A murder case has many layers: the victim, the crime, and the investigation. To truly understand it, you need to dissect each piece of a tragic puzzle. Join Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and Scott Weinberger every Wednesday for an insider’s perspective, as they reveal to you the Anatomy of Murder.
Wed, 25 Nov 2020 08:00
A young woman is murdered in the mountains of Breckenridge, Colorado. And the case still looms over this ski town.
If you're looking for a new show unlike anything you've ever heard before, check out audio Chuck's latest series killed. Each episode of killed covers a story that you may have never read because it was killed before it got published. I'm Justine Harman, who some of you may know from my show OC swingers, and I'm here to bring these dead stories back to life binge killed right now to get the full story. Hi everyone, Ashley Flowers here and I have exciting news to share. My debut novel, all good people here is officially out now. Our fans are blowing up our social talking about it. You do not want to be left out and the worst thing that could happen is for someone else to spoil it for you because there are some wild twists in this book. If you love true crime content, mysteries, and a grown up Nancy Drew style detective work then I have a good feeling you won't be able to put this book down. So what are you waiting for? Grab your copy of all good people here now, wherever books are sold. You know, almost any murder that happens, there's somebody out there that knows something about it. And those are the people who, when they come forward, will take a case like this, it's really up in the air and solve it. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. Quazi former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's true conviction, and this is anatomy of murder. Hey, Anna. Sega. Hey, Scott. Now, I know you like to do things on vacation and I do think you're a skier, correct? I am. I lived in Colorado for college, so I that's where I learned to ski. So let's stay in Colorado for this story because it takes place in Breckenridge, Co in 1982. January 7th to be exact. You know, can I just talk about Colorado for a little bit since I know that, you know, of course. Yeah. You know, when I saw that, it was Colorado and that was Breckenridge. Like, all of a sudden that already gets me vested before I even know who we're talking about. You know, Colorado. People are drawn there for different reasons. And for me, the thing when I think about Colorado is that the weather, it is blue skies and sunny so often, even in the middle of the winter. But certainly when people think Colorado, they think mountains, skiing, outdoorsy, and there's all these different ski towns and they all have different personalities. And Breckenridge, which is one of the closer ones to Denver. So a lot of people come there from all over because it's easy to get to. It's an international ski destination combined with Colorado Small Town feel. And when you have those things together, it really makes for a community, even though you have all these international jet setters coming in and out. Sounds like a great place to live. It sounds like a great place to visit. And in Breckenridge, Co, or not far from it, lived Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer. She was drawn there like so many others. She was drawn to the mountains. She was a 29 year old woman. People described her and her family as soft spoken. She loved animals, maybe sometimes more than people. She was often taking care of her bird. She had a horse and she had left Wisconsin to live in the mountains and to care for those animals. When she lived there with her husband Jeff, and January 6th of 1982, that was a big day for Bobby Jo. It was a couple that was young and they were basically just getting by. He had started a new business and she worked in an office as an administrative assistant for a local developer. And that day she got a raise and that was a really big deal. I mean, this is a couple that she would have to scrape change together sometimes to get a special food she wanted for her bird or for her horse. We're now completely unexpectedly, on that day, January 6th, 1982, she got a raise and so it was going to be a celebration. She called her husband that evening and said that she was going out with friends, and he last heard from her at about 6:20 that night and she said that she was about to head home. Have a record of that phone. Call this a collect. Call this long distance. That is the voice of Charles McCormack, who is a veteran homicide detective and he's helping us tell this story today. And as you know, Anna Sigga, in our line of work in telling these tragic murder cases, we always strive to highlight the very people directly involved in these cases, always honoring the victims. And for us, that's what it's all about. I mean, I can vouch as having been a homicide prosecutor for all those years, and my friends and family will tell you that I am not known to be the most warm and fuzzy. Erson oh, you're you're a little you're a little fuzzy. But again, it's not what people think of when they think about me. But it's when you start to learn who these cases are about and the devastation caused by their murder, you can't help but feel for the victim's family, because that's what's going to give you the drive to get it done and get it done well. Could be she went back into the bar and joined her friends, and one thing led to another. Bobby wanted to go home. Evidently, she. Had to work all day and didn't really want to