It was unusual for Helene Pruszynski not to come home on time.
She had moved in with her aunt in uncle in Englewood for several weeks beginning Jan. 1 while working as an intern at KHOW radio in downtown Denver.
The 21-year-old woman was a senior at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass.
When she didn’t arrive when expected on the evening of Jan. 17, 1980, her relatives called the Englewood Police Department.
Helene Pruszynski, 21 (Courtesy Colorado Bureau of Investigation)
Pruszynski had established a pattern in which she would leave work at the radio station at 16th and Broadway in Denver and catch a bus at around 6:10 p.m. at Broadway and 14th Avenue. She would ride south until she got off at South Broadway and Union Avenue.
Her aunt and uncle lived on South Pennsylvania Street in Englewood, five blocks from the bus stop. She would walk home.
When she didn’t come home at all that night it was of immediate concern for the very reliable woman. The search went on through the night.
The next morning at about 9 a.m., a Douglas County resident was out for a walk when he spotted something in a field. As he got closer he recognized that what he was seeing was the body of a young woman.
The field was about 100 yards from north Daniels Park Road and nearly two miles south of County Line Road.
She was nude below the waist. Her hands were bound behind her back and she had been stabbed repeatedly.
Former Douglas County Coroner John Andrews performed an autopsy that night. The coroner’s office determined that the remains were those of Pruszynski, the missing KHOW intern.
The cause of death were nine stab wounds in the back. There was evidence that the young woman was raped repeatedly.