thought this was interesting re the DA's office work
http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_17097385?source=rss
Reviving Boulder County's cold cases
The Boulder County District Attorney's decision Friday to appeal the 2006 case of suspected murder victim Angela Wilds to the Colorado Supreme Court is the latest in a string of new developments in some of Boulder County's most infamous cold cases. Here's a look at some of them.
JonBenet Ramsey
The 6-year-old girl was found dead Dec. 26, 1996, in the basement of her family's Boulder home on 15th Street. In 2006, a media circus descended on Boulder after John Mark Karr was arrested in connection with the decade-old case. He was exonerated after his DNA didn't match crime-scene evidence.
In February 2009, District Attorney Stan Garnett gave control of the case back to Boulder police.
The department then held a meeting with an advisory committee to review all the evidence in the case. On that group's advice, police in October began a new round of interviews related to the slaying.
Angela Wilds
The body of Angela Wilds was found by hikers in South St. Vrain Canyon on June 4, 2006.
After four years of investigation, police arrested her former boyfriend, John Angerer, in March 2010.
After Angerer was extradited from Alaska to Colorado, charged with second-degree murder and held for months, he was released from custody in July 2010 when a Boulder County judge ruled there was not enough evidence for the case against him to proceed.
District Attorney Stan Garnett appealed the ruling, but a district court judge in December upheld the lower court's decision, and Angerer remains free. Garnett appealed the case to the Colorado Supreme Court on Friday.
Sid Wells
University of Colorado senior Sid Wells was found shot to death Aug. 1, 1983, in his condominium in Boulder's Spanish Towers, 805 29th St. Police said Wells was forced to the floor and shot execution-style in the back of the head.
In October of that year, police arrested Thayne Smika, who was living with Wells at the time of the crime, at his family's home in Akron.
A grand jury convened to investigate the homicide as then-Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter declined to charge Smika, saying there was not sufficient evidence. The grand jury ended in 1985 with no indictment.
Hunter reviewed the case again in 1999 and declined to issue an arrest warrant. Newly elected District Attorney Mary Lacy came to the same conclusion two years later.
In 2009, District Attorney Stan Garnett said he'd review the case and consider running old evidence through new DNA tests. On Thursday, Boulder police unsealed an arrest affidavit for Smika that names him as Wells' suspected murderer. His whereabouts are unknown.
Susannah Chase
Susannah Chase was a 23-year-old student at the University of Colorado who was found brutally beaten in an alley near her home at 18th and Spruce streets on Dec. 21, 1997. She died the next day.
Boulder police arrested Diego Olmos Alcalde in January 2008 after his DNA -- which had been entered into a federal database -- turned up as a match to evidence recovered from Chase's body.
In June 2009, a Boulder County jury found Alcalde guilty of first-degree murder, sexual assault and kidnapping. He is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at the Sterling Correctional Facility.
David Eugene Cox
The 55-year old was found bludgeoned to death Jan. 4, 1994, in his mobile home at Boulder Meadows in north Boulder. He was last seen alive on New Year's Eve 1993. An autopsy showed that he died of massive head injuries caused by a blunt object, which police said was a cast-iron tea kettle. Prosecutors believe David John Trujillo killed Cox.
District Attorney Stan Garnett agreed to take another look at the case after he took office in 2009. Cox was arrested in May 2010, but the case was dropped in August after a judge ruled there was not enough evidence to try him. District Judge Lael Montgomery later overruled that opinion.
Garnett sent the judge's order concerning Trujillo to Boulder police and will leave it up to them whether to arrest him again. Trujillo is in poor health, police have said.
Carol Murphy
Hikers found Carol Murphy's nude body near a trailhead in Lefthand Canyon on May 23, 1987. She had been strangled and her throat slit, authorities said.
Her ex-husband, Kevin Elmarr, was initially a suspect in the case. But prosecutors were unable to definitively tie him to the crime until improved DNA technology in early 2007 determined that he'd had sex with Murphy just hours before she died, despite the fact that he had told police he hadn't been intimate with her for years.
In August 2009, a Boulder County jury convicted Elmarr of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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