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foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that sings the songs that make John Mayer's panties
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drop he is the captain thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for
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listening and thanks for telling a friend [Music] today we are drinking Fat Tire Belgian
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white ale by New Belgium Brewing Company garage grade three and three quarter bottle caps out of five Fat Tire Belgian
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white ale's a wit beer you know Captain we've been looking to pick something that's a little more readily available
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so many of the beers on True Crime garage are only available in certain locales I'm not saying that you can get
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this one everywhere but this is a great beer to try and you should be able to find it with just a little beer slew
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thing yeah it's one of my favorite go-to beers 5.2 ABV and you can certainly taste the hints of orange and coriander
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and this great beer was brought to us by these fine folks right here first up we
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have Alessandra in the Bronx and her name was Alessandra next we have Brandy in Auburn California and heading back to
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the east coast we say thank you to Jesse and Nikki in Stoughton Massachusetts and
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from the Sunshine State we have Ann from Palm Harbor Florida and we want to send
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a shout out to Christopher from Marysville California Captain Christopher had a lot of nice things to
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say lots of compliments about the old garage well don't think me think the alcohol and last but not least we want
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to give a shout out to Bryson Pullman Washington so thank you to everybody for filling up the fridge for this week's
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show if you want to help us out with next week's show go to True Crime garage.com and click on the Donate
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button we have a few we like your jib shirts left if you want to check those out go to truecrime garage.com and click
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on the store Page all right Captain that's enough of the business everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer
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let's talk some true crime [Applause] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you Wednesday January 4th 1984 Aurora
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Colorado in the middle of the night someone managed to enter the home of James and
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Kimberly hobbin's child a young married couple they were both asleep when a homicidal
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maniac crept into their bedroom the Intruder is dressed in dark clothing there are no lights on in their bedroom
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and no light coming from the hallway as he entered the room he could feel his pulse start to speed up
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the adrenaline in him escalating was almost as if he could feel the blood flowing from his chest to his arms and
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legs and then down to his feet and hands his breathing became louder with each step as he slowly stepped one foot at a
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time until he was at the side of James and Kimberly's bed he has been thinking about this for a
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long time and now the time has finally come he was prepared and ready for what was
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about to happen but the married couple sleeping in the bed were not the Intruder looked down at the sleeping
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man James's head resting on a pillow the intruder with his weapon heavy in his right hand slowly raised the weapon
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high above his head and as fast as he could with as much might as he could muster he brought his
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fist down smashing the weapon into the center of James's skull James is not moving but the force of the
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object hitting the Man created an earthquake effect on the bed and the Tremors awaken Kimberly
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as she lifts her head from her Slumber she opens her eyes the Intruder bends over placing one hand on the bed to
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sturdy himself and again he lifts the heavy weapon high above his head and as fast as he could
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before Kimberly could turn and look at him he smashes in her head with some kind of heavy object
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knocking her unconscious both James and Kimberly were hit multiple times before the Intruder left their home
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somehow they both survived James and Kimberly suffered terrible head injuries due to
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this attack neither could offer much of an explanation of who could have done this to them or why but what we do know
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is sometime in the middle of the night on January 4th 1984. the terror had just begun
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] 1983 50 year old Patricia Smith from
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Nebraska she moved to Green Mountain Village Townhomes located in Lakewood Colorado she was helping out her
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daughter Patricia's daughter Sherry Litton was only 29 years old Sherry was recently divorced and had moved with her
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two children from rural Oshkosh Nebraska to Lakewood as well Patricia was a loving mother and
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grandmother uh and moving in with them to help them out to help them adjust from the divorce and being relocated
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over three hours away to Lakewood Patricia even though she was moving in with her daughter she was
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happily married her husband Oliver had a government job in the state of Nebraska
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and would have to remain there Oliver would often make the long drive to visit his wife daughter and grandkids on most
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of the weekends Patricia her daughter Sherry and the grandkids this is six-year-old Amber and
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four-year-old Joe they rented a town home at 12 610 West Bayard Avenue in Lakewood Lakewood is just a short drive
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about eight miles Southwest of Denver Colorado and Sherry considered her mother Patricia to be her best friend
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yeah Patricia was doing her best to brighten the lives of her family members during this this very tough time for
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them and this to me Captain I think was this wasn't going to be a short-term Arrangement
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um it you know Patricia was going to stay there as long as it took to get them settled in but it actually sounds
