Another Cold Case Solved, by jay7777

[Jay7777]

Yes!!!!!!!!!!

Hammer Man cold case finally solved:

www.denverpost.com/2018/08/10/aurora-lakewood-1984-cold-case-murders/

Cold case solved: Prisoner charged with murder after DNA matches him to brutal 1984 hammer attacks in Aurora
The horrific crimes have remained unsolved until dogged cold case detectives solved the case with the help of Colorado Bureau of Investigation crime analysts

A 57-year-old Nevada inmate has been charged with multiple counts of murder in an infamous series of brutal attacks a few days apart in 1984 involving the home-invasion murders of three members of an Aurora family and the bludgeoning of a Lakewood grandmother, according to officials during a press conference Friday morning.

Nevada Department of CorrectionsAlex Christopher Ewing

Alexander Christopher Ewing, 57, of Sacramento, Calif., is serving a 40-year prison term for two counts each of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon in Nevada. Officials say the extradition process for Ewing has begun.

Ewing faces charges of first-degree murder after deliberation, three counts of felony murder and two violent crime counts in Jefferson County for the death of Patricia Smith in 1984, according to authorities currently in a press conference. A Jefferson County district judge issued a warrant for Ewing yesterday. Jefferson County District Attorney Pete Weir said formal charges will be filed early next week.
Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler said the potential exists that Ewing could face the death penalty in the Bennett case, but he hasn’t made a decision. Weir said Ewing could also face the death penalty in Smith’s murder. An extensive evaluation, including talking to victim’s family, is needed first, Weir said.

Brauchler and Weir will file paperwork Friday asking Gov. John Hickenlooper to order extradition of Ewing from Nevada. Extradition could take anywhere from a couple of weeks to two months, depending on cooperation between Colorado and Nevada governors and Ewing’s legal actions.

A few weeks ago, Nevada uploaded Ewing’s DNA to the FBI’s national data base, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Director John Camper said. CBI had a match between him and the Lakewood and Aurora cases the next day and Camper immediately notified Aurora police Chief Nick Metz. “It sent a chill through my spine,” Metz said.

“We’ve never forgotten this case. We’ve never forgotten these families,” said Lakewood police chief Daniel McCasky. “Hopefully, this begins a sense of healing, a sense of peace and sense of justice.”

Metz met with family and victims a few days after the DNA match. “There’s been no closure,” he said.
Brauchler said 12,626 evenings ago, Bruce and Debra Bennett were celebrating the 7th birthday of their daughter Melissa. Their grandmother came over the next day and only found 3-year-old Vanessa alive.

“Today represents the first public and formal step in what will prove to be a long journey toward justice in this case,” Brauchler said.

The horrific crimes have remained unsolved until dogged Aurora cold case Det. Steve Conner got a break in the case with the help of CBI crime analysts.

“Make no mistake, DNA is what brings us here today,” Brauchler said.

“This case haunted the officers who responded that night,” Metz said. “It was a case that haunted the families and the victims to the core.”
Ewing has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder after deliberation, three counts of felony murder, attempted murder after deliberation, two counts of sexual assault using physical force, first-degree assault with a deadly weapon, sexual assault of a child and first degree burglary with a weapon, according to Arapahoe County court documents.

He is also charged with sentence enhancers including three counts of committing a violent crime causing death, committing a violent crime causing serious bodily injury and two counts of using a weapon to cause a violent crime.

In 2010, the murder of 50-year-old grandmother Patricia Louise Smith was linked by DNA to the Bennett family murders.
In 2002, former District Attorney Jim Peters obtained a John Doe arrest warrant in the Bennett killings based on DNA collected from the Bennett home. Peters charged John Doe with 18 counts, including three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of sexual assault, first-degree assault, two counts of sexual assault on a child and burglary.

Metz said that there will likely be no closure for the families of those murdered and the victims who survived.
“We hope they will feel a sense of justice and be able to heal just a little more,” he said.

Several months after the Aurora murders and rapes, Ewing entered a home in Kingman, Ariz. through an open door. He then nearly battered a man nearly to death with a boulder that weighed about 20 pounds, according to a Henderson police report.

Kingman police arrested Ewing on charges of attempted murder and transferred him out of state to another jail while he was awaiting trial. On Aug. 9, 1984, Ewing was in a Mojave County, Ariz. jail van riding through Henderson, Nev. with about 11 inmates heading to Kingman for a hearing when the van stopped at a Texaco gas station, the police report says.

Inmates were unchained for a gas station restroom break. Wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, Ewing ran into a K-Mart and changed into red shorts with a white trim, according to a Henderson police report from 1984.