party. She'd kind of put that part of her life behind her, to the extent that she and her husband were actually trying to have a baby. At about 7:45, Bobby, she put on her coat, her gloves in her hat, picked up her backpack and told the bartender. That she was going to hitchhike home. She was tired of waiting for her friends to give her a ride and she left the bar. And at that point there was a common area. Known as the hitchhike station. The best we can understand that was commonplace in Breckenridge at the time that people could go to sort of these quasi designated areas in town where people would just pick you up and drive you where you needed to go. I really think at the time in all sorts of places it was much more common. I mean here you don't hear much about people hitchhiking and that's because people are so aware of the dangers. But back then I certainly remember hearing it in different ways and you know I will say that it always. Puts me on high alert the second I hear it, because very similarly, you know, I had a cousin when I was nine, right around this time that she was with friends. She wanted to go home. She hitched her ride. And they found her body. So when I hear that. I know that it was much more commonplace for people to think of this as a safe mode of getting home, but so often it just wasn't, and I think that's why people turn their heads and just don't hear much about it anymore. That's horrible. I did not know that. That's horrible story, really. I never told you that. Yeah, I was nine years old and it was my cousin that I looked up to. She was 25 and she was this larger than life personality. And similarly, she is out and she's with her friends and she wanted to go home and decided to hitch a ride and they found her murdered and it's really kind of something that has always stuck in my head as I have worked on these cases. Terrible. And at about midnight, their husband, he woke up and she was not home. According to him, he knew right away that something was wrong because she would never have done that, even if even if she was angry, if they'd had a fight. She would not have just not come home. He drove through Breckenridge, which is 3 or four blocks to the north side, and went to the Breckenridge Police Department. And went in and told the officer on duty. He was looking for his wife and he he knew that something had happened to her because she wasn't the type that would just not come home. And he went to the police in the middle of the night. But, you know, she hadn't even been gone for probably 12 hours at that point. And so the police said, you know, it's the middle of the night in Colorado. The weather's bad and your wife didn't come home. And, you know, she's out celebrating with friends. You know, it's premature. I can only imagine him fearing the worst and hoping that she just was out with her friends and maybe put her head down somewhere after drinking. It's also the time of year. Think about it. We're talking about January. We're talking about a mountain area. We're up 14,000 feet. It was a particularly cold night. I mean, it was something like 20 below 0. It was snowing. It's not like there's a lot of people out and about even in Colorado late into the night. So I can only imagine from law enforcement perspective, without any indication of foul play at this point. They said, you know, we've got to let the time play out a little bit because the weather is abysmal. It's going to be near impossible to find her wherever she is right now. He drove home and just waited till about four or five o'clock. He called some friends and and his brother, and so a lot of people came by to see if they could be of any help. And at around 9:00 o'clock Jeff gets a call. And when that phone rang, I'm sure Jeff was hoping it was his wife on the other end saying, hey, everything is fine, but the call was not his wife and only deepened the mystery. It was actually someone he didn't even know, but it was a local rancher in the area who was calling because he had found a driver's license right near his home, and the name and photograph was Bobby Jo. Rather than putting out, you know why I think police may have been apprehensive, let's just go right to the source. I mean, Scott, from a police perspective, why do you think that they weren't out there looking once they got that middle of the night call from Jeff. I think it comes down to the information that was in front of them. Here's someone who left the bar on her own accord, and she was of an age that she could make her own decisions on where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. So I don't think there's really red flags. And it sounds like, you know, the husband who went to sleep didn't really feel like this is a necessity to call out the troops to search for a woman who's that age and whether it does play into we all have heard when, you know, for example, when even when someone has drowned. And sometimes weather conditions are that officers can't put themselves at risk, at least for the short term. I mean, yeah, at that those temperatures, how long could you last outside, I mean -, 20 degrees. I mean, that's that's crazy cold. Yeah -, 20 degrees at 11,500 elevation and it's snowing. Yeah. So they're not really great conditions to be doing anything, let alone to be doing a search on foot for anybody. And for someone that they're not even sure that anything bad has happened to them. So I would absolutely understand why police were saying let's wait until we have more evidence that foul play may be involved, but Jeff and his friends felt differently. Just