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to me Captain like the plan may have been for Patricia's husband Oliver to eventually move out to Colorado to join
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the rest of the family right so they could be closer to their grandkids yeah this would this would be either after
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his contract was up with his government state job or maybe a upon retirement the two had a farm Patricia and her
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husband had a farm out in Nebraska so obviously this would require selling the farm as well but Patricia started up her
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own business after having moved to Lakewood Colorado she had a home interior design business
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the family had established a daily routine for the school and work days the two ladies would get the kids ready in
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the morning and get in Patricia's car and leave the house each morning they would first take Amber to school for
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kindergarten then take Joe to church this is where he he attended a daycare center that was set up at the church
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right and then they would continue on and Patricia would drop her daughter Sherry off at a bus station on 6th
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Avenue Sherry used public transportation to get to and from her job Patricia would
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continue on and go to work in the evening when both ladies were done working for the day Patricia would
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then meet Sherry at the bus station and then they would go get the kids so pretty much the evening routine was the
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reverse order of the morning routine yeah let's let's talk about Tuesday January 10 1984. yeah cause that evening
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didn't go it didn't work out as usual you know Sherry the daughter she arrived her bus arrived at the station dropped
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her off but her mother who was always there waiting to pick her up she was not there on this day her mother and the car
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were nowhere in sight Sherry waited around for a bit and then started to get nervous
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no matter where her mother was Sherry still needed to get her kids to go pick up her kids
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so she used the pay phone and she started making phone calls she tried to call the town home where they lived and
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there was no answer after several tries to the town home she then called a friend the friend took her
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daughter from the school to the daycare she called her cousin and her cousin picked her up at the bus station and
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from there they went to pick up the child the children from the daycare center and they drove back to their Town
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Hall well when they arrived at the scene uh in front of the house immediately this
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the scene felt strange to Sherry keep in mind by now it's it's dark out and it's evening time the first thing
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that Sherry noticed was her mother's car was parked in the driveway it was parked
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out in front of the Town Hall yeah now there were no outside lights on so you know how when there's no lights on if
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there are any lights on inside the home if there's no lights outside but there's
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lights inside the home you can pretty much see everything you know right away yeah well Sherry could see lights
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changing color and flickering coming from the upstairs bedroom window yeah and most people like once it starts
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getting dark they turn on the outside lights right I like to keep everything dark and wear night vision goggles
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I feel like it gives me the advantage well the lights that were flickering they're coming from Sherry's mother's
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bedroom window so other than the odd thing of no lights it appears that Sherry's mother Patricia
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was at the home by now when you say flickering I mean just like turning on and off or no
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Flicker and I'm glad you asked that the TV is on okay in the upstairs one of the
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upstairs rooms and so when you see the lights changing and flickering it's just the TV yeah that's always a kind of a
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creepy look by this time it's about a little after 6 15 p.m of course the alarming thing here
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Captain is if Patricia was already at the home by this time why had she not picked up her daughter from the bus or
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at the very least picked up the phone when her daughter had tried calling her several times yeah Sherry and the kids
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got out of the car and they walked to the front door the door was locked Sherry started to get her keys out the
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kids stepped in front of her both wanting to be the first to get inside out of the cold Colorado winter evening
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Sherry unlocked the door and Amber her daughter pushed past her and little Joe and ran inside
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unfortunately little Amber was the first to find her grand her grandmother on the
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floor and an image in her own words that she said would never leave her mind fifty-year-old Patricia was lying on the
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floor near a sofa just about four feet from the front door she was lying on top of a Winnie the Pooh comforter the
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comforter was slightly folded so that part of it covered Patricia's head her hands and arms were crossed over her
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chest even to little Amber's untrained eye it was clear that her grandmother had been killed and posed as if she were
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lying in a casket left near the front door right where the next person to come in the home would
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immediately find her Patricia's genes were pulled down nearly to her ankles her boots were still on
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and she was wearing a sweater there was a large amount of blood on Patricia's face and around her head someone had
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left a hammer lying on the floor next to her Sherry immediately gathered the children
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and took them next door to the neighbor's home the neighbor man ran back to the town home and saw Patricia's
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dead body and upon this he returned to his home to call 9-1-1 the police were quick to respond the
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family remained at the neighbor's home while the police searched the crime scene for Clues
