potential heist.

While they were there, DePierre said she was having a seizure and was allowed to lie down in a spare bedroom. They soon left. The police said that the women talked about Piserchio’s wealth, noting that he had two Dodge Viper automobiles in his garage and that he had said he had paid cash for his home. The three later returned with a cake as a gift to thank Piserchio. When they left, DePierre stole Piserchio’s wallet.

Police said that DePierre knew Wilkerson from the methamphetamine trade and that Lyn-Darr Barnes, and Armijo were all involved in the trade.

In May 2010, Barnes was arrested in Colorado Springs. He was interrogated for about eight hours. Barnes maintained his innocence for more than four hours, telling detectives that he was not even in Pueblo when Piserchio was killed. Barnes repeatedly offered to take a polygraph examination. After more than four hours of interrogation, the recording of the interrogation stopped. After more than a half hour of unrecorded time, the video of the interrogation resumed, with Barnes confessing to having participated in the murder. Ultimately, Barnes gave a statement implicating himself, Lyn-Darr, Wilkerson, and Armijo. He was arrested on the same charges as the others, and the prosecution added first-degree murders against all of them as well. Barnes subsequently accepted a prosecution offer to plead guilty to second-degree murder in return for a 30-year prison term. He also agreed to testify for the prosecution against Lyn-Darr, Wilkerson, and Armijo.

In February 2012, Lyn-Darr went to trial in Pueblo County District Court. Armijo was scheduled for a separate trial immediately afterward. A pretrial defense motion to call an expert on the causes of false confessions had been denied.

No physical or forensic evidence linked Lyn-Darr to the crime.

The prosecution’s case against Lyn-Darr relied primarily on the testimony of Barnes and Becky Jo Willson.

Barnes testified that on the evening of December 9, he, Lyn-Darr, Wilkerson, Willson, and Armijo, Willson’s boyfriend, were all using methamphetamine together in a friend’s apartment in Colorado Springs. At around 10:00 p.m., the group, except for Willson, drove to Pueblo in Wilkerson’s vehicle. He said the original plan was to offer to sell Piserchio $5,000 worth of drugs and then to rob him of the cash.

Barnes said that when Piserchio opened the front door, Wilkerson immediately tased him with a stun gun. Barnes said that Wilkerson and Lyn-Darr then demanded money and beat Piserchio to force him to cooperate. Meanwhile, Barnes said, Armijo searched the house for valuables while Barnes stood near the front door as a lookout. At some point, Barnes said he joined Wilkerson and Lyn-Darr and smashed a planter over Piserchio’s head.

Barnes said the three of them used duct tape to bind Piserchio and dragged him into a bedroom. Barnes said Lyn-Darr suggested they set fire to Piserchio to destroy evidence. Barnes said she retrieved some solvent, poured it over the victim, and lit some clothing that she and Wilkerson had piled on top of Piserchio.

Barnes said they left with some jewelry, sports apparel and memorabilia, electronics, money, and a binder with Piserchio’s business checks inside. On the way back to Pueblo, Wilkerson stopped at a hotel to see someone, and Barnes remembered staying in the parking lot with Armijo, throwing a football they had taken from Piserchio’s home.

The group arrived back at the apartment in Colorado Springs at around 4:00 a.m. Barnes saw that Lyn-Darr had blood on the knees of her jeans. He said he and Lyn-Darr practiced signing the victim’s name in anticipation of cashing some of the stolen checks.

During cross-examination, Barnes admitted that he was a chronic liar. “That’s what I do. I lie,” Barnes said. “I always lie. Especially to cops.”

The defense noted inconsistencies between his statement and the facts. Barnes said that they took walkie talkies to pick up police radio traffic. However, the walkie talkies found in the home belonged to Piserchio and were unable to monitor police frequencies. Additionally, Barnes had said he heard screams of agony from Piserchio when he was set on fire, but the defense noted that the autopsy showed that Piserchio died of a heart attack before he was set ablaze.

