Nevada inmate charged in 1984 hammer killings near Denver
Source: NBC
AURORA, Colorado A Nevada inmate convicted of attacking a couple with an ax handle in their bedroom is being charged with killing four people with a hammer in suburban Denver over 30 years ago, authorities announced Friday.
Local and state law enforcement officials said DNA evidence ties Alexander Christopher Ewing to the slayings of Patricia Louise Smith, 50, in Lakewood and three members of the Bennett family in Aurora in 1984.
A hammer was used to kill Smith on Jan. 10, 1984. About a week later, a different hammer was used to kill Bruce and Debra Bennett and their 7-year-old daughter Melissa in Aurora. A 3-year-old daughter, Vanessa, was injured but survived.
The two cases were tied together by DNA evidence.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nevada-inmate-charged-1984-hammer-killings-near-denver-n899666
This was a pretty well known cold case. DNA does it again.
TheOther95Percent
(1,035 posts)I belong to Web Sleuths and have followed developments involving the search for the Golden State killer for about five years. I went to a gathering in CA in 2015 before the FBI got involved in the investigation. I remember one of the law enforcement officials sharing that many cops suspected the reason the GSK stopped was that he was caught and serving time in another state. The cop said that Nevada had thousands of current inmates convicted of violent crimes in the 70s, 80s and 90s and their DNA had not been loaded into the CODIS database. A lot of the investigators believe the GSK was incarcerated in NV. That turned out not to be the case.
Nevada was one of the less aggressive states in collecting DNA from its prison inmates. A Nevada law requiring DNA collection was enacted in 1989 for sex crimes. The law was amended in 1997 to allow for DNA collection from convicted murderers with collection for all felonies added in 2007. Nevada's AG said that collection in those types of cases could only happen prospectively. Under pressure from victims advocates, another AG revised that opinion to allow for DNA collection retroactively.
A forensic genealogist told the investigators that the killer's last name was possibly Ewing. The guy was locked up two states West of Colorado since 1984. Despite this Ewing's DNA was only collected and uploaded last May.
https://www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/08/codis-loophole-closing-nevada-inmate-charged-infamous-colorado-cold-case
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/crime/nevada-prisoner-to-be-charged-in-connection-to-1984-colorado-cold-case-murders
Last year an Aurora detective commissioned a sketch created by DNA profilers to show what the killer may have looked like. He also worked with a forensic genealogist who determined a possible last name for the murderer: Ewing.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)For this info.
Devil Child
(2,728 posts)Love seeing cold cases being brought to trial.