Senior Deputy District Attorney John Kellner isn’t daunted by cold cases with seemingly little evidence.

Consider:

• A 1996 murder case in which the body of a mother of two young girls has never been found.
• The discovery that a woman’s body had been moldering in a Rubbermaid container left outside on a porch between 2002 and 2005.
• The knowledge that three street thugs were getting away with murder after gunning down a Sudanese refugee they mistook for a rival gang member on Christmas night 2011.

Other prosecutors reviewed the evidence collected by police in each of those cases and decided there wasn’t enough to file charges.

But years later, Kellner took on each of them and won convictions every time.

“If these were easier-to-prove cases they would have been already,” 18th Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler said Wednesday.

Brauchler said he first noted Kellner’s potential when Kellner was a student of his at the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General School at the University of Virginia. The Marine Corps was the “steroids” Kellner built his career on, Brauchler said. He hired Kellner in 2013 and assigned him to run the office’s first-ever cold-case unit.

Kellner’s accomplishments in a short span have been noted outside Brauchler’ office. The Colorado District Attorney’s Council last month awarded Kellner the group’s highest honor, the Robert R. Gallagher Award, or “prosecutor of the year.”

Kellner and colleagues won trial convictions in numerous cold cases between 2013 and 2016, including the following five:

• Michael Medina beat his 19-year-old wife Kimberly “Kimmy” Greene-Medina with a baseball bat and buried her alive in 1996. Her body has never been found. Medina was convicted in November 2013 and sentenced to life in prison.
•  James Mercedes Fennell, then 25, fatally shot 28-year-old Juan Miranda-Hernandez, 28, a betrothed Aurora man, on Halloween night 2010 in his home.  Fennell was convicted in August of 2014 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
• Edgar Ibarra-Rodriguez, then 26, shot and killed innocent bystander Humberto Bautista in a drive-by shooting outside Club Fuego Fuego in 2013. Ibarra-Rodriguez was convicted in July of 2016 and is serving life in prison.
• Jon David Harrington murdered his roommate, Carolyn Jansen, in 2002, stuffed her body in a Rubbermaid container and toted her decaying remains around like luggage. The body was found in 2005. Harrington was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison in September of 2015.
• Devon Grant-Washington, Brandon Jackson and Amin Elhoweris were involved in a fatal shooting of Sudanese refugee  Youn Malual, 43, outside the apartment he shared with his wife and five children after working until 3 a.m. Dec. 26 cleaning Regional Transportation District buses. It was a case of mistaken identity. Each defendant is now serving life prison sentences.

Kellner said he believes his military background prepared him for taking on cold cases.

He was a JAG prosecutor at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, Calif., northeast of San Diego, between 2006 and 2011. He also deployed to Marjah, Afghanistan, with the Regimental Combat Team 7 as the deputy JAG in 2010. He often was put in the role of both investigator and prosecutor. Frequently Kellner was the one who interviewed witnesses and suspects in all types of cases from drunken driving bar brawls or desertion, to attempted murder and rape.

“The Marine Corps teaches you to be a problem solver, not just a problem identifier. Marines are taught that when you run into a roadblock, you don’t quit, you find another way to accomplish the mission. And I think it’s that problem-solving mindset that helps in prosecuting cold cases — because there are challenges at every turn, from faded witness memories, lost evidence, to reluctant witnesses,” Kellner said.

So far, Kellner has not encountered that case-saving evidence that typically drives cold case prosecutions, like a DNA link to a suspect. Most of the cold cases have been solved through people, he said. It could be that a killer’s spouse or friends who no longer feel compelled to stay silent out of allegiance to him. He seeks those sources himself or asks detectives to circle back to sources who had been uncooperative.

“I could not have prosecuted any of these tough cases to a successful conclusion without the support of George and this office or the incredible tenacity and hard work of the detectives who have been pursuing justice for the victims far longer than me,” Kellner said.

Brauchler said when Kellner began running the cold case unit he first reached out to detectives in all law enforcement agencies within the 18th Judicial District in Elbert, Arapahoe, Lincoln and Douglas counties. They identified 200 cold cases — homicides and missing persons cases.

Together, they identified the most promising ones. In many instances, detectives told him they already had collected enough evidence to charge, but couldn’t get prosecutors to file. Kellner said he’ll never charge someone he wasn’t convinced was the killer, but he is less worried than some prosecutors about the possibility of acquittals.

Prosecutors will nit-pick a case to death and talk themselves out of filing, often arguing that if they lose they can never refile charges, he said. But at some point detectives have collected as much evidence as they are ever likely to find. In the interest of justice to victims, their families and society, charging a suspect is the right thing to do.

“I’m not concerned that if I lose a case I’m going to lose my job,” Kellner said.

A Colorado man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a murder charge in the 1970 cold case rape and slaying of a woman in east-central Utah, prosecutors say.

Thomas Edward Egley was taken into custody in Colorado in August on a warrant for the slaying of Loretta Jones, according to Utah’s attorney general. A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said he pleaded guilty on Tuesday to second-degree felony murder.

He faces a penalty of between 10 years and life behind bars at a Nov. 22 sentencing.

Egley is 76 years old and was living in Rocky Ford, east of Pueblo, at the time of his arrest, court records show.

According to The Associated Press, charging documents say Egley was an original suspect in the 23-year-old woman’s death, but a judge found there wasn’t enough evidence against him and dismissed the case.

Egley is accused of killing Jones in Carbon County, Utah, 45 years ago in a case that was reopened in 2009 by a sheriff’s investigator there. Prosecutors say Egley confessed.

“We’re grateful for the hard work that Carbon County investigators put into solving this 45-year-old cold case,” Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said in a statement at the time of Egley’s arrest in August. “I hope this arrest brings some measure of closure to the family, even after all these years.”

Buena Vista police and Colorado Bureau of Investigation crime analysts have solved a 39-year-old murder mystery by identifying who fatally stabbed a 17-year-old girl.