Willson had been interviewed by police multiple times shortly after the murder. For the first interview, Willson went to the police station voluntarily and spent hours helping the police. During that interview, she implicated Wilkerson but did not implicate Lyn-Darr, Armijo, or Barnes. She was interviewed a second time shortly thereafter, but this time she was in custody, and the interview was more hostile. Still, she did not implicate Lyn-Darr, Armijo, or Barnes. Both of the first two interviews with Willson were recorded. Detectives then interviewed her a third time over the course of two days. Willson was again in custody. This time, however, detectives said that their recording device malfunctioned. As a result, the only record of this questioning of Willson was in a police report created afterward. And, it was only during this third interview that Willson allegedly implicated Lyn-Darr, Armijo, and Barnes. On the witness stand, she said she could not remember her statements, blaming her faulty memory on extensive drug use.

The prosecution was allowed to call a detective to testify about Willson's statements in the last interview. The detective said that, according to Willson, on the night of the crime she was using methamphetamine in a friend’s apartment with Wilkerson, Lyn-Darr, Barnes, and Armijo. She said the four left at about 11:30 p.m., and she remained behind. According to the statement, the group returned in the early morning hours. She noticed that Lyn-Darr had some blood on her jeans. Wilkerson had some jewelry with him, and Armijo had a backpack, though she did not see what was inside.

According to the statement, Lyn-Darr took some checks out of her purse and asked Willson to read them. Later, when Willson went out to Wilkerson’s car to look for clothes, she noticed a binder of checks in the front passenger seat, according to her statement. According to the detective, Willson had reported that Wilkerson was carrying a digital video recorder and a laptop computer. However, there was no evidence a laptop computer had taken from Piserchio's home.

A DNA analyst testified Wilkerson's DNA was found on at least three items of evidence and was a possible contributor to a sample of two others. The analyst said that Wilkerson was the major contributor to mixed samples from an Arizona brand iced tea bottle, a sample from a package containing a Chicago Bears T-shirt, and from the collar of a Chicago Bears jersey. The Bears paraphernalia had been recovered from Wilkerson's apartment, and Piserchio was known to be a devoted fan of the Chicago football team. The iced tea bottle had been taken from the dining room table in Piserchio's home.

A fingerprint analyst for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation testified that a fingerprint found on a bloody roll of duct tape found in Piserchio’s home had been associated with Wilkerson’s left index finger.

DePierre, who had pled guilty to theft and had been sentenced to 10 years in prison, told the jury that Wilkerson told her that Piserchio had managed to get a gun during the initial struggle and that he wrested it away and hit Piserchio over the head with it. DePierre said Wilkerson told her he set the home on fire to hide the evidence.

Although DePierre admitted she had told Wilkerson about Piserchio's wealth based on her visits to the home with the two other women, she denied having anything to do with planning to rob Piserchio a second time.

The prosecution also presented evidence that Wilkerson’s vehicle, a tan Chevrolet Blazer, had been caught on a traffic camera leaving the area of Piserchio’s home about 10 minutes after the fire alarm was triggered in Piserchio’s home.

On February 23, 2012, the jury acquitted Lyn-Darr of first-degree murder, but convicted her of first-degree felony murder and second-degree murder as well as the robbery, burglary, arson, and conspiracy charges. She was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

That same day, Armijo pled guilty to aggravated robbery in return for a 24-year prison term to run concurrently with a sentence he was serving for an unrelated aggravated robbery .

In April, Wilkerson was convicted of first-degree murder as well as the robbery, burglary, and conspiracy charges. Evidence at his trial, in addition to testimony from Barnes, DePierre, and Willson, included the same testimony from the DNA analyst and the fingerprint analyst that had been given at Lyn-Darr’s trial.

The prosecution also presented the evidence about Wilkerson’s vehicle being caught on the traffic camera.

Wilkerson was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In 2012, Attorney Eric Klein was appointed to handle Lyn-Darr’s appeal. In May 2018, the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed her convictions and sentence.

In March 2020, Klein filed a petition for post-conviction relief on behalf of Lyn-Darr. The petition said that Barnes had recanted his testimony and confession in 2019. Barnes said he was not present at the murder. Armijo also claimed in an interview that he had not been involved in the crime. And Wilkerson, during an interview in prison, said that he acted alone and that none of the others were involved.

Beginning in 2022, Pueblo County District Judge Thomas Flesher held a series of hearings during which numerous witnesses, including Barnes and Willson, testified. The final hearing was on December 5, 2024.

On February 11, 2025, Judge Flesher vacated Lyn-Darr’s convictions and granted her a new trial. In an 18-page ruling, the judge said that Barnes falsely confessed.

