There were many theories about what had become of the woman who served as vice president of a hospital auxillary and frequented bars like “Thrills Bar & Grill.”
Aurora Police Department- Linda Avery, 32
Linda Avery, 32, could have met a man at a bar and take him home to her basement apartment on a night her sister, who owned the house she was living in, was in Nebraska at a family reunion.
Then there was a man named “Steve” whom she had been dating at the time. Had he taken advantage of her on a night where there would be no one disturbing him?
On July 6, 1987, someone stabbed her on the floor of a basement family room and slit her throat repeatedly, according to an Aurora police report. The home was on the 3600 block of South Norfolk Way.
There were no signs that someone had broken into the home, which had not been ransaked. There were also no signs of a struggle.
Avery had weathered a difficult period of time when she was murdered in her home, according to an article by former Denver Post reporter Jim Kirksey in an article he wrote nearly two years after the murder.
She had recently been divorced and was living in a home with her sister and her husband, who were in the process of moving to the state of Washington.
Avery worked as a personal assistant at AMI Saint Luke’s Hospital and had just been elected as the vice president of the hospital’s auxiliary. She had worked in a program for youths with addiction and psychiatric problems.
Avery had a background in counseling drug addicts and volunteered at a Denver suicide hotline.
In her free time she was a freelance fashion designer, designing clothes under the name “Francheska.”
Family members contacted Kirksey in January of 1987 because they were doing a little bit of their own detective work.
They were passing out flyers in Aurora and Glendale at bars where Avery was known to frequent. Besides Thrills, she used to go to Neo, Paramount, Jackson’s Hole, the Gold Rush and Panarama Reds. The circulars offered a “substantial” reward to anyone who gave police information leading to Avery’s killer.
“Every time we pick up the paper and read about something happening, my wife and I wonder, ‘could that be the same person?” Avery’s father Melvin Wilson told Kirksey in 1989.
The murder traumatized Avery’s sister, who told Kirksey that what happened becomes all-too real for her.
“I can close my eyes and see him beating her and stabbing her,” Pamela Clark said.
Anyone with information about the homicide is asked to contact the Aurora Police Department at 303-730-6050.
Denver Post reporter Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206. Follow him on Twitter for updates on this and other cold cases @KmitchellDP