AITKIN COUNTY, Minn — Lawyers for Brian Pippitt, a 61-year-old Minnesota man who has already served more than two decades in prison, have filed court papers saying he should be released from his life sentence for murder because he’s innocent.
Attorney Jim Cousins points to a lengthy review of Pippitt’s case by the Conviction Review Unit (CRU) established by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. In a report completed last week, the CRU recommended that Pippitt’s sentence be vacated.
In a statement, Ellison endorsed the recommendation. “Our goal is to ensure that no innocent person is serving time in a Minnesota prison for a crime they did not commit," he said. It marks the first time the CRU has recommended the full exoneration of an incarcerated person, and the second time it has recommended relief based on a wrongful conviction.
Pippett was convicted in the 1998 murder of 84-year-old convenience store owner Evelyn Malin in the tiny town of McGregor, located in Aitkin County. And, until now, the state Supreme Court has upheld Pippett’s conviction.
The Attorney General’s review began more than two years ago when Cousins, an attorney for Centurion Ministries – a national non-profit that advocates for wrongly convicted inmates – presented new evidence his group uncovered.
“We determined that Brian Pippitt is completely innocent of the murder of Evelyn Malin. He was not involved in that crime whatsoever,” Cousins said.
After reviewing thousands of pages of materials and interviewing more than 25 facts and expert witnesses, the CRU agreed, recommending that Pippitt be granted post-conviction relief based on his actual innocence.
Citing that finding, Cousins - in partnership with the Minneapolis-based Great North Innocence Project - has filed a formal court petition for post-conviction relief. The Aitkin County Attorney’s Office has 20 days to respond.
“Mr. Pippitt has been wrongly incarcerated for 25 years,” Cousins said. “It is an unconscionable injustice that anyone would now block his immediate release.”
When KARE 11 contacted the office of Aitkin County Attorney Jim Ratz for comment, we were told he was out of the office.
Trial issues
At Pippitt’s trial, prosecutors argued that someone had broken into a basement window at the Dollar Lake Store where Evelyn Malin worked and lived in the back.
KARE 11 Investigates reviewed court filings and found:
- After agreeing to a plea bargain for a lesser charge, another man accused in the case testified that Pippitt and others were breaking into the store to steal beer and cigarettes.
- A jailhouse inmate testified that Pippitt had told him about the murder, saying he “helped hold her down while somebody else stuffed toilet paper or Kleenex into the lady’s mouth.” He also testified that Pippitt admitted to stealing cigarettes and beer. None of that matches the actual evidence, the Attorney General’s review concluded.
- Photos from the crime scene don’t show missing beer or cigarettes. The official autopsy didn’t report anything being found in the victim’s mouth. And experts who reviewed the broken window evidence concluded that nobody broke into the store that way.
- Experts said the window was too small for a large man like Pippitt to break in and enter without leaving evidence.
- Traces of blood originally found near the broken window turned out to be from a cat, not a human.
- Shattered glass fragments indicated the window was broken from the inside – possibly an attempt by the real killer to stage a break-in and distract investigators.
The CRU review also found the jury wasn’t told the jailhouse inmate who testified against Pippitt had requested a prison transfer in return – and has since recanted his testimony.
Another factor, according to the review, is that Pippitt’s court-appointed defense attorney was overworked, was handling his first murder trial, and failed to adequately challenge the prosecution's claims at trial. In his interview with the CRU, Pippett's attorney reportedly said he is “horrified” at some of the mistakes he made.
The Attorney General’s CRU report suggests the real murderer could still be at large, noting that “two credible suspects of Evelyn’s murder were neither fully investigated, nor fully presented to the jury by Pippitt’s attorney.”
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