That night Ewing, armed with an ax handle, snuck through the open back door of a home at 739 Racetrack Road. Christopher Barry, then 34, and his wife Nancy, then 24, were asleep. Nancy got out of bed and went downstairs to prepare a bottle for their baby, who was crying. When she saw Ewing she ran to her bedroom screaming. As Christopher Barry awoke, Ewing began beating him with the ax handle, the Henderson police report says.
Christopher Barry was knocked unconscious and would remain in a coma for a week with severe head injuries, according to a 1984 Las Vegas Journal-Review article. Nancy Barry tried to block the blows to her husband. In the process both her wrists and her arm were broken, the article said.
Nancy Barry managed to call 911 while Ewing continued hitting her and her husband. The dispatcher could hear thumps in the background during the call, the Henderson police report says. Nancy Barry climbed under her bed to escape. But Ewing kept beating her in the head until she acted like she was dead, the police report says.


A massive helicopter and foot search ensued for Ewing, who fled on foot toward Lake Mead. Two days after he attacked the Barry family, National Park Service rangers spotted Ewing making a phone call. When he saw them, Ewing took off running. A ranger caught up with Ewing and arrested him, the Henderson police report says.

An 8th District Court jury in Las Vegas convicted Ewing in 1985, the Review-Journal reported at the time.

McKasky said the Smith family planned to release a statement on Friday about the arrest.

“Justice in this case has been delayed. But I’m confident that justice in this case will not be denied,” Weir said.

[Jay7777]

So happy they caught this scumbag. Can you imagine someone poisoning your lunch at work! A sneaky serial killer who ruined a lot of lives over the last twenty years and nobody knew.

German man suspected of killing 21 co-workers by poisoning their food

www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/29/germany-poisoning-case-man-suspected-killing-co-workers/745062002/

21 people poisoned in Germany in an apparent killing spree that goes back to 2000.

German authorities launched a probe into a string of deaths at a metal fittings company after an employee was caught trying to poison a co-worker's lunch. Police found quicksilver, lead and cadmium in the man's home.

The man was arrested for the incident in the town of Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock, northwest Germany. However, police now suspect he may be responsible for up to 21 deaths of people working for the same company.

The police detained the 56-year-old suspect in May this year, after one of his co-workers noticed an unknown white powder on his food. The would-be victim alerted his superiors and asked them to review the recordings made by security cameras, which then showed the suspect adding the substance to the co-worker's lunch.

"In the beginning we thought it was a misconceived prank between co-workers, and not a murder attempt," said Tilo Blechinger, the manager for the metal fittings manufacturer ARI Armaturen, to the DPA news agency.

The case escalated to an attempted murder after authorities identified the powder as lead acetate, a highly toxic and nearly tasteless substance that could cause serious organ damage.

Police subsequently searched the home of the 56-year-old suspect and found substances used to make poison, including mercury, lead and cadmium.
On Wednesday, authorities announced they would be expanding their investigation to include the deaths of 21 more employees who have died since 2000. Two other employees are in a coma and another man is on dialysis. Many of the deceased died of cancer or heart attacks, which could be caused by heavy metal poisoning, according to the Germany's public broadcaster WDR.

The police formed a 15-member homicide squad to investigate the deaths and interview relatives of the victims and the doctors who treated them. The officials are also considering exhuming the bodies to determine the presence of metal.

The suspect has been working for ARI Armaturen for 38 years, manager Blechinger said, describing the man as "conspicuously inconspicuous." The suspect has chosen to remain silent after his arrest.

[Jay7777]

Father's Day Bank Massacre

I believe this was James King, I remember one night I was assigned duty in the Infirmary, as I was a Deputy Sheriff for City & County of Denver at the time, where not only did they put sick inmates but also high profile inmates that couldn't be held in general population. He was playing chest through the bars with trustee inmate. I still remember watching him and his behavior and was thinking by all the facts I read on the case at the time, he was without a doubt the guy. I can't believe he got away with 4 murders. But he had to of hidden all the money and his service weapon all these years and the authorities were on him like glue, so he didn't to spend any of that blood money. The Feds were just waiting to file charges on him if he slipped up but that old guys died of natural causes while the four young guards never got to enjoy life.

But in my books, this case is solved! Too bad human justice wasn't given but I am sure Mr. King didn't live a good life after that. Now he faces God's justice!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father%27s_Day_Bank_Massacre

The Father's Day Bank Massacre was a bank robbery and shooting that took place on Sunday, June 16, 1991 at the United Bank Tower (now known as the Wells Fargo Bank Building) in Denver, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The perpetrator killed four bank guards and held up six tellers in the bank's cash vault. An estimated $200,000 was stolen from the bank. Nearly three weeks later, on July 4, 1991, authorities arrested retired police officer James W. King, age 55 at the time, for the crime. The subsequent trial was broadcast nationally on Court TV. After a highly publicized trial and nine days of deliberation, the jury acquitted Mr. King. The crime remains unsolved and is considered a cold case.

From the beginning of the robbery investigation, authorities suspected that the killer was associated in some way with the bank. Investigators questioned current and former bank employees until narrowing their search to James King, a retired Denver police officer and a former guard at the bank building. Mr. King was arrested on the evening of July 4, 1991.