The killer was a 15-year-old California boy identified only by his initials, C.K., because he was a juvenile in 1977 when he allegedly murdered Audrey Marie Elizabeth Hurtado of Trinidad, authorities announced during a news conference Tuesday afternoon in Buena Vista.

Hurtado was visiting a sister who lived in Buena Vista in the summer of 1977 when she was murdered.

On July 28, 1977, Hurtado told her sister that she was going for a walk with a boy. She never returned.

Two days later her body was discovered in a field south of the Cottonwood Creek Cabins, 351 Waters Ave. She  died of stab wounds.

Chuck Campton, who was police chief at the time, supervised an investigation in which 80 suspects were vetted. Salida police and Chaffee County deputies exhausted every lead at the time.

C.K.’s own family eventually gave the tip that would lead to him.

At the time, C.K. and his family were staying with relatives who lived only a block away from Hurtado’s sister.

A week before the stabbing, C.K. stole a knife from a local gift and sporting store. When his family saw him with the stolen knife they made him return it to the store before the murder happened.

But on the day of the murder, someone stole another similar knife from the same store. Investigators would determine that the same style  knife was used in Hurtado’s stabbing.

Investigators questioned C.K., but there was insufficient evidence to justify an arrest. Four years later, in 1981, C.K. was killed in a motorcycle accident.

Campton collected biological evidence from the victim and packaged it in a way that would enable DNA comparisons more than 30 years later. Among the evidence he saved were scrapings from underneath Hurtado’s fingernails.

But the case remained unsolved.

In May 2009, CBI’s cold case unit reopened the case after CBI Agent Jeff Schierkolk met with Buena Vista Police Chief Jimmy Tidwell. They submitted additional items for crime analysts at the CBI forensic laboratory to analyze.

DNA samples were taken from family members of C.K. and two were compared to the evidence.

“The results indicated there was a match identifying C.K. as the murderer,” authorities said.

Schierkolk and fellow CBI agent Russ Hoffman continued re-interviewing witnesses.

Their findings were presented to the district attorney, who determined the case was “exceptionally cleared.”

Schierkolk and Hoffman met with Hurtado’s relatives and explained how the laboratory results identified her killer.

PRICE, Utah — A 76-year-old Colorado man who was charged four decades after police say he fatally stabbed a 23-year-old Utah woman was sentenced Tuesday to serve 10 years to life in prison.

Thomas Edward Egley, of Rocky Ford, told a judge in the east-central Utah city of Price on Tuesday that he has “always expressed remorse” for the killing of Loretta Jones in 1970.

Jones was sexually assaulted and stabbed 17 times in the front room of her home. Her then-4-year-old daughter discovered her body.

Egley pleaded guilty in October to murder as part of a deal with prosecutors, who dropped a rape charge, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

The woman’s daughter Heidi Jones-Asay, now 50, remembered as a child peering through a keyhole, then walking into a front room of their home and seeing blood everywhere when she found her mother.

In court Tuesday, she said she was terrified as a child that Egley would return to the home and kill her or someone else in the family. She also recalled her mother as a “sweet, kind, and loving young woman,” according to KUTV.

Egley’s lawyer David Allred said his client didn’t know that the girl was in the next room on the night of Jones’ murder.

Decades after the killing, Jones-Asay urged police to take another look at the case and try to solve it. Seven years ago, she reached out to a former schoolmate who was a Carbon County Sheriff’s Deputy, and asked him to try to solve her mother’s murder.

Sheriff’s Sgt. David Brewer began investigating and this summer, the sheriff’s office exhumed Jones’ body to look for DNA evidence.

Investigators found new witnesses who were willing to come forward and zeroed in on Egley, who confessed to a neighbor.

He was an original suspect in Jones’ killing, but a judge dismissed the case against him decades ago after determining there wasn’t enough evidence.

When Jones’ body was exhumed, he asked a neighbor “how long DNA evidence and semen lasted,” according to charging documents. The neighbor urged him to confess to investigators and arranged a meeting with Carbon County investigators in Colorado.

In July, he admitted to investigators that he killed Jones. He gave a more detailed confession to the neighbor several days later, where he said he killed Jones after she declined to have sex with him.

His ex-wife later told police that on the night of Jones’ death, her husband bathed with all his clothes on and acted unusual the following day. Another woman told police she witnessed Egley burning his clothes outside a laundromat the day after Jones’ killing.

Egley was arrested in August at his Colorado home and brought to Utah.

Authorities in El Paso County have released a reconstruction of an unidentified man whose remains were found 30 years ago in an area south of Colorado Springs.

The county sheriff’s office believes the body had been there as many as four years before it was found in November 1986 roughly four miles west of Interstate 25 in the Midway Ranch area.

Investigators say pieces of Calvin Klein denim jeans size 30/33, a bluish/green colored sweatshirt and a one inch-wide brown leather belt were found with the remains. No identification was found.

The remains are believed to be those of a white man who was 30 to 40 years old and stood about 5 feet, 6 inches tall.

Can you help identify John Doe? https://t.co/nPi2xv1Z4f pic.twitter.com/SuIItZW2FA

— EPCSheriff (@EPCSheriff) December 6, 2016

“The forensic investigation determined the remains had been in place from one to four years,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release. “The odontologist concluded that the subject had a deep overbite and no dental restorations. The Calvin Klein denim jeans were manufactured in 1981.”

Over the years, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office has searched through missing persons files in several jurisdictions in hopes of identifying the man, but to no avail. Two forensic sculptors have created two reconstructions of the man’s likeness, one being completed in 1987 and the other this year.

Anyone with information on the man’s identity is asked to call Det. Jeff Nohr at 719-520-7225.

The brother of JonBenét Ramsey has filed a lawsuit seeking $750 million against CBS Corp., saying the broadcast company produced a fraudulent documentary that slandered him by accusing him of striking and killing his sister with a flashlight in 1996.

Burke Ramsey’s lawsuit was filed Wednesday in 3rd Circuit Court in Wayne County, Mich., by Atlanta attorney Lin Wood on Ramsey’s behalf. It claims CBS slandered him during a prime-time, four-hour documentary Sept. 18-19.