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I'm guessing with a a killer on the loose and a murder scene they may have gone to stay with the with other family
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members you know they had in the Denver area the homicide investigation was pretty
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thorough the they quickly determined that Patricia had been raped during the attack there was no sign of forced entry
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into the home and they figured out that she had been killed between the hours of
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1pm and 3 P.M however the initial report was that she had been killed between the
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hours of 3 pm and 5 PM well also this is 84. so a lot of people are not locking their doors
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especially during the day maybe maybe more people would lock their doors at night but it was it was less likely or
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more likely that people would have unlocked doors back in 84 than now so let's talk about real quick the the
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no sign of forced entry as you're as you're getting towards there um the couple scenarios there are two
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scenarios to talk about here Patricia was on her her lunch break okay um and this is what the police were able
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to determine that she had gone to a Wendy's uh restaurant to pick up lunch for herself
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she had returned home and she was attacked as she opened her front door this was the police Theory
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um the problem with this police theory is there's evidence to suggest that Patricia was actually home for some time
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before the attack took place right first of all remember we talked about the TV being on upstairs her body was found
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near the front door on the main level of the Town Hall all right so she gets her
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Wendy's she goes home she's gonna maybe watch a little daytime TV while she eats
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her lunch and then knocked knock knock on the door she answers to the door the attack happens there well
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right and and that's what I'm pointing out here at the very least she couldn't have been attacked as she was opening
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the door because she had to have enough time to get in the home go upstairs turn
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on the TV at the very least yeah and the and if she had food and she was attacked
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when she's going in that wouldn't there be food everywhere okay and you you hint
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to something there very important because the family had their own Theory the family suggested that Patricia who
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had grown up and recently lived in a small town before moving to the larger City of Lakewood they said they think
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that the killer knocked on the door thinking Patricia was just a trusting person and probably would have not have
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hesitated to open the door letting the killer in and he attacked her immediately uh as upon her opening the
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door again right and again this would not be uncommon for 1984. I don't think it would be that uncommon for today
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you know you're at home during the day somebody knocks on your door there's so many of these solicitors how many people
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are opening up the door for just whoever you know I actually have a problem with
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both the the initial police Theory and the family's Theory Okay and like I said the TV being on points to me that she
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probably was not attacked as soon as she had opened the front door the problem I have with her when she's
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going inside when she's going first going into the home and and here's why so the police later find a receipt for
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the Wendy's food that she picked up upstairs so we know she went there this wasn't a TV that was left on from the
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morning time this was a TV that was turned on unless the killer for some reason decided to take the receipt to
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her fast food upstairs and put it in her bedroom the the food I believe was found
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up there as well it sounds to me I don't know it sounds to me like she didn't sit
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down and consume much of this meal before she was interrupted right here's the thing that makes me believe that she
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did not answer the door and this makes this makes the no sign of forced entry very tricky because we're
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saying she she may not have been attacked Upon returning home and she did herself didn't open the door
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Trisha wore a wig the wig was found upstairs and you know I don't wanna I don't want
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to receive any crappy email for this but here's here's my guess okay send Nick crabby emails if here's my guess if I
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wore a wig uh somebody knocks on my door I'm gonna put on my wig before I go answer the
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door does that sound like a fair statement I thought you did wear a wig you should see the these locks man this
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is my real hair not my real color Madison Reed thank you no but um that's just a guess I'm just guessing there
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maybe that's not true 100 of the time all of the time but I'm going I'm going off the assumption that if I were
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wearing a wig somebody knocks on the door I would probably put the wig on before going downstairs to open up the
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door all right so your theory is that she gets food she goes inside the house she goes upstairs to watch TV while
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she's going to eat her lunch and the Intruder comes in the door's unlocked yeah that makes the most sense to me
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yeah yeah and it well and and like I said it's just the idea that sometimes when when break-ins happen and
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they go there's no Force no sign of a fourth Century sometimes people just don't lock the door
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it happens well and I also want to talk about real quick Captain why the um well real quick though sorry but to
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me this points as an individual if she didn't have if she didn't consume much of her meal that this is not just some
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random attack where he just picked this house for no reason or he was just riding by on his bike and sees this lady
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in the window watching TV I think this was probably somebody that saw her getting the food