Denver Deputy District Attorney Bill Buckley led the prosecution against King. The prosecution contended that several pieces of circumstantial and eyewitness evidence pointed to James King's role in the crime. The arguments presented by the prosecution included that King:

Once owned a .38 Colt Trooper, the same type of weapon used in the crime, but said he disposed of it because of a cracked cylinder.

Was a former employee of the bank and thus allegedly understood the security systems.

Shaved his mustache after the crime.

Purchased a larger safe-deposit box after the crime.

After the trial, King lived what was described as "a hermit's existence" at his home at 665 Juniper Street, in Golden, Colorado. He died of dementia at a nearby hospice on May 21, 2013. His wife, who had stayed with him, died before him in 2009.

Dead, but not forgotten!

Victims:

Phillip Mankoff, age 41
William McCullum, age 33
Scott McCarthy, age 21
Todd Wilson, age 21

Let me add this:

The evidence included that five of six bank employees the killer confronted inside a “money counting room” identified King as the killer; he had shaved his mustache off shortly after the bank theft and had admitted that he disposed of his .38-caliber police service revolver.


The killer left no trace behind, retrieving all shells and wiping away any fingerprints. Prosecutors noted that King had often videotaped crime scenes. He had also admitted he was in downtown Denver that morning searching for a chess club that didn’t exist. But the ammo that killed the four guards were the most compelling evidence, Buckley said.


When Denver police sergeants handed out ammo to officers, the policemen would put them in “ammo buckets.” Over time, as the department bought different brands of rounds, the cartridges would get mixed together. When officers loaded their guns, they would be a mixture of brands.


The 17 bullets taken from the bodies of the bank guards were from four or five separate brands, Buckley said. Anyone else would normally load a gun with ammo from a box of 50 rounds of the same brand, he said.


“The one thing he couldn’t do is dig the bullets out of the bodies,” Buckley said.

[Jay7777]

I am glad this was solved. Killed because he honked at someone stopped at a green light. Could of happened to any of us!

www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/army-veteran-tried-helping-a-stranded-driver-—-a-hitman-whod-been-hired-to-kill-him-cops-say/ar-BBMYeH8?ocid=spartanntp

Army veteran tried helping a stranded driver — a hitman who'd been hired to kill him, cops say

ORLANDO, Fla. - When Carlos Cruz-Echevarria was found dead along the side of a Deltona, Fla., road in November, Volusia County detectives believed he was a good Samaritan, randomly shot as he tried helping a stranded driver.

An investigation soon revealed that the story went much deeper. The stranded driver who Cruz-Echevarria tried helping was actually a hitman hired to kill him, Sheriff Mike Chitwood said.

On Thursday, Chitwood announced the arrests of three people suspected of Cruz-Echevarria's murder. Investigators say the 60-year-old Army veteran was targeted and executed to prevent him from testifying in a road-rage case.

"I've been a cop for 32 years," Chitwood said during a news conference Thursday. "This is one of the most heinous, despicable, cowardly acts I've ever witnessed."

Cruz-Echevarria was found shot multiple times in the head near a disabled, stolen car that was stuck in the grass near Malaga Avenue and Purtian Street on Nov. 11, 2017. His truck was stolen and later found burned in Apopka, sheriff's spokesman Andrew Gant said.

The seemingly random slaying left Cruz-Echevarria's family reeling. They described him as a gentle animal lover who raised exotic birds. He made life "so much more rich and beautiful just for being himself," his niece wrote in a statement shortly after his death.

Officials say the series of events that led to Cruz-Echevarria's death began May 2, 2017. He was driving in Deltona when he honked at a vehicle that was stopped at a green light.

Deputies say the driver of the other car, Kelsey Terrance McFoley, 28, pulled up next to Cruz-Echevarria at another intersection. McFoley pulled out a gun and asked Cruz-Echevarria if he had a problem, according to authorities.

Cruz-Echevarria was able to write down McFoley's tag number. By the end of the month, investigators identified McFoley as a suspect in the road-rage case. He was arrested on June 1, 2017.

McFoley, a convicted felon with more than two dozen previous charges, knew he would have faced a severe prison sentence had he been convicted of the crime, Capt. Brian Henderson said.

Henderson said McFoley was willing to do anything to avoid prison.

On Oct. 23 - about three weeks before Cruz-Echevarria's death, McFoley's attorney filed a court notice indicating Cruz-Echevarria was set to testify against McFoley in December, authorities said. The document included Cruz-Echevarria's home address.

Henderson said McFoley hired Benjamin Bascom, 24, to kill Cruz-Echevarria. Bascom went to Cruz-Echevarria's house on Nov. 11, but he wasn't there. Bascom drove up and down the neighborhood, waiting for Cruz-Echevarria to arrive, investigators said.

"They were actually stalking the victim," Henderson said. "They were there to murder him."

