It was the Fourth of July in 1987, about midway through Colorado’s deadliest harvest. Blood vessels had burst when she was strangled, staining the whites of her eyes with tiny red dots. Her remains had been discarded and “staged” not far from East Colfax Avenue in east Aurora. Tall weeds drooped in two parallel lines, marking the path where 18-year-old Karolyn Walker’s bare heels dragged behind her limp body. It’s that thought that drives the detectives. Or, at worst, still roaming the streets somewhere. Their killers could be in prison for other crimes. Detectives believe as many as 11 of those could be tied to two serial killers who have been caught and convicted - although they lack the evidence to say definitively. The numbers are staggering: The unsolved deaths of 38 women from that time fit some pattern. Looking for weapons of choice, staging of bodies or similarities in victims, the detectives try to tie killings to a murderer already in prison or to a previously unidentified perpetrator. As cold-case detectives sift through evidence of unsolved killings, they are looking for patterns that might match a signature method of a serial predator. Other investigators are looking at different groups of unsolved killings.
“That person might be 60, still capable of finding more victims.”įour detectives from three different agencies are working together on 17 cases they believe may be related. “Sexual assault, strangulation and a desire to shock police were elements that drove the killer,” said Marv Brandt, a cold-case investigator for the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office. Today, the detectives who have taken on the old cases are motivated by the desire to find justice for women long dead - and by the fear that some of those killers are still out there, preying on others. The work is driven by a simple belief: that as many as a half-dozen serial killers stalked Denver-area streets for more than two decades. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu