CO CO - Kelsie Schelling, 21, pregnant, Pueblo, 4 Feb 2013 *Arrest* #2

[Seattle1]

Mom fights to bring pregnant daughter's killer to justice 8 years after she disappeared

3/26/21

"Now that she is gone, I've had to turn into a fighter," Saxton told "20/20."

When the time came, Saxton even took the stand against her daughter's killer. Though Lucas has been sentenced to life behind bars for her murder, the exact location of Schelling's remains have not been revealed and Saxton still hasn't been able to lay her to rest.

"I'm never going to recover without getting her back," Saxton said. "I still have nowhere to go to take her flowers, to go sit and talk with her, take her balloons on her birthday, go to her on the holidays. I have nothing. Donthe took that away from me."

 

[Seattle1]

Mom fights to bring pregnant daughter's killer to justice 8 years after she disappeared

 

[all4justice]

Snipped and bolded by me

Treating Kelsie terribly in life apparently wasn't enough for Donthe; he had to throw her and his unborn child away like garbage too (assuming they are in the landfill).

Kelsie was so kind and generous to him, far better than he deserved. Thank God for justice in this case!

Kelsie Schelling Murder: Was Her Body Ever Found? | Heavy.com

3/26/21

Her mother said Schelling’s body not being recovered from the landfill is “just the worst possibility to me, because he discarded her like garbage. I mean, who wants that for their child to be the final resting place? No one.” Her brother added, “We wanna bring her home with us, her and Cadry both. Cadry — that was the name she was going to give the child.”

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Kelsie Schelling would've turned 30 this year. Her mother said she wonders what would have become of her life.

"I would like to have known what she finally settled on as a career, if she ever would've got married, had more kids, all those things," Saxton said.

She said she feels some relief that Lucas "won't be out on the street to manipulate any more women."

Saxton hopes that people remember Kelsie Schelling as "a little girl with a really big heart, a really big smile, a really big laugh, beautiful eyes, [and a] lover of animals, lover of children. Silly, she was so silly."

"I miss being silly with her," Saxton added. "I miss all the things that we didn't get to do together."
Mom fights to bring pregnant daughter's killer to justice 8 years after she disappeared

 

[imstilla.grandma]

…
The court heard that the couple’s relationship had a history of domestic violence. Kelsie’s friends testified that Lucas had used her for money, her car and her apartment in Denver – and that starting a family wasn’t what he would have wanted.

The defence said there wasn’t enough evidence to find Lucas guilty. With no DNA and no body it was, in their eyes, a missing persons case.

They branded the case the “biggest stretch in Colorado history”.

And yet they surprised everyone when they called no witnesses for the defence.

Following an 18-day trial, the jury took just three hours to find Lucas, 28, guilty of first-degree murder.

He was immediately sentenced to the mandatory term of life in prison without the chance of parole.

Eight years after her daughter’s disappearance, Laura told the press that she could finally breathe for the first time.

“But in the end, I didn’t get Kelsie back and that’s what I wanted more than anything,” she added, through tears, as she begged the public to keep searching.

Investigators discovered that Kelsie’s car was seen near a landfill but sadly, after so many years, it would be difficult to search for remains there.

However, Laura refuses to rest until her daughter is found.

Kelsie would have turned 30 this year – and likely been a mum to an eight-year-old.

But while she’d been excited about the prospect of bringing new life into the world, it seems her warped partner ended hers and that of her unborn child.
Pregnant woman vanished after trip to doctor's and sending scan pic to boyfriend

 

[Topppps]

Man Im shocked by that guilty verdict still, I dont see how the prosecution proved the premeditation to get a murder 1 conviction.