While turning around in the street, Bascom accidentally got his car stuck in a ditch. A driver pulled up behind Bascom and offered to help.

It was Cruz-Echevarria.

Henderson said Cruz-Echevarria bent over to get a better look at the car - then, Bascom shot him several times in the head.

The killing went unsolved for months, and the charges against McFoley in the road-rage case were eventually dropped.

But DNA evidence linked Bascom to both vehicles, while phone records tied him to the scene of the murder and the area where Cruz-Echevarria's truck was found, deputies said. The records also indicated that McFoley spoke with Bascom on the phone and gave him instructions on how to carry out the murder, authorities said.

On Tuesday, McFoley and his girlfriend, Melissa Rios Roque - whom officials say conspired with McFoley and Bascom to commit the murder - were arrested. McFoley was captured by U.S. Marshals in Orlando. Roque was arrested by Volusia County detectives on Interstate 4.

The next day, Orlando police officers captured Bascom at Orlando International Airport, where he was about to board a plane to Texas.

All three suspects are facing charges of first-degree murder.


You read this stuff and you still can't believe it! Too many crazy people out there.

[Jay7777]

Yes, another scum-bag caught!

A serial rapist eluded police for years. Then they searched a genealogy site.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/a-serial-rapist-eluded-police-for-years-then-they-searched-a-genealogy-site/ar-AAAsJ9E?ocid=spartandhp

Authorities in California said they arrested a man they suspect is a serial sexual offender who committed a string of horrific crimes over 15 years, earning the name the “NorCal rapist.” They attributed the breakthrough in the case to DNA, drawing parallels to the Golden State Killer case that made headlines earlier this year.

Officials, including Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert and the city’s police chief, Daniel Hahn, said at a news conference Friday that they had arrested Roy Charles Waller, 58, and charged him with 12 counts of forcible sexual assault, according to the Sacramento Bee. He is currently being held without bail before his arraignment on Monday.

The NorCal rapist victimized at least 10 women in six northern California counties over a period of 15 years starting in 1991, Schubert said.

Detective Avis Beery, who has been working on the case for more than 12 years, described the NorCal rapist’s methodology: He would enter houses, usually when the victims would be asleep, then overcome and bind the women before sexually assaulting them. Sometimes he’d kidnap them and take them to an ATM to get money out of their accounts; other time’s he’d steal from their homes, Beery said. Officials said he targeted Asian women, local news outlets reported.

Waller was arrested Thursday in the city of Berkeley, where he worked at the University of California’s environment, health and safety office as a “safety specialist,” according to its website. Waller has been married and had the same job for about 25 years, officials said Thursday. None of the suspected rapes occurred in Alameda County, where the university is located.

“We were shocked today to learn that a campus employee was arrested in connection with a series of rapes that occurred over more than a decade ago in several Northern California communities,” spokesman Roqua Montez told the San Francisco Chronicle. According to the university police and the Sacramento Police Department “there is no indication that any crimes occurred within the campus community,” he said. However, the campus police will review any open sexual assault cases to determine if any might be related, he added.

Waller’s duties included “managing programs to help ensure safety and training regarding the use of equipment and machinery including forklifts, aerial lifts, respirators” Montez said.

The first attack was in 1991, when a woman was raped in Rohnert Park. Then another attack in Vallejo, and another in Martinez on Halloween in 1996, the Chronicle reported. In that case, the man wore a skeleton mask then called the victim at work less than a month later to apologize, the Chronicle reported.

Schubert said the unifying thread in the cases was the suspect’s DNA.

“For 27 years there has been one common thread, his DNA,” she said. “I have often said in my career that DNA is the silent witness to the truth.”
The arrest was reminiscent of that of Joseph James DeAngelo, who was arrested in April on the suspicion that he was the so-called “Golden State Killer,” who was wanted for raping dozens of women and killing at least 13 people in a bloody swath of crime that spanned decades in the state.

Like DeAngelo, Waller was arrested after police searched the genealogy site GEDmatch for leads. In DeAngelo’s case, officials did what’s called a familial DNA search of GEDmatch, in which they sought to find someone who was closely genetically related to him, and worked backward to find a suspect. Familial DNA searching, particularly as it relates to government-run DNA databases, has come into wider use around the country, but it raises complicated questions about whether it means that the privacy rights of people are forfeited, in effect, by the decisions made by their relatives.

It was not immediately clear if police did a familial search in Waller’s case or found his profile in GEDmatch.

(Comment: I am not sure why they posted the comment about privacy rights? Very stupid comment, privacy from what; murder, rape, other crimes. These people need to know, if you didn't do anything wrong, that there is nothing to worry about)!

[Jay7777]

Here is maybe a better web-link to the NorCal Rapist Freak!

heavy.com/news/2018/09/roy-charles-waller-norcal-rapist/

I hope Roy Waller enjoys prison!