before noon the word to travel around to small communities, one of their better loved women residents was missing on there some really dangerous circumstances and they decided that they were going to search alongside Hwy. 9 and US 285 to the Hamilton ranch. There's about 10 of them. They went to the top of the Hoosier past. In a group which he said I started out to walk down. And then there's a group of three men who had brought their skis because they're familiar with the terrain. Well, they got about 50 yards. And they found her body. It was a horrible scene. She glad to have some pros to death on her back in the snow. He was a nightmare. She had been shot twice to her back and on her left her wrist she had a plastic wire tie. There was an 18 inch zip tie. I mean, Scott, what does that say to you? Clearly you know someone who is abducted, somebody who may have been tortured. And that's what I hear too. You know, when I look at that and I read it I right away, I think abduction or certainly something intentional and thought out. I mean this just wasn't happenstance. It wasn't a argument that went bad. I mean this is someone or people that thought it out enough to bring zip ties, to use zip ties. I mean there's still one on her wrist so that. To me is that it is an intentional thought out act. So let's unpack the crime scene for a second. And I say good, because, you know, when we look at these things and and we go through our process of diagramming a crime scene, you've got to take a look at sort of a 10,000 foot view of everything that's around the victim and what potentially could be an item of evidence. And clearly, you know, this snow was a fresh snow. So everything that's in the area at the time the body is located must be part of a very fresh crime scene. There was evidence that somebody was chasing her. They were able to tell in some fresh footprints in that area that she may have tried to hide in one section of the snowbank and then realize that she could be discovered. And then as she was running further away, she was then shot in the back. And that's exactly how I pictured almost that at some point she was able to escape. And so here she is in those horrific, incredible conditions, running for her life. And they get up to her, he or she or they. And at close range. I mean, they clearly had an agenda because they make sure to catch her and when they do, shoot her once, twice at close range. The next day, there were two items found in the parking lot. Just about 300 feet north of the body they located a set of car keys and on that key ring was sort of the self-defense key where it's sharp edged and you can imagine if you hold it for a second, hold it in your hands and the portion of the key peeks out between your knuckles that actually given to her by her husband Jeff. So that if she ever did find herself in a situation, that she could get out of it. And how? Unbelievably. Wrong or bad, that must seem to know that she had it with her and it couldn't save her. Now, remember early on when I said that this case had some incredible twists and turns? Well, what police located next to the body will take this case in the most incredible twist I probably have ever seen. I mean, it's something so unusual. I mean, if you had a list of 10 things, well, what did they find? I guarantee you not one of you would come up with this. Bobby Joe's body had just been found, and now investigators are really combing the area. I mean everywhere, especially all those areas in close distance to her body. And they found something in the parking lot was an orange, bright orange. Booty like a tennis sock 1/2 sock, but Bobby Joe was wearing both her socks and nobody recognized that sock as belonging to her. What do you make of something like that, Scott? When you hear it right off the bat, you have a pretty much a pristine crime scene. There are some cases which we've covered, where the crime scene may be somewhere in a public place where you don't know if something is out of place. You don't know if an item on a street was there for a week or a month or an hour before the crime scene. But in this case, you know, Snow had fallen, the body had been there for only a specific amount of time, and then there is this out of place. Item nobody knew what it meant. Didn't belong to Bobby Joe. And then she was fully closed. She was not sexually assaulted. Let's go back to how she ended up there, you know, because we started to talk about hitchhiking a bit earlier, but when investigators went back and tried to figure out where she had gone or what her knight had been like, once she went to that bar to celebrate, they learned that a person did try to give Bobby Joe a ride. There was a man who thought that he may have seen her there at that hitchhike station. This guy was he was a Carpenter and he passed this hitchhike station and there was a woman standing there with his thumb out hitchhiking and he pulled over. He rolled down his passenger window of his truck. The woman came over, stuck her head in the car, so he got a good look at her, he said. He offered her a ride and she said, well, where are you going? And he said, well, I'm working in a construction job about 5 miles out of town. And she said, well, I need to go all the way home, which is 16 miles, and I just said I don't want to be left out in the in the middle of nowhere. So she declined to ride. But you know, I think about that for myself and and I try to put myself back at a time that people hitchhiking wasn't that uncommon a thing. I mean, if some random person, a guy, someone of the