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um you know fancied her on some level and Then followed her back to her place and
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probably she you know studied the scene a little bit just kind of figure out is she by herself are there other people
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in the house right and and and I think they kind of got the feeling the attacker
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had this uh the feeling that no it's just her you know and he just went in well the other thing too is if you're
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watching from the outside depending on how light it was out that day um you may you may be able to observe the
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town home and see that from the windows even if the shades are closed that there's likely no lights on in the home
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right and if she returns home and you're watching her as you said and you see boom a light turn on as soon as she
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walks in the front door boom a light turn on in the upstairs bedroom you can you might one might assume she's the
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only person in the home but there was nobody there before she returned the other evidence Captain the autopsy
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showed that the cause of death was several very hard and violent hits to her head
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um this of course consistent with the hammer that was found lying next to her as the most likely murder weapon whoever
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killed the woman had removed two diamond rings from her fingers and removed a gold necklace that was around her neck
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nothing else was stolen from the home in fact the killer didn't even check the rest of the home this is according to to
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the police to see if there were other valuables that he could take evidence of a sexual assault was collected from the
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body one thing that her daughter Sherry would point out in a later interview was that there were no defensive wounds
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on Patricia's hands and arms this suggesting that she was knocked out by one or more blows to the head before the
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sexual assault took place let's get back to the case of the Aurora hammered Slayer after this quick beer break
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foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're back cheers mates cheers Captain
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stay safe out there it's uh it's all snowy where we're at so hopefully it's uh warmer wherever you are all right so
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in our timeline of the hammer Slayer we have the first attack and that is of the couple yeah so that
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is James and Kimberly hobbin's child that were attacked in the middle of the night inside their home on January 4th
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1984 but they survived yes and then we have the second attack which is going to be of Patricia Smith and she
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unfortunately did not survive correct later that same day January 10th by now it's evening time the attack and murder
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of Patricia Smith took place in Lakewood now I know this is the same day but this
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next part of the story is going to take us back to Aurora Colorado remember from
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the first trailer the first attack took place in the middle of the night in Aurora so Aurora is just about 15 miles
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from Lakewood give or take depending on how far west and Lakewood you are and how far east you would be in Aurora I
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don't have an address for Donna Dixon so we will just have to use the 15 mile distance as some thing to keep in mind
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in Aurora 28 year old flight attendant Donna Dixon who worked for Frontier Airlines
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she is driving home she pulled into her driveway and parked her car in her garage
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as she got out of her car she was attacked she was struck in the head something very hard smashed into her
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left temple she dropped to the ground her attacker pulled and stripped her clothes off of her Donna was sexually
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assaulted on the concrete garage floor after the attacker fled the scene Donna Dixon was left bloodied very badly
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beaten and unconscious her attacker had left her there to bleed out or to succumb to her head injuries and die
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there on the cold concrete floor eventually Donna and the Bloody scene were discovered a call was placed for an
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ambulance to transport her to the nearest hospital Donna was in a coma but somehow she survived the brutal assault
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but because of the severity of her injuries Donna spent weeks relearning how to talk
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which was important here Captain because the police were hoping that she could tell them who had attacked her right uh
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later when Donna Dixon would describe the attack she says that the attacker bashed in her
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head with a sledgehammer and beat her head against the wheel well another curious thing though is that
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that same article that same news article where the crime reporter had asked Donna
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to describe the attack and give her insights into the case there's a troubling phrase in there where it is
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stated Donna's attacker or attackers had used a sledgehammer to attack her and why is that a troubling phrase well I
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it's not so much that that in particular super troubling it's that a lot of people over the years have looked at the
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you know now we've discussed three different attacks three separate attacks and a lot of people have looked through
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the details of those attacks to determine if in fact they are all connected right if they were all
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committed by the same perpetrator so some people have pointed out through the years that well while a hammer what what
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we would believe to be a traditional Hammer was left next to the body of Patricia Smith and then we have this
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next account the third attack where we have the victim describing a sledgehammer and I think there's a
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couple things there to consider first of all if a traditional Hammer was used to
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kill Patricia Smith and was left at the scene right well then the attacker just hours later would would not have that
