Aurora police seeking to solve four 1984 murders have released a composite image created based on the DNA of a killer who slaughtered an Aurora family and murdered a Lakewood woman.
An unidentified killer left his DNA behind at 16387 E. Center Drive on Jan. 16, 1984, when he fatally stabbed and bludgeoned Bruce Bennett, 27, raped and fatally bludgeoned his wife, Debra, 26, and fatally stabbed and beat his daughter, Melissa, 7. The killer also shattered the face of a second Bennett daughter, 3-year-old Vanessa Bennett, that same night. Six days earlier, he murdered Patricia Smith, 50, of Lakewood.
Aurora cold case homicide Detective Steve Conner recently asked Parabon NanoLabs, a Virginia company, to use its newly developed technology to create an image based on DNA predictions of the suspect’s ancestry, eye color, hair color, freckling and face shape, Conner has said.
“When investigators find themselves ‘chasing a ghost,’ Snapshot can provide a wealth of information to make the search for a suspect or person of interest more efficient,” said Ellen Greytak, director of Bioinformatics at Parabon.
“This is the first time we have had some idea of who we’re looking for. He is no longer invisible,” Conner said. “With release of these Snapshot composites, we hope people familiar with the case and the area at that time might be reminded of something or someone significant to the investigation.”
The image that was created predicted what the killer would have looked like when he was 25 and what he might look like today. A full description is available here.
Parabon specializes in DNA phenotyping. It creates images that help police identify possible suspects of unsolved crimes.
“It is important to note that Snapshot composites are scientific approximations of appearance based on DNA and are not likely to be exact replicas of appearance,” according to a news release by Chris Amsler, Aurora police spokesman.
Environmental factors such as smoking, drinking, diet and other non-environmental factors, such as facial hair, hairstyle and scars, cannot be predicted by DNA analysis and may cause further variation between the suspect’s predicted and actual appearance, Amsler said.
The same killer is believed to have first struck on Jan. 4, 1984, when he slipped inside an Aurora home and used a hammer to beat James and Kimberly Haubenschild. James Haubenschild suffered a fractured skull, and his wife had a concussion. Both survived. On the same day, a man using a hammer attacked flight attendant Donna Dixon in the garage of her Aurora home, leaving her in a coma. Dixon survived.
Anyone with information that could help solve the case is asked to contact Conner at 303-739-6190 or swconner@auroragov.org.