[Jay7777]

Old one but worth mentioning again!

tucsoncitizen.com/morgue2/1996/09/25/62923-memory-of-rapist-haunts-victims/

“primetime rapist,”

Primetime scum more like it!

Memory of rapist haunts victims
by Norma Coile on Sep 25, 1996, under Tucson and Arizona

Yesterday marks the 10th anniversary of `prime-time’ suspect Brian Larriva’s death.
NORMA COILE and DAVID MADRID Citizen Staff Writers

Ten years ago yesterday, as law officers moved in to arrest him, a 35-year-old loner put a gun to his left temple and fired.
The blast put an end not only to his life, but also to the biggest manhunt in Tucson history – and to a string of rapes that had terrorized the city.
Brian Frederick Larriva, the man believed to be the “primetime rapist,” killed himself as lawofficers finally tracked him down and surrounded his home.

But the pain of his crimes didn’t die with Larriva.
For many families, the memory lives on.

A local man who was robbed by the rapist and whose daughter was raped by him said that although time has a way of healing things, 10 years later his family lives in a fortress.

When he drives alone at night, he constantly looks in the mirror to make sure no one is following him.
“The memory will be there forever,” he said. “But we don’t talk about it much.”

For this family, the brutal acts of the rapist were only a portion of the harm he did.

“He called us up and said if we reported what he did, he would see to it we were all killed, that he would even get us individually if he had to.”
For the family, that meant living in hotels for six months until the rapist finally killed himself.

The father has no doubts that Larriva was the rapist.

Investigators gave the case its name because the rapist sometimes broke into homes as families watched prime-time television in the evenings.
He often held whole families hostage, tying up husbands as he sexually assaulted their wives and daughters at gun- or knife-point.
As attack after attack occurred, the fear spread:

Feb. 5, 1984: A 41-year-old woman and her 15-year-old daughter are raped by a man who enters their home near East Speedway Boulevard and North Wilmot Road through an unlocked door. Three other people – including the woman’s 11-year-old daughter and 14year-old son – are home at the time. The family is attacked as they watch evening television.

Dec. 20, 1985: A gunman forces his way into a home near North Campbell Avenue and East River Road. He holds four family members at gunpoint, rapes a 34-year-old woman and a 5-year-old girl, then forces the husband to withdraw more than $15,000 from his bank account. The gunman flees in the family’s car, which he later abandons.

And on and on, until the rapist racks up attacks on 90 people, from children to the elderly, in 30 incidents from 1983 to 1986.
Police assigned 10 detectives to a special task force in early 1986 to hunt for the rapist.

A break in the case came when a victim saw the rapist’s face, recalls Weaver Barkman, a former sheriff’s detective who helped put together a detailed psychological profile of the attacker.

Investigators launched a media campaign to let the rapist know how much they knew about him.
“For six months, he was just bombarded with messages that `We know everything about you but your name,’ and we knew that he was terrified,’ Barkman said.

Later, investigators would learn they had come heartbreakingly close to Larriva Á without knowing who he really was.
They had visited the duplex in which he lived, interviewed his parents, run down leads virtually under his nose.

But finally, tips from informants and other information led heavily armed officers to Larriva’s home the morning of Sept. 24, 1986 – this time to capture him.

Detectives said Larriva was a loner who never married, a cocaine and crack addict who lived in Tucson most of his life and a graduate of Catalina High School. He was the “black sheep” of a good family, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik had said.
Larriva was released from state prison April 11, 1983, having served sentences for armed robbery, burglary and drug possession – but no sex crime convictions.

The prime-time attacks started just eight days later.

He was an electrician and air-conditioning mechanic whose work, while sporadic, gave him access to people’s homes.
And the majority of the attacks occurred within a two-mile radius of his home, in the 5000 block of East First Street.

Larriva arrived at his home shortly after 9 that morning a decade ago, after being out all night.
He spotted the officers through a window and came out the back door, gun in hand.
Police said they tried to talk him out of shooting himself.

Before he pulled the trigger, he said he was sorry, that he had “never really hurt anyone,” and that he did not want to return to prison.
Police believe they tracked down and cornered Larriva just a day before he had planned to skip town.

Citizen Staff Writer Joseph Barrios contributed to this report.

[tomsawyer]

Sept 6, 2018 23:31:33 GMT Jay7777 said:

Father's Day Bank Massacre

I believe this was James King, I remember one night I was assigned duty in the Infirmary, as I was a Deputy Sheriff for City & County of Denver at the time, where not only did they put sick inmates but also high profile inmates that couldn't be held in general population. He was playing chest through the bars with trustee inmate. I still remember watching him and his behavior and was thinking by all the facts I read on the case at the time, he was without a doubt the guy. I can't believe he got away with 4 murders. But he had to of hidden all the money and his service weapon all these years and the authorities were on him like glue, so he didn't to spend any of that blood money. The Feds were just waiting to file charges on him if he slipped up but that old guys died of natural causes while the four young guards never got to enjoy life.