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same weapon to use on his next victim now where she says the word Sledgehammer I don't think we're looking at or
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thinking about the same thing that you and I would consider a traditional Sledgehammer with the long handle I'm
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thinking that we're probably talking about something that is just um right it's still a short Hammer
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correct you can have a short Hammer Sledgehammer I mean a watch Property Brothers before
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and but here's one thing that I want to point out to the listeners when when thinking about if these attacks are
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connected and if in fact the details of these different uh attacks could lead one to believe that or take you away
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from believing that with Donna Dixon in that news article uh there where she gives this account years
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later of how the attack went down he is giving you information that was provided to her by the police okay where
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she says that she was hit in the head with the sledgehammer and pulled to the to the ground and then her head was
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bashed against the wheel well this information didn't come from her witnessing this attack
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she actually had no memory of the attack at all other than getting out of her car
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basically for Donna Dixon she got out of her car and then she woke up many days later in the hospital right
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and that's as far as she remembers and and I know me and I'm sure a lot of people out there the same way that would
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have happened to me the first thing I'm asking the police is one who did this why did they do this and describe the
00:29:02
attack to me as the evidence points out to you because I want to know what happened to me right it's probably a
00:29:07
crazy fan that you made mad that's probably what would happen well and I'm sure that she's able to give
00:29:14
this account because the police are relaying what they can see from evidence to to tell her you know hey you were
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attacked immediately as soon as you got out of your car right you were attacked in your garage and we can tell by blood
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that you left on the wheel well that your head struck that wheel well at least once if not multiple times well I
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mean I guess the bright side of this is that she does not remember the attack and that she doesn't have those memories
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that would haunt her right right and it was a long recovery but she would make a
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full recovery and go on to live a normal life not affected by those injuries many
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years later and one question that has come up time and time again regarding this case regarding the hammer Slayer
00:29:59
case is people have always been curious why the police would move the reported time of death regarding Patricia Smith
00:30:08
remember early on it was reported that she was killed sometime between 3 and 5 PM but then later reported that she was
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actually killed between 1 and 3 P.M now the police the reason why this remains a question Captain is the police
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offer no information or no insight as to why they changed that time frame I think
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here if we look at the events of that day and if we look into the lives of these of the victims involved that we
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can probably piece together why they made that change make some inferences here and what I think I would point out
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is what did what do we know about Patricia Smith well we know that she is living at
00:30:54
that town home with the sole purpose of helping her daughter and her grandkids we talked about their daily routine
00:31:00
during the work week while their daily routine was to get up drop off the kids and then drop off the
00:31:08
her daughter at the bus station for her to go off to work so what inference can we make from that
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is that their work day Patricia Smith's work day and her daughter Sherry's work day
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is based more off of the kids schedule what time they need to arrive to school and what time they need to be picked up
00:31:26
after school yeah so we know that her body was discovered around 6 15 p.m that night my guess is that 3 P.M around 3
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P.M was the first time that she was known to be missing she was not where she was supposed to be meaning she had
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not picked up her daughter she wasn't waiting at the bus station phone calls are made to the town home
00:31:51
where we know she's ultimately found dead later so one can assume that they came up with the idea of three to five
00:31:58
being that she was unaccounted for starting at 3 P.M and she's found by 6 PM dead and we know that we had to have
00:32:07
some time for the attack to actually occur and for the attacker to flee the scene
00:32:13
so you come up with that three to five marker right yeah I think I think it makes more sense to take a look at her
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receipt see if there's a Time on it you know that would be the starting point wasn't it well and I think that's
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where you are exactly right my friend because now later they're going to tell you that the attack probably most likely
00:32:33
occurred between the hours of 1 pm and 3 P.M okay well why would that move we have to again look at the victim and
00:32:41
what that person was doing that day and like you said they found a receipt did it have a time stamp on it it would
00:32:48
have had a time stamp on it yes this information was not released to the public you mean the the time was not
00:32:54
released correct time stamp but what we can the inference we can make from what police did release stating that we
00:33:02
believe she returned home on her lunch break meaning that their that time stamp is
00:33:07
going to point them more towards a traditional lunch hour time um and then we know that she would have
00:33:15
had to have been killed or most likely would have had to have been killed before 3 P.M because that's when she is
00:33:19
now unaccounted for so if you take a look at that receipt as you had pointed out and the receipt says
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12 30 12 45 12 50. and we know that she's not accounted for starting at 3 P.M then it's looking like this attack
00:33:36
occurred sometime between the hours of one to three my guess is that they had not discovered that receipt upon
00:33:42
releasing that initial information yeah possibly and then what like you said depending on what that time stamp is
00:33:49
let's say it is uh 12 30 then she has this travel time to get back to her house and and again with the reports
00:33:56
it's stating that well she didn't consume much of this food so unless she was interrupted with a phone call which
00:34:04
we'd have phone records of that um if there wasn't something uh hindering her or being a hindrance it's
00:34:12
not even the right word yeah let's go with that let's go with that word but for whatever
00:34:19
reason she has her food and she didn't she didn't eat all the food you know so you would assume that that