The defendants in the case also include Critical Content LLC, a California programming studio; former FBI profilers Jim Clemente, James Fitzgerald and Stanley Burke; forensic expert Laura Richards; former Boulder district attorney’s investigator A. James Kolar; forensic scientist Dr. Werner Spitz; and celebrity pathologist Henry Lee.

The program, “The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey,” was released as the 20th anniversary of the 6-year-old beauty queen’s death in Boulder was approaching. It was viewed by more than 10 million people, the lawsuit says.

Ramsey, who was 9 when his sister was killed, is seeking $250 million in compensatory damages and $500 million in punitive damages. Ramsey, now 29, lives in Charlevoix, Mich.

“CBS and Critical Content knowingly and intentionally published false and defamatory statements conveying that Burke killed JonBenét, engaged in a criminal coverup with his parents and lied to the police,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit said the documentary was laced with inaccurate information, including claims that DNA evidence taken from JonBenét’s underwear and pajamas was worthless.

“CBS perpetrated a fraud upon the public — instead of being a documentary based on a new investigation by a so-called team of experts, ‘The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey’ was a fictional crime show,” the lawsuit says.

CBS promoted the “fraudulent” series by claiming it had assembled seven independent “world renowned” investigators to investigate the case from scratch. However, the show was based on a “self-published” book by Kolar, “Foreign Faction.” Kolar had worked for former Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy when he took over the Ramsey investigation in 2005, the lawsuit says. It was his first homicide investigation, it says.

Instead of assembling a team of independent experts, the team gathered people who shared Kolar’s theory about Burke Ramsey, the lawsuit says. Kolar already had met Spitz and Lee while he was writing the book. Kolar also had presented his “rejected” theory to Fitzgerald, a member of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit in 2006.

Clemente and Stanley also had worked with Fitzgerald for the FBI behavioral unit and are now co-workers at a company called X-G Productions LA, which consults on and produces fictional crime films and TV shows, including “Criminal Minds,” “The Closer” and “NCIS,” the lawsuit says. Although Richards was described as a criminal behavioral analyst trained by New Scotland Yard and the FBI, she also works for X-G Productions. Defendants knew before their “complete reinvestigation” that they would accuse Burke Ramsey of killing his sister, the lawsuit says.

Kolar also was touted as a world-renowned criminal expert in the show, it says. The fact that he wrote “Foreign Faction” was not disclosed in the series, the lawsuit says. Spitz was described as a forensic pathologist who consulted on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. But federal judges have referred to Spitz as “not useful or credible” and said his opinions were “simplistic and preposterous,” the lawsuit says.

“Defendants knew that the majority of the … theories presented in the documentary were taken from ‘Foreign Faction’ and did not, as represented to the public, result from a complete reinvestigation by new experts,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants created the illusion of a new real-time reinvestigation by using individuals with law enforcement credentials as actors to play the role of the pseudo-experts and support and act out the accusation of Kolar’s book and the basis supporting its accusation.”

Kolar’s theory that Burke Ramsey killed his sister was viewed as early as 2006 by members of Lacy’s office as “ludicrous,” “total smoke and mirrors” and “speculation based on hearsay,” the lawsuit says. His employment at the office ended shortly after his presentation of the theory in 2006, the lawsuit says.

“No evidence suggesting Burke’s involvement in JonBenét’s death has ever been discovered and, because he is innocent, does not exist,” the lawsuit says. “As far back as 1998, law enforcement authorities responsible for the JonBenét Ramsey murder investigation have repeatedly, publicly and unequivocally cleared Burke Ramsey of any involvement in the death of his sister.”

The lawsuit says Burke Ramsey has no prior history of criminal conduct, sexual abuse, drug abuse, alcohol abuse or any type of violent behavior. It says while Burke was sleeping at his home in the early hours of Dec. 26, 1996, his sister was “brutally tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered.”

The CBS program identified Burke Ramsey as his sister’s killer despite a long history of detectives and prosecutors in the case making public disclosures that he was never a suspect, the lawsuit says.

“There was no evidence developed prior to or during the law enforcement investigation and the grand jury investigation that in any way links Burke to the killing of his sister or that caused the Boulder PD or the Boulder DA to consider him a suspect in the investigation of her murder,” the lawsuit says.

The CBS documentary followed earlier reports by the supermarket tabloids Star and Globe and the New York Post that speculated Burke Ramsey was the killer. The Globe had reported that after showing signs of disturbance including that he “smeared feces in his bathroom” the “squirrely” child killed his sister. Ramsey sued the Globe, the Star and the New York Post in 1999 and 2000 for libel. He later received settlements in each of the lawsuits, the lawsuit says.

CBS spokesman Dustin Smith declined to comment on the lawsuit, The Associated Press reported.

The lawsuit says Burke Ramsey is a private citizen and has never attained the status of a public figure, which is relevant in a slander claim.

After decades of silence, Burke Ramsey came forward only this year after he learned CBS was working on a documentary that identifies him as a suspect in his sister’s death. He granted one interview to Dr. Phil McGraw from the “Dr. Phil” show.

The lawsuit includes a long list of facts that dispute the theory that any member of the family was involved in the murder, including DNA from an unidentified male found under JonBenét’s fingernails and on the crotch of her underwear. Although the CBS program indicated JonBenét’s death was caused by the flashlight strike, the autopsy report said the cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation with the garrote associated with craniocerebral trauma, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit says there were fingernail abrasions and scrapes near where the garrote was embedded in JonBenét’s neck, indicating that she was struggling with her attacker, the lawsuit says. Wood fragments from a paintbrush used to create the garrote were found in JonBenét’s vagina, it says. Her hymen was injured during the sexual assault, causing her to bleed onto her underwear.

