Former Fremont County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Robert Dodd is scheduled to go to trial next month.
He faces four misdemeanor charges, stemming from murder evidence found in a personal storage locker that allegedly belonged to him.
It’s linked to the 2006 unsolved murder of 17-year-old Candace Hiltz, who was found shot to death in her Copper Gulch home.
Dolores Hiltz doesn’t believe her daughter’s murder will ever be solved.
"He destroyed everything," she said, referring to Dodd.
Hiltz says Dodd was one of the responding officers to the murder scene, but tells News 5 it wasn’t processed for days.
"It was untouched. Nothing was taken," she recalled.
But some of the evidence allegedly wound up in a personal storage unit belonging to Dodd.
It was discovered in late 2016 by a man named Rick Ratzlaff, who bid on the unit after Dodd defaulted on his monthly payments.
"Everywhere I go, I’m asked about it. And people are horrified," Ratzlaff told News5 on Friday.
Dodd now faces four misdemeanor charges, related to those accusations.
"He should be in jail. I want justice for ‘Candy’ and I want justice for our family," said Candace’s sister-in-law, Heather Hiltz.
News 5 wanted to hear his Dodd’s side of the story.
Before we could ask any questions, though, he left through a side door.
We caught up with him outside instead, though he did not answer any of our questions on camera.
His attorney can be heard on camera saying "wait until you hear the evidence."
News5, along with the Hiltz family, will get a chance to hear it starting June 25th–which is the first day scheduled for Dodd’s trial.
The family says they’re happy to see this case going to a jury trial.
"That’s what we’ve been waiting for for almost 12 years," said Heather Hiltz.
"Personally, I hope I get on the stand against him," Ratzlaff said in an interview, shortly after the hearing ended.
"He doesn’t scare me at all. I think he needs to pay."
The Hiltz family says even a guilty verdict won’t bring justice to Candace’s murder, but believe the trial will unseal information they’ve been in search of for years.
We will continue tracking this story, and bring you coverage on the trial next month.
