El Dorado County has paid a $3.25 million settlement to a man who spent 15 years in prison for a cold case murder he did not commit.
The Sacramento Bee learned of the settlement for Ricky Davis, signed in April 2025, through a California Public Records Act request. The settlement is one of six agreements the county signed in 2025 and 2026 so far, records show.
The county declined to comment on the settlement specifically but spokesperson Carla Hass did answer questions about how the county pays for legal settlements. Unlike Sacramento County, El Dorado County is not self-insured, Hass said.
“The county has a reimbursement agreement with a risk pool, PRISM, which provides reimbursement for amounts the county spends in excess of its self-insured retention of $1 million,” Hass said in an email. “Under the reimbursement agreement, the County fully satisfied the settlement amount to Mr. Davis in June 2025 and PRISM has reimbursed the County $2.25 million for the settlement amount in excess of the county’s $1 million obligation.”
PRISM is one of the largest shared municipal risk pools in the state.
Ricky Davis, who was exonerated and released from prison in 2020, sued the county in federal court in 2022. He alleged police fabricated evidence and coerced his then-girlfriend to tell investigators that Davis had killed Janet Hylton in 1985.
Hylton was found fatally stabbed 29 times in an El Dorado Hills home. At the time, she and her 13-year-old daughter were staying at a friend’s home amid marital issues with Hylton’s husband. The homeowner’s son, Davis, then 20, and his girlfriend, Connie Dahl, then 19, were also living there.
The lawsuit says Dahl and Davis returned to the house at around 3:30 a.m. and found the daughter outside the front of the house.
When Davis and Dahl discovered Hylton’s body, stabbed 29 times with a bite mark, they called 911, the suit says. The investigation later determined Green’s DNA was on Hylton’s clothing and under her fingernails.
During the original investigation in 1985, then-Sheriff’s Office forensic pathologist Robert Anthony did not note the time of death in the autopsy, or note that the victim had been moved after she was killed — a staged crime scene, the suit alleged.
It became a cold case.
When the Sheriff’s Office investigated the case again in 1999, then-sheriff’s detectives Rick Fitzgerald and Richard Strasser interviewed Dahl four times over 18 months, the suit alleged.
“Dahl first denied any involvement in the crime,” the suit alleged. “But over the course of these multiple prolonged and intentionally coercive interrogations designed to inculpate Dahl and Davis regardless of the truth, Dahl eventually claimed that Davis had killed Hylton.”
Dahl, who has since died, took a plea deal in exchange for her testimony against Davis and pleaded to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. She was sentenced to one year in prison.
The suit also alleged Fitzgerald and Strasser changed Davis’ 1985 interview transcript to add that Davis said he picked up Hylton’s body. The detectives also met with Anthony to add a time of death that supported their case against Davis.
Ricky Leo Davis is released from custody and hugs mom Maureen Klein, right, and another family member at the El Dorado County Jail after he was exonerated in the 1985 murder of Janet Hylton on Thursday, Feb 13, 2020 in Placerville. DNA evidence used to exonerate Davis led police to arrest another suspect Tuesday. Paul Kitagaki Jr. pkitagaki@sacbee.com
Since Davis’ conviction in 2005, DNA technology has advanced, especially at the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office crime lab. Testing showed DNA from Hylton’s nightgown, as well as a bite mark on her skin, that did not match Davis.
Superior Court Judge Kenneth J. Melekian threw out the conviction in 2020, freeing Davis. Days later the El Dorado District Attorney’s Office charged another man, Michael Eric Green, with Hylton’s murder. Green’s DNA matched the DNA found on Hylton’s nightgown and bite mark.
According to the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office, Green was convicted in 2022 and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison and is incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison. According to CDCR records, Green could have a parole suitability hearing as early as December 2028.
“Justice has been served, but it took too long, and some awful mistakes were made in the past to get to this moment,” El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson said in announcing Green’s sentencing nearly four years ago. “I have personally apologized to Ricky Davis and also want to say we are sorry to Jane Hylton’s family for the mistakes in handling this case in the past.”
Pierson, who worked with the California Innocence Project to help exonerate Davis, vowed to spearhead a national campaign to overhaul interrogation techniques.
“This case has been a game changer,” Pierson said at the time. “It has forced me to push back against some long-held interrogation practices among investigators and has set me on a path toward changing the way our office and prosecutors across the country find the truth using a better, scientifically proven method. We need to make changes now so that false confessions don’t lead to any more innocent people getting wrongfully imprisoned.”
In the Davis settlement, lawyers received $2.6 million from the settlement while Davis would be receiving $647,785 in periodic payments, according to court documents.
The suit also named Anthony, as well as former detectives Fitzgerald, Strasser, Larry Hennick and Bill Willson, through his estate, as defendants sued in their individual capacities.
It’s the second known settlement in the Sacramento region in 2025 to a man who spent years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Sacramento County last year paid $8.25 million to Jeremy Puckett who spent 19 years in prison for homicide. Both cases were taken on by the Northern California Innocence Project.
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Theresa Clift is the Regional Watchdog Reporter for The Sacramento Bee. She covered Sacramento City Hall for The Bee from 2018 through 2024. Before joining The Bee, she worked for newspapers in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. She grew up in Michigan and graduated with a journalism degree from Central Michigan University.