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Denver mother of four stabbed 40 times, beaten and lit on fire

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Grace Victoria “Vickie” Espinoza told a neighbor she was afraid for her life.

From right, Bonnie, Vickie, Robin, Kristy and Joy

From right, Bonnie, Vickie, Robin, Kristy and Joy
Courtesy of the Espinoza family

Vickie also told police she was being – perhaps to the point that she was considered a nuisance. She would call 911 and police would come, but they wouldn’t find anybody, he said.

“She was calling them all the time,” said Robert Espinoza, 71, Vickie’s ex-husband. “They thought she was a wacko.”

But she had a reason for fearing for her safety, he said.

Robert Espinoza said his ex-wife had been molested as a child and that her mother threw her out of her house. She had struggled with self-destructive thoughts at times.

Throughout her life Vickie had emotional problems and would self medicate with illegal drugs, Robert Espinoza said.

“She owed money for drugs,” he said. “I guess she knew somebody was going to kill her.”

But Vickie’s calls to police were so frequent that they believed she was crazy, Robert Espinoza said.

One time she told her daughters that a police officer had shoved her against her car and warned her never to call them again or he would arrest her for making false calls, Robert Espinoza said.

She was worried that it was over her property. She told neighborhood friends that someone had been watching her.

“She was always frightened,” one neighbor told a reporter at the time. “She had a real fear that something was going to happen to her.”

The 49-year-old woman was living alone in her house after divorcing Robert Espinoza.

Vickie wanted to sell the house on 46 Xavier St. so she could move into a townhome.

On the evening of March 31, 1996, and into the early morning hours of April 1, April Fool’s Day, Vickie called police.

They didn’t respond, Robert Espinoza said.


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