Polson man sentenced for beating girlfriend to death

A 21-year-old Polson man residing in Aurora, Colo., was sentenced to prison July 12 for the brutal killing of his girlfriend last year.

According to information from Colorado’s 18th Judicial District, Dakota Chinnock was sentenced to 60 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections after pleading guilty to charges of second-degree murder and kidnapping. The punishment handed down by Arapahoe County Judge Elizabeth Ann Weishaupl includes 48 years behind bars for the homicide and 12 years for kidnapping.

His victim was 20-year-old Amanda Lynn Farley, also of Polson. Chinnock and Farley both attended Polson High School.

Court information details the grisly homicide on Sept. 5, 2021 that left Farley beaten so badly she was “unrecognizable” when officers found her dead on the floor of the apartment the two shared.

On that morning, Chinnock called police to report that he found Farley unconscious and not breathing in their apartment in Aurora, a suburb of Denver.

When officers arrived, they discovered Farley lying face up on a bedroom floor with severe swelling to her face. The investigation also revealed multiple human bite marks on Farley’s body.

When questioned by police, Chinnock suggested her death may have resulted from a home invasion. He claimed he had been drinking earlier in the night and when he woke up, the apartment was in disarray and Farley was in a pool of blood.

Investigators noted there was no smell of alcohol on Chinnock and there appeared to be no forced entry into the apartment unit.

Hours prior to Chinnock calling police, witnesses living in the complex reported hearing yelling and a female crying from the apartment, court information states.

Surveillance video obtained by detectives reportedly showed Chinnock and Farley arguing outside the apartment. In the video, Chinnock is seen grabbing an object resembling a propane tank and hitting Farley in the head with it. Surveillance footage then shows both going into the apartment and out of the camera’s view.

“The defendant brutally attacked this woman he supposedly loved, for hours,” Deputy District Attorney Lisa Gramer said in a press release. “He ended the life of his high school sweetheart, whose only real mistake was that she loved him back.”

Chinnock’s sentence is the maximum allowed for second-degree murder in Colorado.

“I cannot address the pain, the suffering, the grief and the loss that happened through Mr. Chinnock’s actions,” Judge Weishaupl said during sentencing. “There is no sentence I could give that would allow me to heal what Mr. Chinnock has done.”

District Attorney John Kellner said Chinnock “deserves to never walk the streets again.”

“He came up with a phony story of a home invasion which was easily debunked by the physical evidence,” Kellner said.

Born in Missoula, Farley graduated from Polson High in 2019 and was a member of the Lady Pirates golf team. Prior to her death, she was employed at New Horizon Academy, an early education and child care facility in Denver.