Solved cold cases in Colorado
4 documented cases.
Helene Pruszynski
Helene Pruszynski, a 21-year-old college intern from Massachusetts working at a Denver radio station, was abducted, sexually assaulted, and stabbed to death in January 1980; her body was found in a field off Daniels Park Road in Douglas County, Colorado. The case went cold for nearly 40 years until investigative genetic genealogy identified James Curtis Clanton, who had been living in Florida under a former identity. He was arrested in December 2019 and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2020.
John Curtis Patterson
John Curtis Patterson, a 20-year-old gas station clerk, was found fatally stabbed in the chest in the restroom of the Cascade Service Station on North Broadway in Boulder, Colorado, on September 29, 1975. The cash register had been emptied, pointing to a robbery. A 32-year-old career criminal named Louis Jess Locicero, who was staying at a nearby motel, was arrested days later after detectives found a .30 caliber M1 carbine, a knife matching the victim's wound, fibers from Patterson's shirt and hairs matching Patterson's head in his room, yet he was released before charges were filed and the case went cold for nearly 50 years. In 2025 the Boulder County Sheriff's Office announced the case solved after modern ballistics technology and re-examined physical evidence tied Locicero to the killing; the district attorney concluded the proof established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but Locicero had died in 2024.
Rhonda Marie Fisher
Rhonda Marie Fisher, a 30-year-old woman from the Denver area, was last seen on the night of March 31, 1987, walking north on Monaco toward Leetsdale in Denver. The next morning, April 1, 1987, a passing motorist found her body down an embankment in the 3500 block of South Perry Park Road, south of Sedalia in rural Douglas County, Colorado. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled, and one of her hands appeared to have been restrained. The case went cold for nearly four decades. In late October 2025, a CODIS match tied DNA preserved from paper bags placed over Fisher's hands at the scene to Vincent Darrell Groves, regarded as one of Colorado's most prolific serial killers. Groves had died in custody in 1996. On December 2, 2025, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office announced the case solved.
Sylvia Quayle
Sylvia Quayle, 34, was sexually assaulted, stabbed, strangled, and shot to death inside her Cherry Hills Village, Colorado home, where her father found her on August 4, 1981. The case stayed cold for roughly four decades until investigative genetic genealogy traced crime-scene DNA to David Dwayne Anderson, a former local who had moved to Cozad, Nebraska. He was convicted of first-degree murder in 2022 and sentenced to life in prison.