opposite sex pulls up, I'm not getting into that car. And so I know people make different decisions and they have different comfort levels. But at least for myself and I would want someone else present because I think in general you're safer numbers. I mean, certainly if there was another woman there, I myself would feel more comfortable. And I mean, I'm not trying to get sexist or anything, but I just think about what the realities are about. Crime and and who kills who? And that's something that I would be thinking about. So I always ask myself, yes, certainly people did hitchhike and there were certain people that would get into a stranger's car. But was Bobby Joe one of them? I mean, I step back a second and a seagull on that and say, you know, 1982 was a different time. People didn't lock their doors. Crime really wasn't a big factor in Breckenridge, Co. So I assume with accepting multiple rides before that, she likely expected that this was going to be just like any other hitchhiking ride, just going to be picked up and just get home to her husband for dinner and a bottle of wine. That didn't happen. They actually started to zero in on someone. He grand suspect was from the get go Jeff Overholtzer. I mean, as you know, Anna Seeger, we always look at family members in these homicide investigations, if you consider the ones who are closest to the victim. So Jeff's already on my radar right in the beginning. In fact, the license is found on the ranchers property. So Jeff had asked his brother to go pick up that driver's license and Jeff decided to go with a friend, drive the same route, and he's in the passenger seat. And as they're driving the route, he'll all of a sudden. Notices something on the side of the road. It's a backpack. So they stopped and Jeff walked through the snow. He says his were the only footprints in the snow. And I picked up the backpack. And he also picked up a bloody tissue and also a Gold Glove, a right wool glove. Which looked like the pair that his wife owned. He had blood on it. Scott, when I'm hearing this, there are so many different layers of wrong that come right to my mind. I mean, we know what Bobby Joe's doing. She's celebrating a promotion. That would have been a big deal to both of them. But Jeff wasn't with her that night. So for me, one of my first questions is why? When I got involved in looking through all these various and sundry reports, there was never. A timeline done on Jeff as to where he was all that proceeding day into that night. And then a rancher finds the ID and calls Jeff. Jeff doesn't call the police, he goes and picks it up. And then he's out and he's the one that now finds a backpack. Bloody gloves. And even more than that, I mean, when police said, well, where were you? He insisted that he had been with an acquaintance. But. That acquaintance could not be found. I mean, is there anyone out there that thinks that isn't weird and and suspicious when you look at those different facts? The cop in me is like saying easily, how unusual would it be to be driving on a road and just happen to spot a backpack on the side of the road and then add to that? A potential contamination of the evidence, right? I mean, when I first heard about that, I was like, wait a second. So, so hear about one of these things and you start to turn your head. But you can never jump to conclusions because strange things do happen and it doesn't make anyone guilty of a crime. It just makes you need to look a little bit deeper. But when you start to pile thing one after the other after the other, I mean, my head is doing like a full 360 at this point when I'm thinking about Jeff and on top of that. There was also rumors that. Jeff hadn't maybe been faithful or there was certainly maybe problems in their marriage at that point. I mean, so now we're getting into, if true, it's the age-old story of rather than. Leaving each other or trying to get a divorce that now someone tries to get out by murder. And I think part of the investigation had to take in consideration of what Bobby Joe's family thought about the marriage. And when they broke the news to Bobby Joe's family in Wisconsin, they were both devastated and confused. So they had no suspects. And obviously they told police that to their knowledge. Bobby Joe was looking forward to starting a family with her husband, so adding that there's a **** alright, there's a but there's always a but because her younger sister. When she was interviewed, she said that she had visited her sister within months before this happened, and that to her, something seemed off between them. Her sister never said a word, didn't complain about Jeff. There was nothing that she could tell you they said or did, but that's something to her. Seemed off, and only three months before Bobby Joe was killed, Bobby Joe's mother got remarried, and Bobby Joe flew back to Wisconsin for her mom's wedding and Jeff didn't come with her. Now, he was from Wisconsin, too, so the family didn't know what to make heads or tails of it when they're looking at it. Afterwards, they started to wonder, was maybe it not the blissful life that they had thought? In fact, he was so much on the radar of investigators. He went to investigators and said, hey, I'm on your radar, I know I am. In fact, I'm even willing to take a polygraph. He eventually did. He submitted himself to his two polygraphs. Basketball. And we're polygraphs all of us in this line of work. It's not actually the data that is what leads to breaks in the case. It's usually the fear factor of someone taking them and they usually start to show