 

[CastlesBurning]

Eight years of Dateline's Missing in America: 169 still missing

 

[YaYa_521]

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
NamUs #MP20306
Kelsie Jean Schelling
Circumstances of Disappearance--

 

[Caring1]

**Bump for Kelsie**

2 Unidentified Person Exclusions

 

[Seattle1]

**Bump for Kelsie**

2 Unidentified Person Exclusions

View attachment 387819

I believe Kelsie's remains were deposited in the Pueblo County Landfill where a shoddy investigation that took 7 years to arrest and charge the only suspect allowed Kelsie to be lost to prey and decomposition. Her killer knows where he left her deceased body and I doubt Kelsie's body left the county. JMO

 

[Megnut]

Investigators need help identifying items found near skeletal remains in Rye | KRDO

A live TV news station covering breaking news and traffic for Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Southern Colorado with a strong investigative team

krdo.com

Could it Kelsie?

JMO

 

[Seattle1]

Investigators need help identifying items found near skeletal remains in Rye | KRDO

A live TV news station covering breaking news and traffic for Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Southern Colorado with a strong investigative team

krdo.com

Could it Kelsie?

JMO

No. This is obviously a Jane Doe authorities are trying to identify.

PCPD has had Kelsie's DNA since 2013 and they wouldn't be trying to ask the public to identify Kelsie's clothing when her mother/family could easily do that.

 

[PommyMommy]

FEB 4, 2023

Colorado Missing Person's Day remembers more than 500 Coloradans who haven't been found

Tomorrow is a day to remember the hundreds of Coloradans who are missing, including a missing murder victim in Southern Colorado.

www.koaa.com

Tomorrow is a day to remember the hundreds of Coloradans who are missing, including a murder victim in Southern Colorado. February 4th is designated as Colorado Missing Person's day, but today, the day was honored at the State Capitol Building in Denver.

Laura Saxton founded Colorado Missing Person’s Day in 2016 in honor of her daughter Kelsie Schelling. Kelsie was reported missing in Pueblo on February 4th, 2013, and she hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

“I haven't seen her for ten years, and I haven't heard for voice for ten years, I haven’t heard her laugh or been able to hug her for ten years.” said Saxton. “I don't know how I survived that long, because it's just so unbelievable and so painful.”

[...]

“If we were able to bring her remains home and give here a proper burial, I think that would help me to a certain degree, have some peace that way, but not having her back and not knowing where she is, is just torture,” said Saxton.

[...]

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Kelsie went missing Feb. 4, 2013. She was pregnant at the time and still has not been found. Donthe Lucas was convicted on her murder in March 2021 after a lengthy investigation.

“Obviously things have changed in some ways. We finally got the justice side of it taken care of, but we still don’t have Kelsie back,” said Kelsie’s mother, Laura Saxton, as she reflects on the years since the trial. “Right now I’m taking care of myself from all of the years that I didn’t take care of myself.”

Saxton started Colorado Missing Persons Day in 2016, which now lands on or near the anniversary of Kelsie’s disappearance. It honors individuals missing for more than a year.

“Going through the holidays is always very difficult, and then coming up upon the anniversary date of her going missing and the date of her death, and then after that her birthday is in February, also. Those few months there are pretty rough for me; just one day of a time basically,” said Saxton.

Friday’s Colorado Missing Persons Day marks 11 years since Kelsie Schelling’s disappearance

11 News checked in with the family of a well-known murder victim, Kelsie Schelling.

www.kktv.com

 

[imstilla.grandma]

A Pueblo man who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2021 in themurder of pregnant 21-year-old Kelsie Schelling has had his conviction upheld by the Colorado Court of Appeals.

Donthe Lucas, 31, appealed his conviction on the grounds that the Pueblo court in which he was tried improperly admitted evidence of "other acts" not related to Schelling's murder and of canine decomposition detection. Lucas's appeal also claimed misconduct in the prosecuting attorney's closing remarks.

However, in a 24-page opinion obtained by the Chieftain, the appeals court found that despite Lucas's arguments, he received a fair trial and his conviction was upheld.

Donthe Lucas murder conviction in Kelsie Schelling case upheld by Colorado appeals court

The Colorado Court of Appeals has affirmed the murder conviction of Donthe Lucas, who killed pregnant 21-year-old Kelsie Schelling in 2013.

www.chieftain.com