Lieutenant Timothy Muzny

Lieutenant Timothy Muzny was the supervisor of the OCPD Sex Crimes Unit and the architect of the investigation against Daniel. At trial, he portrayed himself as an impartial leader who was just let the facts speak for themselves. In fact, he said he worked just as hard to “disprove” allegations as to prove them.

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The record now shows the opposite: he assumed Daniel's guilt instantly, created a target list of vulnerable women based on “hunches,” approved fabricated police reports, destroyed key documents, and manipulated investigative procedures to ensure the case could not fail.

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1. Immediate Bias and Predetermined Guilt

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Lt. Muzny was inserted into the case on June 18, 2014, at 4:22 a.m., less than an hour after Jannie Ligons flagged down officers bypassing the on-call sex-crimes detective who was already on the scene.

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In a sworn deposition, Muzny admitted he “instantly” assumed Ligons’ complaint was connected to the unrelated Terri Morris complaint from a month earlier. From that assumption he leapt straight to the conclusion that they were dealing with a serial rapist without a single investigative step.

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Internal emails show his claim to neutrality was a facade.​ Muzny wrote that he wanted to “get rid of [Daniel] as soon as possible.”

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2. The Nonsensical “Victim” List

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Determined to manufacture a pattern, Muzny created a “List” — a handwritten set of women he instructed Detectives Davis and Gregory to pursue as potential “victims.”

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The criteria made no sense:

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• Ligons, the accuser supposedly forming the profile, had no criminal convictions and was not a prostitute.
   

• Yet Muzny restricted his target pool to women with drug charges, prostitution histories, and recent arrests.
   

• He limited the list to women Daniel had run through police databases, ignoring the facts that (1) Daniel didn't run Ligons’ name in any database and (2) real serial offenders do not exclusively target women with whom they have documented contact.
   

Most revealing: Muzny destroyed the handwritten list. He eliminated the only record that could reveal how he selected his “victims.”

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This is not investigative error. This is intentional destruction of exculpatory evidence.

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3. Approving Biased, Misleading, and Fabricated Police Reports

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Every major police report in the case passed through Muzny’s hands — and he approved them all, including:

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• The falsified report documenting the fabricated “search” for Terri Morris, which Muzny personally participated in despite the impossibility of the timeline.
   

• The deceptive report concealing why the Ligons photo lineup was prepared and then suppressed.
   

• The report omitting Shardayreon Hill’s statement that Daniel did not rape her.
   

• The report omitting Carla Raines’ repeated denials that a police officer sexually assaulted her.
   

• The report omitting Sherry Ellis’ description that her attacker was darker-skinned than her. 

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These omissions were not accidents. They were approved, sanctioned, and funneled into the final narrative by Lt. Muzny.

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4. A Results-Driven Approach to DNA: Hoping for “Matches,” Not Seeking Truth

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When the science didn’t cooperate, Muzny turned to wishful thinking — and investigative pressure.

In October 2014, two months after Daniel’s arrest and with no DNA linking any accuser to the pants, Muzny wrote an email that Adaira Gardner was the department’s “last shot” to find a match.

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Regarding accuser Kala Lyles, he wrote: “We are hoping it will be her DNA on his pants.”

 

These are not the words of a neutral investigator. They are the words of a supervisor praying for evidence to salvage a collapsing case.

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When asked in a deposition whether the DNA on the fly could have transferred through innocent touch, Muzny scoffed — and dismissed any forensic expert who suggested otherwise.

 

He wasn’t seeking truth.

 

He was policing the narrative.

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5. Manipulating Identification Procedures to Avoid Exoneration

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A clear window into Muzny’s mindset comes from his handling of the Ligons photo lineup.

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A lineup is one of the most basic, essential investigative tools. If a witness identifies someone other than the suspect, that is exculpatory evidence.

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Muzny acknowledged in his deposition that the reason he and Davis chose not to show Ligons the lineup was that they feared she might “pick the wrong person.”

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What does “wrong person” mean?  It means someone who wasn’t Daniel.

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A real investigator administers a lineup to test the witness’s reliability. Muzny says he refused to administer it to protect the case from collapsing.

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This wasn’t caution.

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This was evidence suppression.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

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Lt. Muzny’s claim that he tried to “disprove” the case was a fiction. He:

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• Assumed guilt before a single investigative step
   

• Created a target list of vulnerable women
   

• Destroyed that list to erase accountability
   

• Approved falsified and misleading police reports
   

• Suppressed exculpatory identification evidence
   

• Pressured investigators to find DNA “matches” to save the case
   

• Built an investigation designed to convict, not reveal truth
   

His supervision wasn’t neutral, professional, or investigative. It was a coordinated effort to manufacture a conviction.