Candace Hiltz was 17 when she was found slain Aug. 15, 2006, in the family home in the Copper Gulch area 25 miles southwest of Canon City. She was the victim of multiple gunshot wounds.
Her brother, James Hiltz, then 29, was listed as a person of interest and was the subject of a three-day manhunt. When he was arrested, he was not charged with his sister’s murder but instead was charged with unrelated burglary counts in connection with a Copper Gulch home break-in.
After several mental health evaluations and court proceedings, Hiltz was found not guilty by reason of insanity in connection with the burglary charges and committed to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo in 2008.
On Dec. 17, Rick Ratzlaff of Canon City bought the contents of two storage units here that came up for auction after their owners failed to pay the rental fees.
“It was snowing, so I let this one sit on the back burner,” Ratzlaff said of storage unit No. 47.
“When I opened it, I knew it was a sheriff’s officer’s because there were uniforms and sirens and lights off of cop cars,” Ratzlaff explained.
What he hadn’t bargained for were the evidence envelopes he found when he started going through the boxes.
“There were manila envelopes that had evidence across them in big black letters and a stamp for a case number, but there was no case number. The big one had a bloody rope; the smaller manila envelope had two female blood-soaked socks; and the medium one had a weapon fall out the bottom of it. It was a chrome ax that also had blood on it,” Ratzlaff said.
Dodd is a lieutenant/detective at the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office. Dodd had rented the storage locker in 2015 but failed to pay the lease fee, Ratzlaff said he was told by the storage unit business owner.
Ratzlaff said he took some of the evidence home to study it, but left much of it in the storage unit.