The lawsuit quotes the forensic experts who appeared in the CBS documentary including Clemente as telling various newspaper reporters that the show reaches a conclusion about who killed JonBenét. Clemente was quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald as saying it “explains who did what to whom and when and how.” Fitzgerald proclaimed, “we solved it,” during a promotional campaign, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit says CBS CEO Leslie Moonves and Glenn Geller, president of CBS Entertainment, were presented an opportunity to review a large notebook of exculpatory information regarding Burke Ramsey before airing the documentary, but they declined.

On Oct. 6, Burke Ramsey filed a separate $150 million lawsuit in the 3rd Circuit Court in Michigan against forensic pathologist and CBS media expert Werner U. Spitz. The lawsuit cited statements Spitz made in a Sept. 19 CBS Detroit radio program that also were used in the CBS TV miniseries.

Colorado Springs police say their cold case unit has used DNA evidence to identify a dead man as the person responsible for killing a 19-year-old woman in 1972.

Craig Brame, who was then serving in the U.S. Army out of Fort Carson, is believed to have fatally stabbed Deborah Lynn May.

“Recent advances in DNA technology led the Colorado Springs Police Department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit to re-submit DNA evidence belonging to the alleged suspect for testing,” police said in a Thursday news release. “DNA testing identified the person as Craig Brame.”

Investigators say Brame was an acquaintance of May’s boyfriend who was stationed alongside him at the Mountain Post.

Brame died on April 29, 2004, but police say DNA evidence, together with decade’s worth of investigative work, convinced investigators and the El Paso County district attorney that he was responsible for May’s slaying.

Police say May had recently moved to Colorado Springs from Kansas City, Mo., when she was stabbed to death. She was found dead in a bed at her apartment on the 700 block of North Cascade Avenue, just south of Colorado College’s campus.

Authorities say during their investigation into the killing, biological samples were collected from over a dozen people and numerous polygraphs were conducted. One unidentified person was even charged, police say, though the allegations were eventually dropped because of a lack of evidence.

Police say forensic evidence has led them to uncover the man responsible for killing a 56-year-old businesswoman in Colorado Springs in 2010.

Investigators believe Robert Quillen is the person who shot Yong Glenn to death on March 8, 2010, at her tailoring shop — Yong’s Tailor Shop and Cleaners — on the 3800 block of Maizeland Road.

Police say after Yong’s killing, her vehicle, a tan or gold 2001 Nissan Pathfinder, was stolen.

“In March 2016, the Colorado Springs Police Department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit was notified after someone attempted to register Ms. Glenn’s vehicle in California,” police said in a Thursday news release. “As the investigation progressed, Cold Case Investigators identified Robert Quillen as the driver of the vehicle in California.”

Authorities say they learned that Quillen had committed suicide shortly before the vehicle surfaced.

“Forensic analysis of the firearm used in Mr. Quillen’s suicide matched that of the firearm used to murder Yong Glenn in 2010,” the release said.

Police say firearm evidence, and other evidence recovered from the vehicle and information gathered since Yong’s murder, convinced investigators and prosecutors that Quillen was responsible for her death.

CORRECTION: This story was updated at 7:43 a.m. Jan. 20, 2016 to correct the spelling of Yong Glenn’s last name.

Rick Ratzlaff opened the abandoned Cañon City storage shed that he had just bought for about $50 and discovered more than he had bargained for: an ax, a blood-stained rope and bloody socks inside a manila envelope marked “Evidence.”

“That’s when I knew it was bad — really bad,” Ratzlaff said.

Ratzlaff’s discoveries — evidence from a cold case murder of 17-year-old Candace Hiltz — led to the suspension of a sheriff’s lieutenant who had previously rented the storage shed, triggered an investigation by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and emboldened the victim’s mother, Delores Hiltz, to speak openly about her long-held belief that the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office grossly bungled the investigation into her daughter’s murder — and possibly covered it up.

The mishandled evidence also freed Hiltz from worries that her own mentally ill son, James, could be charged with murder in the 2006 death of her daughter, a threat that has been hanging over her since that day she discovered the body of her nearly decapitated daughter crammed under a bed.

“We have lived under 10 years of (expletive) because he was the scapegoat. We’ve been waiting for this break,” Hiltz said. “It became clearer and clearer that this was a police cover up and we have been living a nightmare.”

The December discovery of evidence from Candace Hiltz’s murder case in a storage unit rented by sheriff’s Lt. Detective Robert Dodd infuriated Delores Hiltz, and she refuses to remain silent about her daughter’s death.

The “theft” and hoarding of evidence — including bloody clothing, an ax and a blood-stained rope — in 17-year-old Candace Hiltz’s murder case is so telling, her mother said, that she no longer fears her son will be framed. Hiltz now points an accusatory finger back at the sheriff’s office, saying that at the least they bungled the case. She comes just short of accusing deputies of being involved in her daughter’s death.

“(Dodd) had to steal the evidence from the basement of the sheriff’s office. He did that either to protect himself or someone else,” Hiltz said.

The 11-page autopsy report appears to support Hiltz’s assertion that at least two people and possibly three were involved in her daughter’s murder. She said Fremont County authorities have known for 10 years that multiple people were likely involved, but they still call her son a suspect, knowing that he lived in the woods because of his severe phobia of people.

Sheriff Jim Beicker did not return several phone messages seeking comment, but he has previously said Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents are reviewing the circumstances of the misplaced murder evidence. CBI spokeswoman Susan Medina also declined to comment.

The evidence was discovered after Dodd fell behind on his rental fees for a storage unit at Dawson Ranch Mini Storage, which is west of Cañon City. The owner said he auctioned the contents after Dodd paid him with a bad check.

Ratzlaff, a former street racer who has had his run-ins with Beicker and his deputies for years, bought Dodd’s belongings inside the storage shed for about $50 at a Dec. 17 auction.

When Ratzlaff later entered the storage unit, he picked through furniture and toys before he saw unusual items including a stack of about 15 blue-and-red emergency lights taken from squad cars. He also found brown sheriff’s deputy uniforms, some with Dodd’s name tag, and boxes of court documents.