as deceptive because their nerves kick in and they usually end up talking are often do if they're not being honest and we can't even use them in court. And with good reason because they're not wholly reliable and in many think not reliable at all. And I'm just, I keep thinking about all these different things about Jeff. Is that coincidence upon coincidence? Or was he trying to clean up a scene? Or is he trying to throw police off at the trail by saying, hey, look at all these things that I found, but now he's helped himself in the process. But there's still so much more to this story because this case involves not just Bobby Joe's murder. Let's switch gears here and talk about another victim, Annette Schnee. Annette was a 21 year old woman who was also murdered, her personality completely different than Bobby Joe. She's been described by all as a Spitfire. She's out in Colorado because she wants to be a model and she lands near Breckenridge because it's close to Denver and that she's thinking that that is a hub that's going to lead her to the job that she so wants. She wants to be a flight attendant. And she was getting really close to that goal because she was about to turn 22. So she's 21, but just really, really days away from getting to that year that she thought she'd finally get her big break. Now, we're obviously talking about her because she's connected to Bobby Jo, but how they're connected is so startling you're not going to believe it. On Friday morning. And that she's boss at the Holiday Inn in Frisco reported her missing, and that quickly led the police to know that there was a second woman who went missing on that same night. Her body wasn't found for six months. On July 3rd, 1982, a boy and his dad are walking along a Creek. They come upon a body that was partially submerged. It's about 10 miles from where Abby Joe's body was found and her name. Was Annette schnee? Hard to say whether she was dumped there or killed there. I mean, we've talked about the condition that Bobby Joe's bodies found in, right? But now we're in the middle of summer, one day before America's birthday, and they find her laying in the Creek. Her body obviously decomposed based on the time of year. And she shot in the back. And that sent up such big red flags for investigators. Could they be connected? And not only would they connected by their data disappearance, when they examined the body further and took off her boots, guess what they found? The right booty was orange. The left booty was the booty that was located at the crime scene. Of Bobby Jo. It would be extremely given the small community that this. This area was in those days, it would have been extremely. Unbelievable that there would be two different murders on two different occasions with two different sets of people. Now you have the two socks. These women, by all accounts, did not know each other. They go missing the same night. They're both shot, and they each have one of a pair of socks. I mean, of course they're connected, but how and who? And why? Imagine the horror. Imagine the fear in that community. I talked to Charles about that and he said it was palpable. The community at large pretty much panic, particularly the female population. You know, we look at the crime scenes. There is a difference in them. You've got a crime scene in the middle of winter where the body is very much preserved because of the weather conditions. And then you have a secondary crime scene located six months later in the middle of winter, where you introduce not only the heat of summer, but water. And processing these two crime scenes are so completely different. Yeah, I mean, her body. You're certainly not going to get any forensics off of it after being sitting in the water for that long. I mean, the decomposition is going to. Really impact the body and take away any potential evidence, most likely that would have been left. Let's talk about, Scott, the difference in these crime scenes. You know, we know Bobby Joe is found right away, you know, within hours. So that speaks to that. She was killed at least near where she was found. But what do you think about Annette? I mean, she's found in the water. I mean, is she killed there? Does she float there? Did she try to get away after she was shot? What do you think? Well, I mean, the speculation is that the body may have been dumped right there or it could have been dumped upriver and in time that the body would move slowly. As you know, nature would would bring it closer and closer to the location of where it was found. I think she easily could have been driven there, assaulted on the ground somewhere near where the lake is and then as she tried to get away once again, the victim was shot in the back. But more interesting to me is that that body of water is at the bottom of an embankment that is connected to one of the same roads that was very near where Bobby Joe was found. All roads lead to the same killer here. Question is, who is it? Let's talk about the investigative timeline. So January 6th, 1982 at approximately 4:45 in the afternoon. And that was last seen leaving a local pharmacy, but a witness. Saw her getting into a deep conversation with a dark haired woman. She was a white female, slender build just outside of a pharmacy, which also was not far from an area where hitchhikers were normally picked up. So even though she was found six months later, they already had established a pretty good timeline because she's outside this pharmacy at 4:45. Police believe that Annette had actually hitchhiked in the direction of her home at about 