But in my books, this case is solved! Too bad human justice wasn't given but I am sure Mr. King didn't live a good life after that. Now he faces God's justice!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father%27s_Day_Bank_Massacre

The Father's Day Bank Massacre was a bank robbery and shooting that took place on Sunday, June 16, 1991 at the United Bank Tower (now known as the Wells Fargo Bank Building) in Denver, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The perpetrator killed four bank guards and held up six tellers in the bank's cash vault. An estimated $200,000 was stolen from the bank. Nearly three weeks later, on July 4, 1991, authorities arrested retired police officer James W. King, age 55 at the time, for the crime. The subsequent trial was broadcast nationally on Court TV. After a highly publicized trial and nine days of deliberation, the jury acquitted Mr. King. The crime remains unsolved and is considered a cold case.

From the beginning of the robbery investigation, authorities suspected that the killer was associated in some way with the bank. Investigators questioned current and former bank employees until narrowing their search to James King, a retired Denver police officer and a former guard at the bank building. Mr. King was arrested on the evening of July 4, 1991.

Denver Deputy District Attorney Bill Buckley led the prosecution against King. The prosecution contended that several pieces of circumstantial and eyewitness evidence pointed to James King's role in the crime. The arguments presented by the prosecution included that King:

Once owned a .38 Colt Trooper, the same type of weapon used in the crime, but said he disposed of it because of a cracked cylinder.

Was a former employee of the bank and thus allegedly understood the security systems.

Shaved his mustache after the crime.

Purchased a larger safe-deposit box after the crime.

After the trial, King lived what was described as "a hermit's existence" at his home at 665 Juniper Street, in Golden, Colorado. He died of dementia at a nearby hospice on May 21, 2013. His wife, who had stayed with him, died before him in 2009.

Dead, but not forgotten!

Victims:

Phillip Mankoff, age 41
William McCullum, age 33
Scott McCarthy, age 21
Todd Wilson, age 21

Let me add this:

The evidence included that five of six bank employees the killer confronted inside a “money counting room” identified King as the killer; he had shaved his mustache off shortly after the bank theft and had admitted that he disposed of his .38-caliber police service revolver.


The killer left no trace behind, retrieving all shells and wiping away any fingerprints. Prosecutors noted that King had often videotaped crime scenes. He had also admitted he was in downtown Denver that morning searching for a chess club that didn’t exist. But the ammo that killed the four guards were the most compelling evidence, Buckley said.


When Denver police sergeants handed out ammo to officers, the policemen would put them in “ammo buckets.” Over time, as the department bought different brands of rounds, the cartridges would get mixed together. When officers loaded their guns, they would be a mixture of brands.


The 17 bullets taken from the bodies of the bank guards were from four or five separate brands, Buckley said. Anyone else would normally load a gun with ammo from a box of 50 rounds of the same brand, he said.


“The one thing he couldn’t do is dig the bullets out of the bodies,” Buckley said.

I totally agree with you. King was guilty. He got away with murder.

[Jay7777]

Kind of just an updated post to my earlier Colorado Hammerman but and interesting read:

They were looking for the East Area Rapist -- but found a Colorado serial killer suspect instead

www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/they-were-looking-for-the-east-area-rapist-but-found-a-colorado-serial-killer-suspect-instead/ar-AAAB4VC?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=HPDHP

[Jay7777]

He died in 1999 but at least some cold cases are solved:

www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/police-dna-links-3-deaths-to-killer-who-died-in-1999/ar-BBNYAVQ?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=HPDHP


Police: DNA links 3 deaths to killer who died in 1999

ST. LOUIS — An Arkansas man who killed himself during a 1999 police standoff at a Missouri motel was a killer and rapist who strangled a South Carolina woman in 1990 and gunned down a Missouri mother and daughter eight years later, authorities said Friday.

Advancements in DNA testing enabled investigators to link the three killings and the 1997 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Memphis, Tennessee, to Robert Brashers, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said. Brashers, a Paragould, Arkansas, man who had a long criminal record, killed himself during a four-hour standoff at a motel in Kennett, a city about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Paragould in an area of southeastern Missouri that's wedged between Arkansas and Tennessee.

"Make no mistake about this gentleman: He is a serial rapist and a serial killer, but no more," New Madrid County, Missouri, Sheriff Terry Stevens said at a news conference.

Brashers killed Genevieve Zitricki of Greenville, South Carolina, in 1990. She was beaten and strangled in her bathtub, authorities said. The year after he raped the Tennessee girl, Brashers killed Sherri Scherer and her 12-year-old daughter, Megan, in their home near Portageville, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) southeast of St. Louis. He also sexually assaulted Megan, police said.

The standoff in which Brashers killed himself began when Kennett police sought to question him in a stolen license plate investigation. He was not a suspect in the killings or the rape case at the time.