He got suspicious when he saw large envelopes with “Evidence” printed on them. One contained a rope with a red stain on it. Another envelope contained socks that appeared saturated with blood.

Word spread slowly from Ratzlaff, to a Cañon City police officer, to Dodd about the items. Dodd’s family called Ratzlaff and tried to buy the items back, but Ratzlaff declined, he said. When Beicker heard about the find, he met Ratzlaff at the unit.

The sheriff warned Ratzlaff that his life could be in danger, Ratzlaff said. While he was looking around the shed, Beicker pointed to a backpack and said it was linked to the case. The sheriff refused to touch the green backpack, but asked Ratzlaff to pick it up and look inside. It held Candace Hiltz’s blood-stained shirt, Ratzlaff said.

The evidence now is in the hands of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

The discovery reinforced Hiltz’s misgivings about the deputies involved in the investigation from the start, she said.

On Aug. 10, 2006, a deputy drove to Hiltz’s Copper Gulch home and questioned her about her son James, a trespassing suspect. Candace Hiltz, who stood near her mother during the conversation, became increasingly upset at the tone of the deputy’s inquiry and ended up shouting at him. When he threatened to arrest her, Candace Hiltz held out her wrists and told the deputy she had seen him accepting envelopes from known drug dealers. Livid, the deputy stormed out of the house.

That was “Candy Girl,” Hiltz said, using her daughter’s nickname. “She had a ton of spunk.”

Though she was a teen mother, Candace Hiltz was about to graduate from Brigham Young University through an online program. She hoped to enroll at Stanford Law School and dreamed of one day becoming a U.S. Supreme Court justice, Hiltz said.

Three days after the verbal confrontation, the Hiltz family discovered their dog’s body in the woods behind their house. He had been tied to a tree with the blood-stained rope and killed with an ax. Both items were later found in Dodd’s storage unit.

Two days later, on Aug. 15, 2006, Delores Hiltz left at noon to run errands. When she returned home at 3:30 p.m., she found blood spatter and pooled blood “all over” the house. But she couldn’t find her daughter, who had stayed home to care for Paige, her 11-month-old daughter.

Hiltz heard her granddaughter screaming and ultimately found her daughter stuffed under a bed, wrapped in a green quilt. About 75 percent of her head was gone. “I held her hand,” Hiltz said.

In the days and weeks that followed, Hiltz became increasingly worried about the direction of the investigation. Detectives appeared to be focused on her son, James, repeatedly asking who he had been hanging out with.

Hiltz explained the paranoia that forced her son in and out of the Colorado Mental Health Institute. He was terrified of being with his sister and eight brothers, let alone being with anyone else, Hiltz said. When asked who her son’s buddies were, Hiltz said: “No one. It’s impossible.”

An autopsy and blood spatter in the home revealed that Candace Hiltz had been shot almost simultaneously from the front and back.

One shotgun shell struck her on the bridge of her nose and exited the back of her head. Five small-caliber bullets struck her in the back of the head. A medium-caliber bullet apparently from a third weapon struck her heart.

The sheriff’s officers have long considered James Hiltz a suspect in the case, even though he doesn’t own a gun and investigators found no evidence tying him to the crime, Hiltz said. Two years later, James Hiltz was found not guilty by reason of insanity in an unrelated burglary and sent to the state hospital.

“How could one man shoot at the same time from two different directions? How could a totally broken man not leave any evidence?” Hiltz asked.

In the days after her daughter was killed, Hiltz said she became increasingly frustrated with sheriff’s office missteps. Officers failed to protect the crime scene by putting up crime tape, and investigators left the door open.

After the sheriff’s office finished processing the scene, Hiltz found a shotgun shell in her granddaughter’s crib, bullet shells near the fireplace and the blood-drenched quilt her daughter had been wrapped in. A computer monitor stained with her daughter’s blood and used to prop the bed up was left behind. Towels apparently handled by a suspect also were left, and family members found a bloody shirt that Candace had been wearing near the house.

Hiltz and one of her sons bought a Rubbermaid container, placed all the evidence inside and took the items to the sheriff’s office.

Over the years, prosecutors and Beicker have attended James Hiltz’s progress hearings and argued against his release from the mental hospital, saying he is a suspect in his sister’s death, Hiltz said.

Now Hiltz hopes CBI investigators will retest all the evidence and consider other possible suspects.

The Army has released a state-of-the-art phenotype image of a man suspected in the Colorado Springs killing a young Fort Carson soldier in 1987.

Investigators used the suspect’s DNA profile to predict or decode his physical appearance and ancestry — in a process called phenotyping — in order to reveal what he looked like at the time of the slaying and likely looks like now.

The images were released on Monday, 30 years after the slaying as the Army announced a $10,000 reward in the case.

Army Spc. Darlene Krashoc, 20, was found dead in the early morning hours of March 17, 1987, in the rear parking lot of what was then-called the Korean Club Restaurant on the 2700 block of South Academy Boulevard.

Colorado Springs police and Army investigators say Krashoc was an active duty soldier stationed at Fort Carson and assigned to the 73rd Maintenance Company. She was five months away from turning 21.

Reward Offered in 1987 Homicide https://t.co/qRiK2qVHIY pic.twitter.com/kKldUVTzxZ

— Springs Police (@CSPDPIO) March 13, 2017

The night before her body was found, Krashoc went to a nearby club with some members from her unit where she spent the evening drinking and dancing. She was seen leaving the nightspot between midnight and 1 a.m., and her body was found at 5:30 a.m. by Colorado Springs police officers.

“After a thorough crime scene examination, collection of evidence, and hundreds of interviews, the case went cold,” Colorado Springs police and the Army said Monday in a joint news release. “In 2004 and 2011, the investigation was reopened for laboratory testing and an unknown DNA profile that genetically types as male was located on several pieces of evidence.”

That DNA evidence was used to create the phenotype image.

Investigators believe the DNA belongs to a man who was about 25 years old at the time of the killing, making him between 50 and 55 now.