00:34:26
the attack happened pretty quickly once you returned home some other things though here Captain is that
00:34:33
they after these attacks they started rounding up um construction workers and home builders in the area and I mean the
00:34:40
area of Aurora and Lakewood right apparently both of these neighborhoods um in both of these cities were I mean
00:34:50
it was a housing boom for both of these cities during this time period of of late 83 early 84. so there's a lot of
00:34:57
homes being built and a lot of houses going up everywhere yeah and their thought was the weapon is commonly used
00:35:05
tool and construction yes the tough thing about this tool is it's not this is also a household object you know
00:35:14
most houses have uh a hammer and then the question becomes is this is this person showing up without a hammer and
00:35:23
finding one at the scene or is he bringing a hammer with him well that's you bring up an interesting point
00:35:29
because first off in the Patricia Smith murder the hammer was left meaning that when they state that the hammer was left
00:35:38
that means that they've shown it to the people the remaining people that lived at that home and said was this Hammer
00:35:44
here before this event happened and to the you know the accounts they're getting from these these people the
00:35:52
family members of Patricia Smith are no that's not that was not in this house prior to this attack
00:35:58
then in the situation with Donna Dixon I don't think that we have a hammer that was left or a sledgehammer that was left
00:36:05
at the scene there's no report of that um one thing I wondered though with them rounding up all of the construction
00:36:12
workers and the home builders and this might sound this might sound silly but sometimes it's these silly little things
00:36:19
that can solve a case or at least give you a decent lead all right let's hear your little silly idea okay so we know
00:36:26
that at least one hammer was left at a crime scene on January 10th yeah I would be curious to know if there were
00:36:34
any if they if they spent time looking at Hammer purchases on the 11th or the 10th or the 12th or
00:36:41
the 13th and the only reason why I'm pointing that out is obviously like you had said a common tool used by
00:36:48
construction workers and and home builders is in fact a hammer um or you know anybody in that a similar
00:36:54
trade right but my thing is if the perpetrator at least left one hammer at a crime scene
00:37:01
is there a chance he needs to replace that I I mean here's what I'm getting at if you have a you have an area like
00:37:08
Lakewood or Aurora and there's these attacks going on and it's fairly well known that the weapon used in the murder
00:37:18
was a hammer that was left there and then two days later you and I are at a site we're working together in some form
00:37:25
of uh you know where Craftsmen or we're we're Builders or something of that nature yeah I'd be the foreman yeah you
00:37:33
would be the boss and I say hey Foreman uh captain and I'd say go fetch me that concrete you mule and and I would go I
00:37:40
would I I'll fetch you the concrete but do you have a hammer I can borrow and you'd go Nick
00:37:47
ah I'm tired of you showing up without your tools all right let me try it Nick I'm tired of you showing up here you
00:37:55
gotta you got a future you got some real skills natural gifted but you can't can't show up empty-handed my my friend
00:38:02
you need to show up with your tools I'm just kidding it would it be a little uh suspicious if all of a sudden one of
00:38:09
these guys are showing up without that very common Tool uh yeah but look if there's let's say there's a hundred
00:38:16
construction sites that probably happens every day it might happen every day but
00:38:21
where I'm going is to the hardware stores and looking to see hey has anybody purchased hammers in the in the
00:38:27
past 24 48 72 hours I don't think that your idea is that silly but I think you would want to take it one step further
00:38:35
if there is some kind of evidence uh based on the autopsy that it was a different kind of hammer not the
00:38:42
traditional Hammer you know that maybe you should look into was there multiple purchases was there a purchase of an uh
00:38:50
the traditional hammer and then one of the smaller Sledgehammer I think if you could find that because those were the
00:38:56
same day those purchases might have been made at the same time but it's also per
00:39:02
it's also possible that um whoever this nut job is going around attacking people with a hammer
00:39:11
is you know let's say he's living with his mom his father has passed away but his father was into construction these
00:39:18
could be tools that you know that that would be another question that was not reported
00:39:23
was the hammer that was left what kind of condition was this in was this a 10 year old Hammer yeah did it look
00:39:32
purchased recently or yeah that's a good that's a good insight there well and the
00:39:36
reason why I wonder that is because I personally probably own I don't know five six different hammers right me I
00:39:45
would say I own it minimum three maybe four or five and yeah and there's a you know they all vary in age you know and I
00:39:53
have a couple older hammers that I probably should throw away but you know sentimental value Grand grandfather's
00:40:00
hammer or whatever so um I I don't know that that's one thing I'd like to know is this a new Hammer
00:40:07
you know uh and and then then you're again they probably did this if it was a new
00:40:14
Hammer if it was New Hammer they probably were checking local hardware stores right uh and and like I said
00:40:20
though I also think it would be worth checking and in case this person needed to replace it immediately for their
00:40:26
occupation if they believed that now the other thing though is we got to keep in mind we've not even determined that
00:40:34
these three attacks are actually connected yet it's looking that way there are similarities that would have
00:40:39
you believe there are there's no sign of forced entry into Patricia Smith's home
00:40:44
there's no sign of forced entry into the hobbins child's home right um we also and then we have Donna Dixon
00:40:51
who's attacked outside of her home in her garage but there was a fourth attack and I want to start off by saying this
00:40:58
you know when when you do a very simple Google search of this case uh and you can look it up in under several
00:41:05
different tags yeah um that's that's the hardest thing about this case yeah you could look it up
00:41:11
under the title we chose the Aurora Hammer Slayer um I've also seen it called Colorado Hammer man or any of the
00:41:19
many many different tags given to these cold cases you will get about one of three different articles reporting the
00:41:28
fourth attack uh so what we have done for this this portion is sort of compiled those three
00:41:35
uh more popular articles regarding the fourth attack to to tell to tell you the details uh of that fourth attack and in
00:41:42
relation to uh the next part of our Cold Case investigation because there are plenty of questions in this case but I
00:41:50
think let's go through this fourth attack first and get to those questions after but before we do the fourth attack
00:41:56
we have to take you back a bit to tell you about a man named Bruce Bennett uh Bruce married his high school sweetheart
00:42:03
Debra um they were they were young they were actually just out of high school when
00:42:09
they got married after they married Bruce joined the Navy he was there he served a four years stationed at Pearl
00:42:16
Harbor from 1976 to 1980. uh Bruce was a sonar analyst after the Navy Bruce was enrolled in college and he was training
00:42:27
or trained as an air traffic controller Bruce's family owned a family-run furniture store and Bruce was working
00:42:36
there however he was excited for a possible future career as an air traffic controller now Bruce Bennett and his
00:42:44
wife Deborah Bennett they both enjoyed living uh what others would later describe as a quiet life