5:00, but when they went into her home, her uniform was still laying on the bed. And So what that said is that she never made it home or even got dressed to go to work. And so it puts her disappearance within really, that two hour window, very close in time to the disappearance of Bobby Jo. I mean, these two young women were at the prime of life. They did not deserve this. They're their lives were less than half over. They were both, by all accounts just wonderful, beautiful people and there were just slaughtered. In a way that just doesn't make sense. So, Scott, these socks, these bright orange little ankle socks, the booties that everyone was so wrapped up in, I mean, what does that say to you two women? They each have one of the pair of socks. What are you thinking about? How could they have been with both? I cannot think of a reason or how. They could be in two different crime scenes from a crime that occurred on the same day, unless the sock was removed from a net and brought to the murder scene of Bobby Joe. That's how the connection was made. The killer brought the evidence to the murder. But to me, did they bring it purposely? Or was it just a really bad mistake? Right, because we know that those socks originate with Annette. Her mom bought them for her, so we know they were hers and she's wearing. One of them. So you had to think that she was wearing both and that at some point during all this. Whoever it is that kills her ends up with that other sock, whether because they're scrambling to pick up some piece of evidence, or maybe because they're trying to take her sock off and do who knows what to her. But they end up with that sock and that maybe in the attack of Bobby Joe, which is in all likelihood just hours later at most. That this is a big screw up, that it falls out of a pocket, that it falls out of the car. And to me it's such an interesting clue that I almost get almost a smile, if you forgive me for that for a second, because I feel like it's a mistake, a big mistake that hopefully comes right back to figure out who this killer or killers are. So while police were processing the body as a crime scene, of course, Annette, she was wearing a jacket when she was located. And as they turned her over, they reached into the jacket to determine if anything could be found in within that jacket, and they pulled out an item from that jacket that would turn this investigation on its head. Because as you're going to hear, there's another connection between Bobby, Jo and Annette. When police were going through Annette's body clearly. Working in the crime scene, she had on a jacket, you know, those plastic inserts that you have in the wallets for photographs that was found stuffed into the pocket of her sweatshirt, but there was a photograph of a man. Who looks very military, particularly for those days. Very short haircut, that man. Whoever he is, he's never been identified. Not even members of her family knew who this person was and police were trying their best to ID him. They even went to the public and showed his picture to the public trying to get a determination of who this was. When I look at this picture of him, he has a military look about him. One of his eyes appears shut, he appears to have some scarring and the thing about a photograph in someone's pocket, you don't carry around a photograph of someone unless they are meaningful to you. So is it someone she was in a relationship at the time where she had been or who was important in her life in some other way? Who knows. But it is rather startling to me that they just couldn't track this person down, because this person, maybe there's a reason why he didn't want to be found. Really, in the plastic insert from the wallet there is a usual idea, but then, to the surprise of everybody, was a business card. Which belonged to Jeff Oberholzer. I mean, have we given the listeners time to pick their job from the ground, I mean. I mean, that's an unbelievable find. So police clearly went back to Jeff and said, hey dude, what? What is with this business card found on a woman who, as it turns out, was missing on the same night as your wife and was found in the same condition, murdered, shot in the back? What do you know about this? And clearly the one thing that was a shock to police. In the beginning, he did not know who she was, said he didn't remember and didn't have any reason at first. Of why his business card would be in her pocket, then he would have a change of heart. And it was at that point that he realized that he did know her. At some point, the preheating. Summer had picked her up hitchhiking and as they partnered, he took out his business card. He was a small appliance repairman. And you gave her that the card, and she evidently kept it. I really find it challenging his story to be believable, because when I hear it, all I keep thinking about is the things that we now know. That Bobby Joe's sister said that when she thinks back, something did seem to be off in their relationship, even though her sister never confided in her. When she visited, something didn't seem right. And she said that just that same three months before, which happens to be the same three months, that he said he picked up a net that one time, that their mother, Bobby Joe's mother, got remarried, and that Bobby Joe came home for the wedding, but that Jeff didn't. So I start to put these pieces together and saying, I don't know, maybe he knew Annette much better than he was willing to let on. And if that's the case, is that what not only one murder, but these two are all about just as