Do you know this man? Army CID believes he killed a Fort Carson soldier 30 years ago. Help them find him. https://t.co/DOnlLOpRxH pic.twitter.com/LXQwlvwJq8

— Michelle Tan (@MichelleTan32) March 13, 2017

The Army cautions “it is important to note that the composites are scientific approximations of appearance based on DNA, and are not likely to be exact replicas of appearance. Environmental factors such as smoking, drinking, diet, and other non-environmental factors — e.g., facial hair, hairstyle, scars, etc. — cannot be predicted by DNA analysis.”

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command at 1-844-Army-CID or 571-305-4375. Tipsters can also e-mail information to Army.CID.Crime.Tips@mail.mil.

Tips can also be submitted to the Colorado Springs Police Department at 719-444- 7000 or Pikes Peak Area Crime Stoppers at 719-634-7867.

The murder of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements remains unsolved nearly four years after he was shot to death, but investigators say the case is still open.

El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder told reporters last year that the Clements investigation was coming to a conclusion, but he backtracked on that after other law enforcement agencies expressed concerns.

“The case is still open. We follow up on leads as we get them,” Elder’s spokeswoman Jacqueline Kirby said Monday.

Elder told a group of journalists on Aug. 3: “I’m confident we will come to a conclusion soon.”

Friday marks the fourth anniversary of the March 17, 2013 murder by parolee Evan Ebel of 27-year-old Commerce City father Nathan Leon. Ebel used Leon’s pizza uniform as a disguise to kill Clements at his Monument home two days later. Authorities investigated the possibility that Ebel was acting on orders from a white supremacist prison gang, the 211 Crew.

Elder has previously said “Evan Ebel stood on the doorstep and killed Tom Clements alone,” and added that making the leap that there was a conspiracy is not supported by evidence.

Elder’s comments have been in contrast to statements by other law enforcement officials and his predecessors in the sheriff’s office.

The Denver Post reported in May 2016 that Texas Rangers had named possible co-conspirators in Clements’ murder. The report also tied numerous members of the 211 Crew by text messages and phone records to the case, and indicated DNA from a third murder victim from Colorado Springs was found on a pipe bomb taken from Ebel’s car trunk. Ebel was killed in a shootout with Texas lawmen on March 21, 2013.

The Rangers’ investigation concluded that the hierarchy of the 211 Crew ordered Ebel to kill Clements. The Texas Rangers, U.S. Secret Service and the FBI linked hundreds of phone calls between Ebel and 211 Crew leaders in the days before and after the killings. Several members of the 211 Crew subsequently were incarcerated on parole violations for being in contact with Ebel in the days before and after the murder.

Two weeks after the newspaper report, Elder announced that he was in the process of closing the Clements investigation. Gov. John Hickenlooper declared shortly afterward that he and other state investigators had met with Elder and that for the time being the investigation was going forward.

Officials from two or three agencies expressed concern about Elder’s decision to close the murder investigation.

On Monday, Kirby said that is why the murder investigation remains open.

An 84-year-old murder fugitive wanted in connection with the 1977 shooting death of a man in downtown Denver has been returned to Colorado following his capture in Texas, authorities say.

Benito Soto is charged with one count of first-degree murder for the shooting death of Armando Garcia. The charge was originally filed in September 1977.

The charge alleges that on the night of June 21, 1977, Soto shot and killed Garcia at the Denampa Bar on Larimer Street, according to a news release by Ken Lane, spokesman for the Denver District Attorney’s Office.

Soto was identified as the killer at the time of the shooting and a warrant was issued for his arrest, but he fled Denver and the case went cold because his whereabouts remained unknown.

After the fugitive unit of the Denver Police Department discovered Soto was living in Texas, the Denver District Attorney’s Cold Case Unit re-opened the case.

Crucial witnesses were re-interviewed and Soto himself was interviewed in Texas by a Denver police cold case detective and a Denver district attorney cold case investigator. Soto was returned to Denver earlier this month.

This is the oldest case the Denver DA’s Cold Case Unit has prosecuted to date.

Soto is being held without bail at Denver city jail. A preliminary hearing in the case has been scheduled for April 21.

John Sandoval, whose first-degree murder conviction in the death of his estranged wife was overturned last year, led investigators to her remains in exchange for a plea deal.

The remains of Kristina “Tina” Tournai Sandoval have been exhumed from where he buried her beneath a grave in Sunset Memorial Garden cemetery where a World War II veteran was later interred. She was found inside a wrapping 21 inches below the bottom of the grave.

Sandoval on Friday pleaded guilty in Greeley District Court to second-degree murder. He will serve 25 years in prison and five years on parole. His sentence was dated back to August 2010 when he was convicted of first-degree murder.

Sandoval, 52, was to face a second trial this week in the Oct. 19, 1995, murder of Tina Sandoval.

Tina Sandoval’s mother Mary Tournai had reported her missing that day after she didn’t return from a planned meeting with Sandoval.

“She would have continued to make a difference in the world if she had not been killed by her husband,” Tournai said in a statement during the plea and sentencing hearing Friday.

The case went cold despite extensive circumstantial evidence pointing to Sandoval, a convicted peeping Tom.

Tina Sandoval was neither seen nor heard from again, according to a news release by Terasina White, spokeswoman for District Attorney Michael Rourke. 

“If I can’t have you no one else can,” said Rourke, referring to Sandoval’s reasoning for killing his wife.

In June 2009, Rourke’s predecessor, Ken Buck, filed first-degree murder charges against Sandoval. A jury convicted him in August 2010.

In March 2016, the Colorado Court of Appeals overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial.

Sandoval, dressed in a black suit, apologized Friday and expressed his “condolences” to the family.

But Rourke said Sandoval remained silent for 22 years and only disclosed the whereabouts of his wife’s remains so he could avoid spending the rest of his life in prison. Prosecutors referred to Sandoval as a perverted stalker and murderer.

“We finally know where Tina is and we can finally lay her to rest the way she deserves,” said her sister, Mary Nerud, 39. “John — you are a murderer.”