00:42:50
the two along with their small children we have seven-year-old Melissa and three-year-old Vanessa they had moved to
00:42:57
a nice home in the 16 300 block of East Center Drive in Aurora Colorado Bruce and Deborah are pretty young
00:43:08
themselves Bruce is 27 and his wife is 26. they moved there over the course of the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend in
00:43:18
1983. where we left off in our case so far is January 10 1984. but we're going to move forward to
00:43:26
January 15 1984. this is a Sunday Melissa the Bennett's seven-year-old daughter she's going to be turning eight
00:43:35
years old later in the week so the Bennetts are going to celebrate Melissa's birthday on that Sunday so
00:43:42
they had some other family members over that day to join in the celebration so you know sometime on Sunday evening
00:43:49
things are winding down people have to work in the morning so their guests are starting to leave
00:43:56
I can't say for certain here what time the last guest or guest left but I do have something in my notes Here
00:44:03
suggesting that the last guests were leaving around nine o'clock maybe as early as nine o'clock or as late as 10
00:44:11
P.M Bruce and Deborah they cleaned up the party and put the children to bed sometime during the night
00:44:18
a cat burglar entered the home armed with a knife and a hammer trying to steal cats a noise must have awoken
00:44:27
Bruce and upon which he went to investigate the noise Bruce encountered the Intruder on the stairs to the home
00:44:36
and immediately a fighting suit yeah from the way it looks this was was quite the fight we have an intruder here
00:44:44
with a weapon and Bruce presumably unarmed uh regardless of how unfair this fight is this this would be
00:44:53
but what I can say is Bruce did the best to he could to protect his family well he said the Intruder had a hammer and a
00:45:00
knife correct yeah he he Bruce did the best he could to protect his family he he had been slashed uh he was slashed
00:45:07
several times in this attack he was hit over the head with the hammer um but yet
00:45:13
even though he had all these injuries he repeatedly crawled the stairs up the stairs covered in blood trying to
00:45:22
save and protect his family however he was unsuccessful the Intruder went to the master bedroom and he pummeled and
00:45:32
sexually assaulted the 26 year old Deborah leaving her head bashed in next he walked the hall to
00:45:40
seven-year-old Melissa's room where he did the same and then he walked into the youngest girl's room Vanessa and
00:45:47
repeatedly hit her in the head and face with a blunt object presumably a hammer and fast forward ahead a little bit to
00:45:54
January 16th at 10 A.M that's going to be the discovery of the bodies yeah and this happens because Bruce has not shown
00:46:03
up for work yet and as we said it's a family-owned business so one of the people that works there not sure maybe
00:46:10
if if she's the owner of the company but this is Bruce's mother Constance and like others I'm sure at the store was
00:46:19
just at the Bennett residence the day before for the birthday party and it's not like Bruce to miss work certainly
00:46:26
without notifying someone so Constance tries calling the house several times and with no luck she decides to go to
00:46:32
the Bennett house later she would say that she was afraid of something like Co poisoning
00:46:39
uh all right yeah so that maybe you know maybe the whole family had fallen asleep
00:46:43
for forever because of Co poisoning so she makes the drive and Bruce's Body was discovered that morning by his own
00:46:51
mother Constance Bennett who immediately called police now the Bennett house was a horrible scene
00:46:58
as you can imagine and and these attacks that took place I mean the the house and the rooms were so bloody
00:47:06
and the the victims so badly beaten and Constance having arrived at a home to see the unimaginable well she failed
00:47:14
to notice something very important that out of all the Death that had taken place in those dark early morning hours
00:47:21
death had missed the little three-year-old girl Vanessa yeah Bennett didn't know that Vanessa had had
00:47:28
survived the attack until a paramedic rushed out of the house cradling The Battered little girl in his arms
00:47:36
she was in very bad shape but she was rushed off to the hospital the other three family members of the of
00:47:45
the Bennett family Bruce Deborah and Melissa sadly were killed that night and pronounced dead at the crime scene
00:47:52
Bruce was found on the stairs Deborah in her bedroom and Melissa in her bedroom Melissa go ahead I was just going to say
00:48:00
I mean it's it's so so sad I mean one you know you applaud Bruce for trying you know to save his family and his
00:48:10
little girls and then I think just sometimes when it's uh when there are kids involved in an attack like this it
00:48:17
just seems like uh you know like this one just feels different than the other attacks well
00:48:24
it's a lot it's a lot to it's really a lot to take in all at once there and but then now we have this
00:48:32
you know very young victim that's alive that maybe they could give us some information yes and that's that's what
00:48:41
we're hoping Vanessa had skull fractures to both sides of her head um her jaw was shattered which ended up
00:48:48
sending Jagged bones into her windpipe um and I and I don't say that to paint a horrible picture for you I only say that
00:48:57
to try to too late well I only say that to try to describe how right this is it was you're yeah whoever did this has to
00:49:06
be a [ __ ] monster well and the thing here is Captain I point that out because I believe that whoever did this didn't
00:49:13
know that the girl was still alive I think that she probably looked so bad after he had attacked her that he
00:49:20
believed that she was dead a massive investigation had begun obviously uh this produced very little
00:49:27
leads regarding the house itself the early reports indicated the following that there again was no signs of forced
00:49:36
entry into the home there was also no obvious motive for the killings for the police nothing was taken taken from the
00:49:44
house except for a knife used to slash Bruce and a purse belonging to Debra which was scattered the the contents of
00:49:53
the purse were scattered in the front yard outside and the purse was left in the front yard as well and you'd think
00:49:59
with all these attacks happening that people would start locking their doors not saying that they didn't lock their
00:50:05
doors just because there's no sign of force entry right doesn't mean that somebody doesn't know how to pick a lock
00:50:13
right doesn't know how to get you know I could break into a lot of homes and you
00:50:17
wouldn't know that I actually broke in there like there wouldn't be any sign of that
00:50:22
I probably shouldn't have said that out loud no you shouldn't have uh regarding Bruce uh the early report stated that he
00:50:29
had been cut and slashed numerous times and struck in the head with a hammer the
00:50:34
district the I'm sorry the deputy district attorney had this to say quote it was quite clear he had fought with
00:50:41
the Intruder it's apparent he had struggled with his attacker in more than one location and on more than one floor
00:50:49
of the house he had numerous this is this is this is where you like it's sad because you're you're sad that Bruce
00:50:58
didn't survive the attack right but you're all you're in a way kind of proud of him yeah uh because because you know
00:51:06
why because [ __ ] the Intruder you know well and this is this is from the deputy
00:51:13
District Attorney's mouth you know she says that that Bruce had numerous injuries that could have killed him
00:51:19
that's how that's how hard he fought and how badly he was hurt during the course
00:51:24
of that fight and he wouldn't stop fighting it's going to sound a little silly but this
00:51:29
you get attacked right and then it's time to you know you're down on the ground you
00:51:35
