Victim’s name: Barbara Freyschlag, 55
Where body found: on kitchen floor at 2222 Constellation Dr.
Investigative agency: Colorado Springs Police Department
Date killed: Oct. 25, 1986
Cause of Death: Multiple gunshots
Suspect: None identified
Barbara Freyschlag, courtesy Colorado Springs Police Department
Barbara Freyschlag attended a party at the exclusive private downtown El Paso Club on Saturday evening, Oct. 25, 1986.
The athletic 55-year-old socialite left home alone around 8:30 p.m., telling friends she was anxious to see the World Series.
She turned her TV on to the NBC station that was carrying the sixth game of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets. Freyschlag was an avid sportswoman who owned a ski shop in Colorado Springs and a ski rental business at Ski Broodmoor.
The iconic baseball game ended suddenly in the 10th inning at 10:40 p.m. when a softly hit ball hit to first base went through the legs of Bill Buckner and the Mets won the game. The Mets won the next game and the series.
Police believe that about as the game ended or shortly thereafter, Freyschlag’s killer entered the ranch-style home and shot her to death, according to news reports at the time.
She may have let her killer into the sprawling three-level rustic home nestled in a heavily wooded area, police speculated.
The killer did not sexually assault or rob the wealthy woman. Cold case detectives believe that she either knew her killer or that the killer had a key to the house.
Her friends told reporters at the time that they did not believe she would have left her door unlocked or let someone in the house she did not know. Five years earlier, she had come out of her shower to find two teen boys in her house. She chased them off. The experience made her wary, according to news reports.
She was shot three times in the head and once in the chest with a .38-caliber hand gun. It was overkill.
Police did not find the shell casings or the gun. Neighbors in the affluent neighborhood did not hear any gunshots the night before. Freyschlag was wearing a slip and housecoat. She was only a few feet from the back door.
Her husband, K.G. Freyschlag, was on a business trip to Reno, Nev. At the time, he was the president of the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce. He was arranging accommodations for a Colorado Springs group planning to go to Reno to try to persuade the U.S. Olympic Committee to pick Colorado Springs as the home of the Olympic Hall of Fame.
He discovered his wife’s body face up and sprawled out on the kitchen floor of their home at 2222 Constellation Dr. She was missing an artificial fingernail from her left hand, possibly indicating she fought with her killer.
At the time, authorities indicated the fingernail could have the killer’s skin. Police didn’t say at the time whether they found the fingernail.
When he returned home the next evening, the TV was still on in the living room.
Freyschlag, who had two sons and a daughter, had been an active community volunteer with the Junior League, children’s theater groups and the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind, according to a Denver Post article.
More than 1,000 people attended her funeral at the Shove Chapel on the Colorado College campus.
A $60,000 reward was offered for information leading to Freyschlag’s arrest. The high reward was advertised in Soldier of Fortune magazine. Leads poured in from Miami to Boston about similar crimes. Authorities contacted law enforcement agencies in Europe and Canada.
Two years after her murder, the FBI assigned 12 agents to the case. At the time, FBI agent Dick Schussler said the high number of agents were brought in hoping to blanket the case and solve the crime. But no promising leads were uncovered.
Despite spending thousands of hours investigating the case Colorado Springs detectives were never able to find a motive for her murder.
Contact information: The Colorado Springs Police Department can be reached at 719-385-2489. Denver Post reporter Kirk Mitchell at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com