According to a family statement, her parents and siblings wrestled with the idea of a plea agreement, which ultimately would mean Sandoval could be released from prison.

“Would our decision to accept a plea deal endanger another woman? Could we live with a longer sentence knowing we would likely never recover Tina?

“We urge all women who are victims of stalking or domestic violence to separate themselves from the immediate danger and to reach out for help,” the statement says.

Three weeks before the second trial was to begin, Sandoval’s attorneys approached Rouke’s office about the possibility of a plea agreement. Their offer: He would lead investigators to his wife’s remains in exchange for a lighter sentence.

Rourke’s office contacted family members about the proposed agreement, which was later reached on March 23.

That same day, Sandoval led authorities to Sunset Memorial Garden cemetery in Greeley and the grave of WWII veteran Arthur Hert. His grave had been one of three that had been dug and were still open on the day Tina Sandoval disappeared, Rourke said.

“At the moment I looked down and saw we were dealing with the remains of a World War II veteran, I about passed out,” he said.

Hert’s family in Casper, Wy., was contacted and within 90 minutes, Hert’s son went to the police department and signed a release to allow his father’s grave to be exhumed. Another burial ceremony for Hert was held the following day by Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Rourke said police had received tips that Sandoval had worked at the same cemetery in 1995 and again in 2005, and tipsters had flagged Hert’s grave. But authorities did not attempt any exhumations then.

“For 7,826 days, 3 hours and 22 minutes, the location of Tina’s remains has been a mystery,” Rourke said during the plea agreement hearing. “One that has haunted her family and the investigators who worked this case from the minute it was reported, and the community as a whole. While the original conviction served to hold this defendant accountable for the atrocious act he committed, the lingering question as to her whereabouts cast a shadow over this prosecution. Over the course of the last week, we have finally been able to give her family what they so desperately wanted. Tina has been returned to her family and may finally be laid to rest.”

Her family plans a private burial service for their daughter.

Pueblo police on Thursday morning served a search warrant at the family home of Kelsie Schelling’s former boyfriend, who has long been implicated in the pregnant Denver woman’s 2013 disappearance during a trip to meet him.

Sgt. Eric Gonzales, a Pueblo police spokesman, said investigators scoured a home on the 5100 block of Manor Ridge Drive on the city’s south side.

Gonzales said the family of Schelling’s ex-boyfriend, Donthe Isiah Lucas, once lived at the home.

“They no longer live there,” Gonzales said.

Investigators excavated areas of the home’s backyard searching for undisclosed items. A photo showed a swarm of police working at the home.

BREAKING: Pueblo Police are searching the home of Kelsie Schelling’s former boyfriend. She was last seen with him 4 years ago, never found. https://t.co/Ur9nZFIU8M

— Lena Howland (@LenaHowland) April 13, 2017

Schelling was 19 years old when she disappeared under suspicious circumstances on Feb. 4, 2013. Lucas has been called a person of interest in her disappearance.

Schelling was on her way from Denver to meet Lucas in Pueblo when she went missing. A video camera at a Pueblo Walmart recorded her car as it was driven into the store’s parking lot at 12:05 a.m., the next day. Schnelling took the trip to show Lucas an ultrasound image.

Schelling’s vehicle was parked and left at the Walmart. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation says an unknown man came back and picked up the car, at black 2011 Chevrolet Cruze LTZ, which was later found on Feb. 7, 2013, at St. Mary Corwin Hospital.

“A surveillance video showed the vehicle arriving in the parking lot on Feb, 7, 2013, and an unknown person walking away,” CBI says on its cold case page about Schelling’s disappearance.

Schelling has not been found. Her family sued Lucas and Pueblo police in 2015.

Search Warrant Executed in Schelling Case
For Details: https://t.co/48Ztjtl4tR#ppdnews #pueblonews pic.twitter.com/paF3cxH0Ie

— Pueblo Police Dept (@PuebloPolice1) April 13, 2017

Gonzales said he wasn’t sure Thursday morning when the last search warrant was served in the case. It wasn’t clear what investigators were looking for at the home on Manor Ridge Drive.

Police said in a news release that they were “looking for any evidence that may help in the investigation, which is ongoing.” Authorities didn’t say if anything related to the case was found.

“This is an ongoing investigation,” Gonzales said. “They’ve been doing a lot of stuff. They’ve never stopped investigating this.”

A 57-year-old man has been arrested and charged in the 1992 cold case sexual assault of a woman in Commerce City.

The Adams County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday that Dionicio Ramos-Ascencio was taken into custody on several counts of sexual assault, attempted first-degree murder, assault and burglary.

Ramos-Ascencio is accused in the attack on a woman at her home on the 7200 block of East 60th Avenue on July 26, 1992.

“According to the charging documents, the victim was stabbed in the neck, beaten and sexually assaulted,” the district attorney’s office said in a news release. “The attacker fled.”

Ramos-Ascencio was arrested May 9, authorities say, after DNA collected in a Denver felony case this year matched DNA collected from the victim in 1992.

Ramos-Ascencio was formally advised of the charges against him on Friday in Adams County District Court. A preliminary hearing is set for May 31.

Prosecutors say he is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Jesus Benavidez stayed in Denver after breaking up with the mother of his child rather than return home to Texas, because he wanted to be a father to the now 2-year-old girl.

The decision may have cost him his life. Last month, Benavidez, 26, was shot to death in his apartment near the University of Denver.

Luckily, his daughter, Thalia, wasn’t spending the night.

Benavidez moved into the Trivium Apartments about a year ago, and the little girl spent every weekend with him. He stayed in town, “because he wanted to be there for her,” said his father, Larry Benavidez.

Benavidez was a free spirit who threw himself into anything he did, his father said.

He studied to be a barber in Corpus Christi, Texas, and “he wanted to be a barber to the stars,” his father said.

He was outgoing, well-liked, and sociable, and there was never any sign that he was involved in drugs, or anything illegal, Larry Benavidez said.

