The murder of Kelsie Schelling
Pueblo, Pueblo County, Colorado · 2013
Overview
Kelsie Schelling was 21 and living in Denver when, on February 4, 2013, an ultrasound confirmed she was eight weeks pregnant. That night she drove two hours south to Pueblo because her boyfriend, Donthe Lucas, had texted that he had a surprise for her. She waited for him in a Walmart parking lot, then on a street near his grandmother's house, and was never seen again. The next morning Lucas withdrew $400 from her account at a bank; texts from her phone claimed a miscarriage; her car was left in a hospital lot, where police found it on February 14, cleaned out. Lucas gave Denver police an account of a hospital visit that records showed never happened, and told two detectives different times he last saw her. For years it stayed a missing-person case. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation joined in 2016, investigators dug up the backyard of the house where Lucas had lived in April 2017, and in November 2017, after he was arrested at Denver International Airport on an unrelated robbery charge, Lucas admitted in a recorded interview that the hospital story was false and that he had moved her car. He was charged with first-degree murder on December 1, 2017. After years of delay, a Pueblo County jury convicted him on March 8, 2021, in under three hours, and he was sentenced that day to life without parole. Her body has never been found.
How it was solved
There was no body, no weapon and no crime scene, and there never would be. What changed between 2013 and 2017 was who was looking and how hard. In 2013 Pueblo police had the car, the bank footage and Lucas's shifting statements, but handled the case as a missing person; a 2015 lawsuit by the family's search group against the department was dismissed. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation got involved in 2016. That year, a woman testified at trial, she began a relationship with Lucas specifically to draw information out of him, arranged with a friend who was in touch with Kelsie's mother; she said Lucas admitted being the person on surveillance video driving Kelsie's car to the Walmart and leaving it at St. Mary-Corwin hospital, and she gave the CBI everything before ending it in 2017. In April 2017 police announced new leads and excavated the backyard of the Manor Ridge Drive house where Lucas had lived with his grandmother. A cadaver dog alerted near a tree; a small amount of hair came up, too degraded to test. In November 2017 Lucas bought a one-way ticket to Arizona the day before the flight and was arrested at Denver International Airport on a robbery charge from Pueblo. Over two interviews of about two and a half hours each, he conceded that he and Kelsie had never gone to Parkview Hospital, the centre of five statements he gave police in 2013, said the surprise had been cocaine, and admitted moving her car to St. Mary-Corwin. On December 1, 2017, in the Pueblo County jail, he was served with a first-degree murder warrant. At trial the state tied it together: a former FBI analyst showed both phones never left Pueblo; a landfill employee described a padlock with two gouges on the night his phone pinged near the dump; a soil expert put Pikes Peak granite from near Beulah in her floor mats; a jail inmate said Lucas told him the body would not be found. The lead CBI agent, Kevin Torres, told the court he believed Lucas strangled her at the house. The defense called the case the biggest stretch in Colorado history and rested without a witness. The jury took less than three hours.
Sources
- Arrest in cold case of woman who texted ultrasound to boyfriend, then disappeared (December 6, 2017)
“She arrived at the Walmart just after 11 p.m., and nearly an hour later, texted that she was "tired of waiting."”
- Kelsie Schelling murder suspect in court Thursday (May 24, 2018)
“According to two officers who testified Thursday, Lucas is the only person to admit to seeing Schelling on Feb. 5, 2013.”
- Trial for suspect in Kelsie Schelling disappearance pushed back nearly 4 months (February 2019)
“The Colorado Bureau of Investigation started to get involved in 2016 and the search for Kelsie was reignited.”
- Eight years, endless questions: a look back at Kelsie Schelling's disappearance (February 2021)
“When prosecution asked the witness why the body would never be found, he said Lucas told him, "his mom helped him."”
- Kelsie Schelling's mom takes the stand as testimony begins in Donthe Lucas trial (February 3, 2021)
“Schelling had an OB/GYN appointment that day where she would see an ultrasound image of the baby for the first time.”
- Lucas murder trial day 3: Former FBI agent who analyzed Schelling/Lucas phone records takes witness stand (February 5, 2021)
“His data showed Lucas and Kelsie’s phones apparently never left Pueblo.”
- Donthe Lucas trial finishes second week: Lucas' mother takes stand Friday (February 26, 2021)
“Walmart surveillance shows someone alone dropping off Kelsie’s car and picking it back up the next day.”
- Donthe Lucas trial: focus on damaged lock at landfill (March 1, 2021)
“Investigators confirmed his phone pinged off a cell tower near the landfill the same night the padlock was tampered with.”
- Week three of Donthe Lucas trial underway: Kelsie Schelling's team expected to wrap up case soon (March 2021)
“A woman testified that in 2016, she had a relationship with Lucas to potentially get information out of him.”
- 'I'm not 100 percent on everything,' Donthe Lucas said he's not clear on Schelling timeline; prosecution rests (March 5, 2021)
“In 2017, Lucas also admitted that he did move the car to St. Mary Corwin, where it was recovered and processed by police.”
- Jury finds Donthe Lucas guilty of first-degree murder in death of Kelsie Schelling (March 8, 2021)
“Schelling disappeared Feb. 4, 2013, after driving from her home in Denver down to Pueblo to meet Lucas for a “surprise.” The jury deliberated for under three hours before delivering its verdict.”
- Pueblo man convicted of murdering his girlfriend in 2013 plans to appeal his case (July 25, 2022)
“On March 8, 2021, Donthe Lucas was convicted of the first-degree murder of his girlfriend, Kelsie Schelling.”