At the hearing, Barnes testified that his testimony at Lyn-Darr’s trial was false, as was his confession on which his testimony was based. Barnes testified that he had not been present at the scene of the homicide, that he had never been to Piserchio’s home, and that he had no knowledge of who was present.

Barnes testified that he had maintained his innocence for hours, but he was eventually worn down, and, through the detectives’ presentation of false evidence implicating Barnes in the crime, he believed the police were going make sure he was found guilty. Barnes said that at the time of the interrogation he was high on methamphetamine, and that he had not slept in weeks.

The judge noted, “Because police had falsely told Mr. Barnes that his codefendants—Ms. [Lyn-Darr], Mr. Armijo, and Mr. Wilkerson—had implicated him, Mr. Barnes felt resentment toward them and was willing to falsely implicate them. He testified that he was especially willing to falsely implicate Ms. {Lyn-Darr] because of issues from their sexual relationship.”

Barnes said that he finally learned during cross-examination in Lyn-Darr’s trial that Lyn-Darr and the others had not actually implicated him.

Barnes testified that he had formed his story of what had occurred at Piserchio’s home based on information the police provided him, including crime scene pictures they showed him.
During the hearing, two video recordings of the interrogation of Barnes were presented. The first recording was over four hours long, and throughout Barnes maintained his innocence. The recording cut off, however, “for an unexplained reason,” the judge said. “The second recording picks up sometime later. When the second recording begins, Mr. Barnes is providing details to a murder confession.”

Barnes testified that after he was charged, his defense attorney pursued a plea agreement with the prosecution. Barnes said that while his lawyer was pursuing a plea agreement, he wrote his lawyer a letter stating his confession was false. Lyn-Darr’s post-conviction attorney obtained a copy of that letter, which was entered into evidence. Barnes said he wanted his lawyer to know the truth. He said he knew Armijo was not present because he and Armijo were together in Colorado Springs at the time of the crime. Eleven days later, Barnes wrote another letter to his lawyer, telling him to ignore his first letter. He said he did so because he thought the only way to avoid a lengthy prison term was to cooperate and testify, so he could not recant his confession.

The defense presented testimony from false confession expert Richard Leo, who testified that there were numerous factors present in the interrogation of Barnes that were frequently found in proven false confession cases, including the length of the interrogation, the use of false claims that others had implicated him, sleep deprivation, and intoxication.

Armijo testified and denied he was involved in the crime.

Wilkerson invoked his Fifth Amendment right protection from self-incrimination and declined to testify. Klein then presented testimony from private investigator Nicole Terry, who said she interviewed Wilkerson at the Colorado State Penitentiary in the presence of Wilkerson's attorney.

Terry testified that Wilkerson said that he acted alone. He said there was no planter broken over Piserchio’s head and that there were no walkie talkies other than what already may have been at Piserchio's home. He said he gave Lyn-Darr the checks one or two days after Piserchio’s death because he believed that Lyn-Darr or her acquaintances knew “how to run a scam with the checks to get money. He told her only that the checks would not be good for long and that they had come from a ‘sketchy deal.’”

Willson had no memory of the events in question. She did recall that she changed from denying knowledge after the police threatened her with being charged with a crime and, since she was pregnant, would have to have her baby in prison. In any event, when interviewed by police prior to Lyn-Darr’s trial, Willson never said anything implicating Lyn-Darr beyond possession of the checks.

The judge ruled, “Importantly, there is no evidence placing Mr. Barnes at the scene. There is no DNA or fingerprint evidence connecting him to the scene. And everything about the crime that he described in his confession was either provided to him by the police, is uncorroborated by any other evidence, or is actually contradicted by other evidence. As the People acknowledge, Mr. Barnes received information from law enforcement and then expanded on it with demonstrably false details.”

On February 12, 2025, Lyn-Darr was released from prison. On May 20, 2025, the prosecution’s request to dismiss the charges was granted.

After the dismissal, Lyn-Darr filed a claim for state compensation for her wrongful conviction. In May 2026, Lyn-Darr filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city of Colorado Springs, the Pueblo County Sheriff's Department and numerous police officers.

– Maurice Possley

Posting Date: 08-22-2025

Last Update Date: 05-21-2026