A second Colorado jury has convicted Alex Ewing of murder in connection with the so-called “Hammer Killer” spree of attacks in metro Denver nearly 40 years ago.
The jury in Ewing’s Jefferson County retrial on Thursday morning found Ewing guilty of three counts of murder for killing Patricia Smith on Jan. 10, 1984, in her Lakewood home during a string of brutal assaults, rapes and killings over a 12-day span.
After more than four hours of deliberation late Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, the jury convicted Ewing, 61, of first-degree murder, felony murder — sexual assault and felony murder — robbery. He is scheduled to be sentenced at 10 a.m. Tuesday.
An Arapahoe County jury last summer convicted Ewing of murdering three members of an Aurora family during those 1984 attacks, and he was sentenced to three life terms. Ewing’s October trial on charges he killed Smith ended in a mistrial when his attorneys requested their client’s mental competency be evaluated. That mental health delay was resolved late last year, according to court records.
The retrial of the second “Hammer Killer” case wrapped up Wednesday afternoon with familiar arguments from the prosecution focusing on “semen and similarities” to the Aurora case. The defense concluded its closing arguments by focusing on so-called “touch DNA” and fingerprints, contending the prosecution had not proven Ewing’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The most recent trial got underway on March 30, with failed attempts by the defense for a second mistrial and a change of venue, both rejected by District Judge Tamara Russell.
In the retrial, Chief Deputy District Attorney Katharine Decker focused on the certainty of the DNA evidence that connected Ewing to semen left on Smith’s body and at the scene in her living room “to the exclusion of everyone else in the world.”
That DNA was matched to Ewing while he already was serving a 40-year sentence in Nevada for attempted murder after beating a couple with an ax handle in August 1984.
The defense accused the government of selectively relying on some DNA evidence and ignoring other DNA evidence in a “simple fix.” Public defender Katherine Powers Spengler said that the fingerprint and touch DNA from “critical items” including the handle of the hammer used to kill Smith, as well as the evidence on her clothing, excluded Ewing as a suspect.
Spengler argued that the pressure to convict someone for the murder and sexual assault of Smith prevented an open-minded investigation by law enforcement. The defense called on the jury to question the claims made by the prosecution and to allow doubt.
“The prosecution is ignoring the truth of the case. They’re ignoring the testing. They’re ignoring what exonerates Mr. Ewing,” Spengler said.
Decker said that the doubts raised by the defense were “vague, speculative and imaginative.”
Decker said in her closing arguments that fingerprinting technology was in use and well-known at the time in 1984, making it easy for the defendant to know to use gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints behind. The prosecution argued that the case is full of definitive evidence that goes beyond a reasonable doubt.
Spengler said that touch DNA comes not just from someone’s hands, making the lack of non-seminal DNA connected to Ewing a reason to eliminate him as a suspect. The defense also argued that the preservation and storage of evidence could be contaminated, arguing that law enforcement lost and mishandled critical items of evidence.
The prosecution instead argued that DNA found in the semen collected at the scene was the most definitive evidence.
“The only evidence that points to anyone is semen,” Decker said.
The prosecution also argued that similarities in the murders of Melissa, Debra and Bruce Bennett in Aurora on Jan. 16, 1984, establish a modus operandi for Ewing in the Smith case.
Both attacks took place at homes where garage doors had been left open and both Melissa Bennett and Smith were killed with hammer blows to the head, then sexually assaulted.