Bail bondswoman may have been killed by out-of-state hit man

Patricia O’Neil wasn’t your typical bail bondswoman.

courtesy of family

Patricia "Patty" O'Neil, 42

Whenever “Patty” entered Linda Shimmin’s restaurant “Copperfield” in Downtown Denver she sparkled – and it wasn’t just because she was wearing a five-carat yellow diamond pendant necklace.

“She was tall. She was blonde. She was pretty. She wore black leather miniskirts and a beautiful smile,” Shimmin said. “She had legs that went on forever. You just noticed Patty. She was a lot of flash.”

Patty O’Neil was also known to kick off her high heels, hike up her skirt and chase down a bail jumper in the middle of the street. She’d cock and aim a shotgun like a Texas ranger.

“One riot – one ranger,” said Shimmin, 64, of Prescott Valley, Az. “She was that type of a person.”

Patty took great satisfaction in tracking down crooks who had the temerity to play hooky on their trial date and force her to write a big check.

“She was fearless,” Shimmin said. “The bail bonds business is tough enough for a man. If you took a blade and sharpened it and polished it you would end up with Patty O’Neil. She was all the great parts of wicked.”

But most of the time her clients didn’t disappoint her. Patty had an innate sense for sizing people up within moments after meeting them. She turned a lot of people down based on her instincts. She didn’t have time to go hunting some penny-ante bail jumper, Shimmin said.

Patty was funny, enchanting, sophisticated, well dressed and witty. But when she felt the occasion required it, “she could string together hyphenated obscenities like nobody else. Salty doesn’t begin to describe her language.”

courtesy of family

Patricia "Patty" O'Neil's high school senior picture

Patty also had a soft side for the young drug dealers, crooks and drunken drivers she bailed out of jail. She would give them a stern talking to and offer suggestions about turning their lives around. Many did with her help.

“I watched my mom help a lot of people. She had a heart the size of Texas,” said Patty’s only daughter, Rene Cook, 49, who recently followed in her mother’s footsteps and opened up her own bail bonds business. “I’m following the dreams she had for me.”

Patty wasn’t the type of person who would go to Safeways and buy a pot roast to cook for dinner. Her life was in perpetual motion. She often stopped by at an all-night diner for a steak and eggs meal – at 3 a.m.

Patty worked at all hours of the day and night. Her job demanded it. She and her husband Albert lived in an apartment at Acoma Bail Bonds Co. along Bail Bonds Row across the street from Denver police headquarters at 1325 Delaware St.

Albert and Patty made a life together dealing with the seedier side of life. Their daily associates were robbers and child molesters.

But the two big personalities continually clashed.

“Albert O’Neil was a corpulent, coke-sniffing wiseguy fond of spending large amounts of money on whatever struck his fancy,” a Rocky Mountain News article said.

He would buy a bull dozer just so he would have one, not because he needed it, Shimmin said.

The bail bonding business allowed Patty to acquire a valuable collection of jewelry over time. She’d take diamonds for collateral when she bonded someone out of jail and keep the better pieces. She had a jeweler’s loop and knew how to appraise a diamond for color, cut and clarity, Shimmin said. She wouldn’t take any cloudy pieces.

Albert liked to boast about his physical exploits and Patty liked to deflate his ego. Sometimes, she got so distraught because of their marital spats that she would go to the homes of friends and cry. She talked about getting a divorce.

On March 11, 1986, it was Patty’s turn to work her Acoma Bail Bonds’ overnight shift.

Someone apparently called her out around 2:30 a.m.

Just as she climbed into her late model BMW someone opened the passenger side door and shot Patty in the head and neck with a .38-caliber hand gun. A bullet shattered the window, careened off the wall of a garage across the alley, hit a telephone pole and bounced back, landing in the middle of the alley.

Billie McCurdy told now retired Denver Post reporter Marilyn Robinson that she and a friend were at another bail bond business at 1315 Delaware St. when they heard what sounded like a car backfiring and then glass shattering.

Patty was found at 7:40 a.m., slumped over the steering wheel of her car. She was 43.

Because no one saw the shooter, speculation about who would have killed her ran wild.

The killer had shot Patty across the street from the Denver police headquarters building, then coolly stooped down and retrieved the shell casing.

Police speculated that the killer was a hired gun, who wasn’t interested in stealing anything from her. The killer left her wallet with cash inside behind. Patty was also wearing a diamond pendant necklace, Cook, her daughter said.

“It could have been some guy who flew in from Des Moines and did this and will never be back,” Shimmin said.

The bail bonds business was lucrative and Acoma got many of the upper end “gravy” deals with well heeled criminals.

The June before a bail bondsman had been arrested for putting out a hit on a competitor.

But with the criminals the O’Neils dealt with virtually every day of their lives there were many suspects.

“Patty ran in a pretty tough world,” Shimmin said.

Albert O’Neil also came under suspicion.

Police were puzzled that the family dog, an attack-trained Doberman, didn’t bark.

According to a Rocky Mountain News story, O’Neil refused to take a lie detector test for health reasons. People speculated that he could have hired someone to kill his wife or shot her in a fit of rage.

Albert O’Neil was Cook’s stepfather. She said her family are suspicious of him because he had threatened to kill her if she ever left him.

“We all feel he had something to do with it,” Cook said. “We do not think he pulled the trigger. He wouldn’t have gotten his hands dirty himself.”

Cook said she thinks her stepfather would have hired someone from out of state.

A year later, on Oct 11, 1987, Albert O’Neil died “of camel cigarettes, White Castle burgers and cocaine,” the newspaper article said.

“No one really knows who did it and why,” Shimmin said. “Probably no one ever will.”

Cook is still hopeful though. It’s possible that evidence collected when her mother was shot could help solve the case today if detectives analyze the materials again.

Even if Albert O’Neil contracted the murder there could still be someone out there that got away with Patty O’Neil’s murder.

“I can’t tell you how much that would mean to our family,” she said.