Police gathered DNA evidence over the years that linked the crimes, but it wasn't until earlier this year that a private company helped make the connection to Brashers. Investigators hired Parabon NanoLabs, whose technology combines DNA testing and genetic genealogy analysis. The company's testing indicated that the DNA was from Brashers.

Because he was dead, investigators obtained DNA samples from Brashers' relatives. That DNA evidence led authorities to exhume Brashers' body last week to take DNA from his corpse that was matched to DNA found at the crime scenes.

Stevens said that even 20 years later, he never considered the Scherer killings a cold case — his officers were constantly investigating and re-investigating leads "because it was too important to this family and the community of Portageville."
Anthony Scherer returned from farm work on March 28, 1998, and found the bodies of his 38-year-old wife and his daughter on the living room floor. They had been shot.

Less than three hours after the killings, a man stopped at a home in Dyersburg, Tennessee, asked the woman who lived there for directions and then tried to force his way inside. He shot her in the arm during a struggle, but she survived.

Ballistics testing showed that the same gun was used in both crimes. But DNA at both crime scenes lacked the markers necessary to place the information in a national database known as CODIS, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

DNA technology improved and in 2006, the crime scene DNA was entered into the CODIS system, producing a match to the April 6, 1990, killing of Zitricki, who was 28 when she was strangled. Her body was found April 6, 1990, in her South Carolina apartment after failing to report to work.
In May 2017, another DNA match was discovered, linking the same suspect to the rape of a 14-year-old girl in Memphis on March 11, 1997. Police said the attacker knocked on the door of a home, pulled out a gun and pushed his way inside.

The patrol said Brashers had a long criminal history that included a 1986 conviction for attempted second-degree murder, along with burglary, impersonating an officer and unlawful possession of a weapon. He also was arrested in Paragould in 1998 for trying to break into a woman's home.

[MJP]

This is one of my favourite threads on this board. It's always good to see justice catching up with people.

Thanks Jay7777 for all the posts.

[Jay7777]

Thank you MJP!

Here is another one for you, though it was solved a while ago, this rotten apple was finally sentenced!

8-time serial killer gets death penalty for murders in Orange, Riverside, San Diego counties

www.ocregister.com/2018/10/05/eight-time-serial-killer-gets-death-penalty-for-orange-riverside-and-san-diego-murders/

An eight-time serial killer was sentenced to death Friday for murdering five women more than two decades ago in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties.

For the third time, Andrew Urdiales, now 53, received the death penalty, this time for killing Robbin Brandley in 1986 in a Saddleback College parking lot in Mission Viejo, and for the murders over the following seven years of Julie McGhee, Tammie Erwin and Denise Maney in Riverside County and Mary Ann Wells in San Diego.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregg L. Prickett said the “repulsive crimes of violence” that Urdiales committed were to “satisfy his own lust and anger on those weaker than himself.”


The judge sentenced Urdiales to consecutive death penalty sentences for each of the five Southern California victims, explaining that he believed no victim was less deserving than the others and that even if the sentence for one of the murders was overturned on appeal, the others would remain.
Urdiales, during a halting speech in which he paused repeatedly to quietly confer with his attorneys, offered an apology to the dozen family members and supporters of the victims sitting silently in the courtroom gallery.

“To the victims’ families, I express my condolences for their loss,” Urdiales said. “I’d like to express my sincere apologies for what happened.”
Urdiales also thanked his attorneys and prosecutors, apologized for the “very graphic and very gory” nature of the trial and said he understood why jurors had decided to convict him and recommend the death penalty.

“If I was a juror in my case, I probable would have done the same thing,” Urdiales said.
Minutes earlier, Charles Erwin, father of victim Tammie Erwin, had ended his victim impact statement to the court by solemnly naming each of the eight women killed by Urdiales.

“The defendant not only killed my daughter, but he killed me inside,” Erwin told the judge. “He tore my family apart.”
Jennifer Asbenson, the only known woman to escape Urdiales, in a remote Riverside County desert in 1992, told the judge that she still has nightmares about her near-fatal ordeal, saying it “is surreal to be standing here, because I imagined I was going to be chopped up and left in that desert.”

“I forgive you for what you did to me,” Asbenson told Urdiales. “That does not mean what you did was right, not one bit. That is not because you don’t deserve the death penalty, because we all know you do.”

Urdiales, shortly after his 1997 arrest, confessed to carrying out the Orange County killing while stationed as a U.S. Marine at Camp Pendleton; the four murders in Riverside and San Diego counties while stationed at Twentynine Palms; and three slayings in Chicago in 1996 while working as a security guard after leaving the military.

Urdiales’ attorneys unsuccessfully sought to have the death penalty taken off of the table, noting that he was born with brain damage from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a result of his mother drinking during her pregnancy.

