Witnesses said that the killer, a medium-sized man with long hair pulled back in a ponytail, advanced on Ken. As Ken retreated, his hands up in a defensive, placatory manner, he was shot to death.  The killer fled in Ken’s white Lincoln Navigator.  Chris Wright, who was convicted for the murder, had an alibi: He was asleep with his wife at the time in their downtown condo.

Chris filed his appeal, written entirely by hand and with no access to a law library.  His loved ones and friends helped him analyze the discovery materials that his counsel had provided.

No one could believe what Chris uncovered: Prosecutor Player had withheld quite a bit of exculpatory evidence (evidence that proved his innocence). Ed Brass, Chris’s trial attorney had completely mishandled the DNA evidence, botched the cross-examinations, and fell flat on his face in his close.  In fact, the DNA was so badly mishandled that instead of proving his innocence, it was counted against Chris.

The DNA evidence was taken from the steering wheel and driver seat.  It identified a profile separate from Ken Dolzsar’s and fully excluded Chris.  That’s right: the DNA evidence fully excluded Chris as the last driver of the Navigator. In fact, only the one partial, highly degraded sample taken from the armrest (recall: Chris had driven Ken’s Navigator up to Park City about two weeks before the murder) gave a probability of its being matched to Chris as 1 in 546.

It’s important to note here that this doesn’t mean that there was a 1 in 546 chance of the sample belonging to Chris.  In fact, that statistic meant that the partial, highly degraded sample matched 1 in EVERY 546 suspect samples.  In contrast, the probability statistic of 1 in 350,000 is considered the very lowest threshold for the beginnings of DNA identification.

Ed Brass, Chris’s attorney, didn’t even counter or bother to explain the “1 in 546” probability statistic.  Instead, he began the DNA portion of his closing statement by disqualifying himself from arguing DNA effectively.

“DNA, you know. I’m a lawyer. I’m not a scientist. I’m not going to do this justice.”

But Chris discovered even more evidence pointing to his innocence: DNA and fingerprints collected from Ken Dolezsar’s vehicle.  The murderer, who multiple witnesses said was not wearing gloves (recall that Ken was shot in front of a crowded Village Inn), drove away from the crime scene in Ken’s white Lincoln Navigator.  The prosecutor’s theory was that whoever drove that vehicle last was the killer.  Investigators established a valid DNA profile from the steering wheel and driver’s seta and lifted fingerprints from the car doors.  An expert verified that it wasn’t a match; in other words, Chris was fully excluded.

To put it very clearly, he was not the last person to drive Ken’s Navigator, which meant that he was not the killer.

The killer, or someone connected to the killer, also left a voicemail on Ken’s phone the day before the murder. The prosecutor alleged that Chris was that caller. But the voice on the phone didn’t sound anything like Chris’s, and he had an expert validate this in 2012. Unfortunately, none of this evidence made a difference in Chris’s appeal, which dragged on and on.

Most appeals are filed and ruled on in one or two years after a trial.  Chris’s lasted until April of 2021 – eleven full years. No one we know has ever heard of an appeal taking that long.  It was almost as if certain principalities wanted Chris to stay exactly where he was.

With Chris’s appeal going nowhere, he paid thousands of dollars to a private detective for his own investigation, lasting well into 2016. He tried every possible way to get access to those two terabytes of computer data from Ken’s computers.

The computers would presumably contain Ken’s communications up to the day before his murder, as well as evidence of payments to legal specialists and investigators whom Ken hired to get Dee Mower Dolezsar out of prison; for examples James Bruton III, who was a former Department of Justice appellate trial attorney in the tax division and who is now a private-practice defense attorney who specializes in fighting the DOJ.

The investigator also found a transcript of Dee’s prison phone calls in the days immediately following Ken’s murder. In one frantic call to her attorney, Bart Bailey, Dee demanded that he stop the police from seizing Ken’s computers.  But Bart couldn’t stop the police because, as he put it, “they’re trying to catch a murderer.”

Not to read too much into it, but what an interesting choice of article: “…a murderer” — not the murderer.

Let’s return to the one hour and forty-seven minute video of the May 20, 2008 interview at the Sandy City police station with lead detective Dean Carriger and the DA’s investigator, Vaun Delahunty, in which Dee Mower, Bart Bailey (her aforementioned attorney), and Jami Ross (one of her nieces) try fully clear Dee following Chris’s arrest.

In that video’s remaining eleven minutes, Bart Bailey dropped a bombshell of his own:

“Ken got killed, and we just put a stop on all that. Because we couldn’t tell if that was somebody trying to send us a message. But if that was what it was, we got the message. And we just stopped the investigation.”

This was the first Chris had ever heard of Ken’s investigation. Bart further clarified, “But there’s millions of dollars involved here of unreported income. Enough that could have put Tom Mower [Dee Mower’s ex-husband] certainly at concern enough, that could have put her sons Tommy and Darrick at concern — and Ken would have been aware of all this. Because Ken’s the guy that’s paying the attorneys to do the investigation.”

Bart goes on to talk about Jim Brutton, who was the head of the tax division for the US DOJ, and was being paid by Dee Mower for work related to her criminal tax conviction, and for this specific investigation.

With this new information, it became obvious that Josh Player, as the prosecutor, had simply withheld any information about Dee and Ken’s investigation and David Novak and Bart Bailey’s involvement in it. Interestingly, this blocking of computer access and hiding of Ken’s dangerous investigation aligns with Dee Mower’s interests.

If Chris had known about Ken’s dangerous investigation before his trial — i.e., if Josh Player had “played” by the rules — Chris’s whole trial strategy would have been different. He was tied to the murder scene by circumstantial evidence and an eye witness (which is totally unreliable). He was fully excluded from the crime scene by hard physical DNA and fingerprint evidence. It is not Chris’s DNA on the steering wheel, those are not his fingerprints.

The appeal, which was filed in 2011, dragged on until 2021 — a solid eleven years, which is unheard of. While he waited, Chris turned his attention to the prosecutor, Josh Player, who had criminally withheld so much evidence. Chris felt obligated to bring this supposed officer of justice himself to justice. In 2018, Chris filed a bar complaint against Josh Player. It was a bold move, which could cost Chris dearly (and it did), but Chris insisted that it was the right thing to do.