got to make a decision right are you going to get up right you're going to fight you're going to keep fighting you
00:51:40
have your wife there you have your your children and I bet he pulled one of the Hulk Hogan moves you know where he
00:51:47
started waving his finger up well at round two you know and and yeah did he did he stop him no but like I said
00:51:59
that intruder you know had his hands full and and like you said it's it's a weird thing to I
00:52:05
guess say that you're proud of him but I you know I I don't know what else to call it right yeah it's it it sounds
00:52:12
weird to say that but I mean there's no other way to put it for me okay so let's
00:52:17
talk about this because I said that we took kind of you know three newspaper articles uh of the more of the immediate
00:52:25
ones that will pull up when you go to look into this case and kind of smash them together to present the whole thing
00:52:30
to you as far as the fourth attack and the murders of the Bennett family go um and I want to point out a couple
00:52:37
things here because many armchair detectives many web sleuthors have taken a look at this case over the years and
00:52:45
tried to figure out a lot of things about this case regarding the details about you know we've always heard the
00:52:52
devils and the details so that's why we pour through the details and try to see if we can gain anything or learn
00:52:58
anything about the potential attacker or attackers that committed these crimes I
00:53:03
want to First address one thing it has been it has been brought up several times
00:53:09
over the years that potentially if if all four of these attacks are in fact connected
00:53:18
that the killer was escalating meaning that he he chose to bring a knife and a hammer with him to the fourth attack
00:53:27
where on the first second and third there's no evidence of a knife being present but later in that story we hear
00:53:35
that the knife was probably taken from the Bennett family home and then it was it the bloody knife was found out in
00:53:42
front of their home was thrown down near the purse in the front yard yeah when we try to
00:53:48
figure out this person this this attacker and if in fact they were escalating I I would suggest maybe not
00:53:56
because it doesn't appear that this attacker brought the knife with him it appears that he in fact took the knife
00:54:03
from the Bennett home and used it during the attack my guess is that he went looking for the knife that he had
00:54:12
encountered Bruce he had this fight with Bruce he probably hit Bruce in the head
00:54:17
multiple times with the weapon he brought with him the hammer and when Bruce kept getting up at some
00:54:24
point this attacker believed that his own weapon was failing him and that he went looking for the knife and decided
00:54:32
he needed to use a different a different weapon a different method to kill the man that's trying to stop him inside the
00:54:39
home that he's entered and we know this because Bruce's Bruce's throat was Slash so ultimately
00:54:47
he he used a different method to to kill Bruce however we heard the uh Deputy Deputy district attorney stating Bruce
00:54:55
had suffered many injuries that would have killed most people yeah so where I say that people of question was this
00:55:02
this attack or this Intruder escalating I would guess I would say no and for the
00:55:08
simple fact that I think that this was an unplanned portion of this guy's attack you know we saw the previous
00:55:14
scenes where there was no knife used but he also left all of those victims in a manner which I believe he thought they
00:55:22
were all dead when he left there and I think he broke into the home with the intention of killing who was ever inside
00:55:28
and doing whatever he wanted while he was in there um but I don't see escalation here I
00:55:34
think that it's just happenstance that those people survived and thankfully they survived but don't you think that
00:55:41
with some of these attacks there it suggests that he would be casing uh the house or case in whatever situation he's
00:55:48
going into you know we talked about that earlier where you know you could have watched
00:55:55
Patricia Smith's home from the outside and judging by whether she turned on lights and there were no lights on
00:56:01
before that that would indicate that she was in fact alone but the problem I have with that is if
00:56:07
that were the case he could he could essentially do this in each one of these attacks you know Donna
00:56:14
Dixon was by herself so maybe he followed her in her car saw her driving home decided to start following her and
00:56:22
then he he Blitz attacked her as soon as she got out of her car he could have parked near her and just ran up and
00:56:28
started attacking her in her garage knowing that she either was alone or if there was somebody inside the home they
00:56:35
would have he would have a few minutes to gain control of the situation yeah you could have potentially followed
00:56:42
Patricia Smith home and and figured out if she was in fact home alone or not these other two cases
00:56:50
the the females not by themselves you know if in fact that that was his goal we know that that there was rape
00:56:56
involved in several of these cases um if if you're trying to get a female alone that was not the case with the
00:57:05
hobbins child attack or the case in the Bennett house so therefore that tells me one thing or
00:57:11
one of two things either um he's casing the houses as you suggested and maybe the whether there's a man
00:57:20
present or not does not affect his determination of going into the home right and my that's what my argument
00:57:27
would be is that to me it's a clear sign of escalation if the person case the house and knew
00:57:35
that it wasn't even just two people in the house but that there were four but they're the four and that there were
00:57:42
children involved and that you know I wanted that be by definition escalating it it would be but then you have the
00:57:50
other situation um part two of my answer would be maybe he's not watching the houses and does
00:57:55
not care who or what is inside yeah that he's just going to go in and take over the scene and leave a horrible horrible
00:58:03
bloody mess when he's done let's talk about questions here because one thing that we've tasked ourselves
00:58:09
selves with with this case because this is a you know this is a fascinating Cold
00:58:14
Case and there I've I've come across many common questions that people have come
00:58:20
up with within the first few years after these attacks had happened now we said Cold Case so you need to keep in mind
00:58:29
it's cold for a reason there were these four attacks that may or may not be linked but there were no more attacks
00:58:35
that we can find that were similar that could be linked to this so the questions that we've tasked
00:58:42
ourselves with answering and we're going to have to do this in the next episode because we're getting a little a little
00:58:47
lengthy here today but um that's what she said of the of the the first question is this it's not
00:58:53
clear if all four of the January attacks are connected so we'll try to answer that one tomorrow
00:59:00
um also because there were no signs of forced entry into the homes how did the Intruder get into the Bennett home or
00:59:07
the other homes did the killer know his victims and if not did he how did he choose these
00:59:14
particular people or houses also what was the motive for these attacks or killings
00:59:21
why was Patricia killed during the day and the Bennetts killed overnight and then also as we had already stated
00:59:29
the killings ended with the Bennett family murders why did the did the Killer die or did he just stop killing
00:59:36
or maybe he moved to another state so we're going to do some additional digging and see if we can answer these
00:59:43
questions for you [Applause] thanks for listening thanks for subscribing and thank you for telling a
00:59:53
friend until next time be good be kind and don't litter thank you [Music] [Applause]
01:00:20
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