During his trial, the defense attorneys told jurors that Urdiales’ childhood in Chicago was marked by emotional, physical and psychological abuse, while his teenage years in Burnham, Ill., saw him targeted for relentless harassment and attacks by his peers.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy, one of two prosecutors in the trial, previously described Urdiales as a “misogynistic, sadistic monster” who “genuinely deserves to die for what he has done.”

Said District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, who attended the hearing: “When you think about this case and you think of the serial killings and the terrible things that happened and you see the defendant and who he is, it is hard to even think of him as a person.

“The death penalty is the right thing for him,” the district attorney said. “He does not deserve to be on the planet with the rest of the people.”
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Asbenson and Erwin both said they didn’t believe Urdiales is truly sorry for anything he has done.
“It’s not closure, it just feels like it is a second chance in life with the antagonist gone,” Asbenson said.

“It’s a relief, a new life to start,” Erwin added. “It’s been a long time coming. My heart right now is pounding out of my chest. But I was here every day in court, I wanted him to know I was here, I wanted him to know that someone cared for all these women.”

Urdiales was previously sentenced to death for the Illinois killings of Laura Uylaki and Cassandra Corum, then again for the murder of Lynn Huberand. But those death-penalty sentences were commuted, first by the then-governor of Illinois, then when the state abandoned the death penalty.
Within 10 days, Urdiales will be transferred from the Theo Lacy jail facility in Orange to San Quentin State Prison.

[Jay7777]

Another one solved too bad the bad guys is already dead, back in 2002 in fact.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/suspect-identified-in-cold-case-kidnapping-rape-murder-of-arkansas-woman-officials-say/ar-BBPcObC?ocid=spartanntp

Suspect identified in cold case kidnapping, rape, murder of Arkansas woman, officials say


It's been nearly 30 years since Pam Felkins was kidnapped from her job at an Arkansas video store, raped and then murdered -- but authorities announced Monday they may finally know who killed her.

The Faulkner County Sheriff's Office revealed DNA evidence has identified Edward Keith Renegar as the primary suspect in the 1990 slaying. Renegar died from natural causes on Sept. 5, 2002, in Salt Lake City.

"In light of this new evidence, this investigation is ongoing and will continue," Sheriff Tim Ryals said at a press conference.

Felkins, 32, was kidnapped Feb. 2, 1990 from a video rental store in Greenbrier, Ark., located about 40 miles northwest of Little Rock. Her body was found the next day at a dump site in Faulkner County, where authorities determined she was raped and "violently murdered."

The only evidence that could possibly ID her killer was semen found on Felkins' body, according to the sheriff's office.

Ryals said over the years, DNA tests were performed on "numerous persons of interests" with negative results.

In March of this year, however, the sheriff's office announced investigators were using “Snapshot DNA Phenotyping” for the first time in hopes of tracking down the killer. A composite photo of a potential suspect was released in hopes of generating local leads, but it did not generate any.

"As far as an investigating technique, it was a very good one but it actually just wasn't enough," Director of Arkansas State Crime Laboratory Kermit Channel told FOX16. "So we continued on from there to do actual genealogy work."

Officials recently used the DNA recovered from Felkins to run a genealogy test and family-tree building technique to identify Renegar as the primary suspect.

"It is with 99.99% accuracy that it is Edward Keith Renegar’s DNA that was collected as evidence from Pam Felkins during the initial investigation," Ryals told reporters.

The sheriff's office said that investigators collected DNA from Renegar’s biological daughter, which also confirmed a 99.99% match with the DNA found on Felkins.

Besides being a frequent visitor to the video rental store the 32-year-old was abducted from, Renegar lived near the dump site in Greenbrier and also had a history of sexual assault and abuse of women, according to the sheriff's office. The sheriff office's said that Renegar drove a red 1984 B2200 Mazda Pickup with a white camper shell. He also drove a mustard yellow, long-wheelbase Ford pickup, a small gray car, and a Ford LTD.
In July 1994, he was convicted of kidnapping a "young, small frame lady" in Cleburne County, Ark. who was "fortunate enough to escape his grasp," according to Ryals. At the time of that incident, Renegar was armed with a knife and bound his victim.

After serving a 10-month sentence in north Arkansas, he was released from prison in May of 1995.

After living in Faulkner County from the late 1980s to early 1990s, he attended welding school in 1995 at Spartan College of Aeronautics Aviation and Technology in Tulsa, Okla. after his release

Despite his death, investigators are working to collect evidence in the case and the sheriff is asking for anyone who knew Reneger to come forward.
"You may not know a thing, you may know something you don't realize you know, so we would love to be able to speak to anyone who had a relationship with Mr. Renegar," the sheriff said.

[looking4justice]

LOVE This thread jay7777!!

[looking4justice]

Here's another scumbag who thought he was footloose and fancy-free, biting the dust!!

Jerry Lee, arrested two days ago in Alabama for the murder of 28 y/o Laurie Ann Smith in 1997

www.11alive.com/video/news/1997-cold-case-solved-by-use-of-advanced-dna-matching/85-8300578