Even if he was, and someone went to his home to rob him, what cause would they have to kill him, wondered his dad, a retired police officer who lives in Hebbronville, Texas, said.

Benavidez stayed close to his father, texting and calling him often. “I was talking to him on the phone, an hour before they killed him,” Larry Benavidez said.

“When me and his mom got divorced, I got custody. He was my baby. I changed his diapers, and I raised him, and buried him at the family cemetery,” he said. “I was the one who shoveled dirt on him in the hole. He just shouldn’t be gone.”

He is concerned that the murder investigation has fallen through the cracks. Denver police investigators haven’t been returning his phone calls for information, he said.

“I’m not calling over there about a murder I’m curious about, it was my son,” Larry Benavidez said. “Somebody killed him.”

Denver police spokesman Doug Schepman said the homicide investigation is still active, and police are waiting for results of some forensic testing.

Anyone with information should call Crimestoppers at 720-913-7867, Schepman said.

Investigators are asking the public’s help in solving a murder that happened 20 years ago this month in southern Colorado.

The body of Deborah Reid was found on Aug. 14, 1997, under a bridge about 16 miles east of Walsenburg, according to a Colorado Bureau of Investigation news release. Reid, from Las Animas, was 34 at the time.

She was reported missing, by her sister and her ex-husband on Aug. 4, 1997, after failing to show up at her job at the Bent County Corrections Facility. She had made a phone call Aug. 3 from a La Junta gas station, her last known whereabouts.

The CBI said the cause of Reid’s death is unknown because of severe body decomposition, but investigators believe she was murdered.

Homicide investigators are looking for new information in this cold case.

“Deborah was a mother of two young girls and someone who was well-respected in the community,” said CBI Agent Kellon Hassenstab. “My hope is that someone will provide that key piece of information that will help us solve this case and bring justice to Deborah and her family.”

Anyone with information on Reid’s disappearance, her death or a possible suspect is asked to call Hassenstab at 303-239-4312.

A 52-year-old man was convicted Friday by a Denver jury of kidnapping and sex assault.

Albert Matthews was arrested in July on a cold case dating back to October 1999, according to the Denver District Attorney’s Office. DNA evidence lead to his arrest and conviction.

On Oct. 11, 1999, Matthews invited the victim, a 44-year-old woman who was estranged from her abusive husband, to stay with him. While walking to his home Matthews attacked the victim, forcing her through an alley and into a backyard where he assaulted her.

The case was unsolved until March 2015, when Matthews was identified by Denver police as a suspect based on a DNA match. After further investigation by Denver’s cold case unit Matthews was charged.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Sept. 22 in Denver District Court.

Kelsie Schelling went to visit her boyfriend in Pueblo after he asked her to come down from Denver. She never returned. Years later, her family is still looking for her.

Kelsie was 19 years old and eight weeks pregnant when she went missing on Feb. 4, 2013, her mother Laura Saxton said. She had driven down to Pueblo to meet her boyfriend Donthe Lucas and show him an ultrasound. Lucas has been called a person of interest in the case.

Kelsie was spirited, strong willed and had a contagious laugh. She also had beautiful eyes and a beautiful smile, Saxton said.

“We just want to find her,” she said. “We’re not giving up on finding her even though we’re getting close to five years.”

The Saxtons were one of the families who attended Missing in Colorado, a Saturday event hosted by the Longmont Department of Public Safety and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to give families resources and the opportunity to meet with others in similar situations.

Crime Stoppers, the Boulder Coroner’s Office, Colorado Forensic Canines, Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System were among the organizations present.

Those organizations help families in their search in different ways.

FOHVAMP analyzes cases and gives families suggestions on what to do next. NamUs is a database for both families and law enforcement to put up information about missing people that can be cross referenced against each other. Colorado Forensic Canines will aid in missing person and cold cases for free.

Binders of information on some unidentified remains were available for people to see whether they matched their loved ones. Artists who make clay sculptures and sketches based on remains were also present. There was a luncheon reserved for just families so people can lend support to one another.

Beyond resources and support, the event was also to remind people that there are many people missing in Colorado, CBI analyst Audrey Simkins said.

A majority of reports for missing people are runaways who return the following Sunday or Monday, she said.

“It’s those that don’t return who we need to focus our attention on,” she said.

Some families had loved ones who had disappeared this year, she said. Others have had loved ones missing for 10, 20, 30 years. This event was an opportunity for them to learn from one another.

As time goes on, people forget about those who have gone missing, Saxton said. She was glad Missing in Colorado and Colorado Missing Persons Day, both in their second years, “give the family at least two days in the year for their loved ones to be remembered.”

A 70-year-old man has been arrested in the 1999 murder of an Arapahoe County prosecutor whose death was staged to look like a suicide.

Robert Williams was arrested Tuesday for investigation of first degree murder in the death of Rebecca Bartee, 41.

The tip funneled through KCNC-Channel 4 investigative reporter Brian Maass led investigators to new evidence, including the identification of the alleged killer, according to a news release from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office.

Bartee was a deputy district attorney in the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office when she was murdered in her apartment, according to a Wednesday sheriff’s office news release.

Williams and Bartee were living in the same apartment complex in the 6500 block of South Dayton Street when her body was discovered on June 7, 1999.

Williams was still living in the same complex when he was arrested. Williams has been booked into the Arapahoe County Detention Facility.

“We, along with the victim’s family, are thankful someone came forward with new information, even after 18 years,” the news release says.

The arrest affidavit has been sealed.

However, The Denver Post previously reported the case as part of a series of cold case profiles.

Officials have previously said that the killer had staged the murder to look like a suicide.

A pill bottle holding anti-depressant medication was set on the edge of the bathroom sink next to the nearly overflowing tub of water where the body of Bartee was found. Her head was submerged near the drain.

Just as the bathtub was filled nearly to the rim, a glass of red wine was filled to the brim and left on a small table in the living room, her relatives told the newspaper. There were no lip marks or fingerprints on the glass. An autopsy later revealed there was no wine in her body. Authorities also did not discover any wine bottles in the house.