these cases always unfold with forensics? There is some forensics here. That will aid in Jeff's alibi. Jeff, who gave us his DNA voluntarily. It didn't match anything. I don't know. I mean, the DNA is a big deal. You know, they didn't have the answers for so many years, but now we know it's not him. It doesn't mean to me that he is absolutely not the killer. What it means is that he is not the source of the DNA that was found on her glove. But again, maybe there was somebody else involved. Maybe this took two people and not one. But at the same time, all this conjecture and all these theories that seem to make. Common sense to me, they're just that. And unless you have that evidence to bring him to the courtroom, which authorities have not had and still do not to this day, maybe they're just that. And he too is just a victim in all this. He is an innocent who lost his wife. And now because of all these other factors that he's had to live with sideway glances on top of everything else. And that's what he's been dealing with under a cloud of suspicion where he even remained there today and he will likely stay in that same place. Until the killer is caught, I mean, I'm the first one as a prosecutor to say that it is innocent until proven guilty and there has never been enough evidence to bring Jeff and to charge him. So that means that we have to conclude and assume at this point that he is innocent. When I got involved, the first thing we did was go through boxes and boxes and boxes of reports and looking through that we kept seeing this name, Tom Luther. There's a guy by the name of Thomas Edward Luther who he is more known not by his name, but as the Colorado Spree Killer. And Yep, that's exactly what it sounds like. He was a cab driver and in the six weeks after the murder, this guy was on a kind of a drunken Bender. And he eventually. Picked up a woman who was waiting for a bus and drove her around trying to take her home, but one thing led to another and he ended up attacking her. And beating her almost to death with a hammer while he was in jail he had been at to some of his cellmates that he had killed these two women. He served his ten years and got out in 1993. He then befriended this woman and he took her up in the mountains, shot her. Drag your body uphill from a highway. Buried her. Three eventually got got his DNA. Origins either. I wouldn't jump to saying it absolutely clears him, but it makes me take a big step back. And then people might say, well, wait a second, he confessed in jail. But you know what? People do confess to things they didn't do for various reasons. You know, there's one case I can think of back in Brooklyn that two guys were convicted after having bragged all over town that they had killed the taxi driver. And it came to light years later that they actually weren't the ones responsible. Somebody else's DNA came back, and that was the real killer. And then the explanation was, is that for their own reasons that they wanted to be big. And in that area in the crime world. And so they thought that they would elevate their images by bragging about this. So maybe too, maybe Thomas Edward Luther. I mean, while we know that he did plenty of things horrible in their own right, that he is just trying to up his image as the guy everyone else should be afraid of, and so he takes credit for these crimes, too. Lutheran Jeff overhauls here are probably not involved, but they're certainly not eliminated. Nobody's eliminated until we figure out who did do it. The big question right now is who killed Bobby Joe and Annette? Honestly, nobody really knows the answer to that. This is still an unsolved, very active case, which is why it's even more important, I mean crucially important, to really dissect these two cases as best we can to see what happened and that maybe one of you out there can help. So you have to think about what's the leading theories here. I mean, if we're trying to help investigators obtain leads, what's your best theory of what happened? There is something in this that is one of the more horrible aspects in the case, but actually leads me away from Jeff on this, and that is that it does appear that both these crimes were sexually motivated. There is evidence by, you know, some of the disarray in the clothing and that investigators have that at least one of these women was sexually assaulted. And that doesn't really go along with this being Jeff. I don't know. And I think the police still say they don't know either. This is one of the reasons I was so excited. Doing this double murder because it remains unsolved and because of the fact that you and I are always fighting for victims and the hope here is justice can be found Even so many years later. You know, Annie gets almost 4 decades and Charlie McCormick is around 80 years old. And he's been dedicated for so long. To try to bring closure to both of these cases. And he really feels he can still do it. You know, on almost any murder that happens, there's somebody out there that knows something about it, and those are the people who when they come forward. We'll take a case like this, it's really up in the air and solve it, so if you know something, share it with us. Yes, website rockymountaincoldcase.com. And he's welcoming the opportunity for somebody listening. To give him some information. To bring closure to this important case. TuneIn next Wednesday, when we'll dissect another new case on anatomy of murder. Anatomy of Murder is an audio Chuck original, A Weinberger media and forseti media production summit. David is executive producer.