Ramsey County Courthouse in Devils Lake
DEVILS LAKE, N.D. (KFGO) – A judge has ordered a new trial for a man who has spent more than 30 years in prison for a murder in northeastern North Dakota.
Werner Kunkel was convicted in 1995 in the 1986 stabbing death of Gilbert Fassett. Fassett’s body was found on the Fort Totten Indian Reservation, now known as the Spirit Lake Reservation.
The decision, from Southeast District Court Judge Daniel Narum, comes after a two-day hearing last month where several people testified that they saw Fassett alive days after he died. There were also claims that the prosecutor at the time of the trial, who is now a judge in Devils Lake, didn’t turn over evidence to the defense as required and some critical evidence could not be located.
Kunkel, now 65, had always maintained his innocence.
On Friday, Judge Narum overturned Kunkel’s conviction and ordered a new trial.
The case was argued by the Great North Innocence Project and attorneys Bruce Ringstrom Jr. and Dane DeKrey of the Ringstrom DeKrey Law Firm in Moorhead.
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