Authorities have reached a critical stage in the investigation of a string of infamous rapes and murders a few days apart in 1984, including the home-invasion murders of three members of an Aurora family and the bludgeoning of a Lakewood grandmother, Lakewood police say.
A joint news conference about the case involving Aurora and Lakewood police and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is planned for Friday.
A killer used a hammer to kill Patricia Louise Smith, 50, in Lakewood on Jan. 10, 1984, and a different hammer to kill Bruce and Debra Bennett and their 7-year-old daughter, Melissa, six days later in Aurora. Only one family member, then-3-year-old Vanessa, survived, but with severe facial injuries.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation previously submitted a DNA profile taken from frozen evidence from Smith’s murder to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System. A match was found with evidence submitted by Aurora in 2002 from the Bennett case. The killer had sexually assaulted Smith and days later Debra Bennett and her young daughter.
Smith’s townhome at 12610 W. Bayaud Ave., in Lakewood, and the Bennett home at 16387 E. Center Drive in Aurora were both within a few blocks of Alameda Avenue.
In June 2002, former Arapahoe County District Attorney Jim Peters obtained a John Doe arrest warrant in the Bennett killings based on the DNA. Peters charged John Doe with 18 counts, including three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of sexual assault, first-degree assault and two counts of sexual assault on a child and burglary.
The same killer is believed to have first struck 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.