One Depravity From Murder

Warning: this episode contains graphic descriptions of grisly events. This episode is not recommended for anyone under 13 years of age. This is a rough one, you guys so we gonna love dis shit. It’s January of 1984, for a 12-day period, the Colorado cities of Aurora and Lakewood were terrorized by what I think of as the most horrifying of all types of killers. A man who attacked strangers randomly, raped the women and children before bludgeoning them to death. Known as the Colorado Hammer murders, the crime spree began in Aurora on the morning of January 4th of 1984. At about 2:00 am, an intruder entered the house of a couple through an unlocked door. The couple, James and Kim Haubenschild had only been married for a couple of years at this point and they were young. James was not even 25 at this time. The attacker bludgeoned the couple with a hammer and left them for dead. By some miracle, both Kim and James survived the assault, but James had a fractured skull and Kim had a concussion. With no leads and just a foggy physical description from Kim, police didn’t have anything to go on. Police found footprints in the snow leading to and from other homes in the same area, making it seem he was looking for a way into any home just to take the opportunity to kill. Almost 6 days later, on the 9th of January, 1984 on a Monday evening, the sky had just turned dark. So that probably means it was like 3pm with freaking daylight savings. 28 yea- old Donna Dixon, a flight attendant who just got off her shift and went to run errands, was happy to be home. She was super excited for the next day when her boyfriend, Ronald Holm, who was a pilot, would also be home. Donna pulled into her driveway, hit the button to raise her garage door and pulled her car in. She turned to grab her flight attendant’s uniform in the back seat and turned to exit her car. Suddenly, an intense blow to her left temple forced her head into the steering wheel. The world faded away as she began to lose consciousness and she slumped into the passenger seat. After hitting her with a hammer, the assailant tossed it into the seat and began dragging her limp body from the vehicle. He tore her clothes off her, letting them fall anywhere he tossed them. Then he viciously raped her on the cold concrete floor. Donna awoke on the garage floor, naked and confused. She had no memory of what had happened and apparently didn’t feel any pain. She was terribly cold, so much so, that she was completely numb. Despite this, she was able to get to her feet and stumble inside where she put herself to bed, her brain muddled from the punishment she had sustained. At around 8pm, the next night after her attack, on January 10th of 1984, Ron, Donna’s boyfriend, arrived at their home. Upon entering the garage, he was distressed at the scene he walked in on. Donna’s clothing was haphazardly strewn about, along with her purse and the mail. The most disturbing sight was the blood near the entry door. Ron ran into the house and found Donna lying on a their now blood-soaked bed. She was naked, curled up into a ball, and could only groan in response to his attempts to wake her. He discovered a gaping hole on the left side of her skull and he quickly called 911. Donna was rushed to the hospital while police secured the scene. They found the large hammer the assailant had left on the seat of the car. They dusted it for prints, but none were found. The garage was like a horror movie, blood was everywhere. It was splattered all over the car, they noticed the strewn clothing and her purse which they did discover was missing money but nothing else seemed out of missing from the house. Donna had to have several operations to fix the damage the attacker had done. Despite the severity of the attack and the incredible amount of blood loss, doctors and nurses were able to save her. In fact, because she had spent so many hours naked on the cold concrete floor in freezing temperatures, that the cold had probably actually kept her from bleeding to death. Ron stayed by Donna’s hospital bed day and night. He was certainly the caring, attentive boyfriend, but he was also afraid upon hearing she survived, the attacker might return. Her injuries were so severe, that when Donna awoke, she had the mental capabilities of a 2 year old. She had to relearn everything, including how to talk. She couldn’t speak in a full sentence for nearly 6 months after the attack. In May of 1984, just a few months after the assault, and before she had come close to full recovery, the couple married. Ron wanted to show Donna he would be there “for better or for worse.” As of the information I gathered, they’re still married to this day. Before Donna had even been found, another attack had happened 26 miles away in the city of Lakewood. 50 year old Patricia Louise Smith had only been living in Lakewood a little over 3 months. She had left Nebraska with her daughter who had recently divorced. Patricia’s husband stayed behind in Nebraska – I’m not exactly sure why – but it was said that she missed him. However, she loved being with her daughter and 2 grandbabies. The 4 of them lived in a townhome in a nice area with clear, crisp air (now a thing of the past) with mountains spiring into the sky to the west. On Jan. 10th of 1984, Patricia began her day like always, dropping her daughter off at work and the grandkids at school. Later that afternoon, however, the ever-reliable Patricia failed to pick them up. They ended up getting a ride from someone else, but when they arrived home, Patricia’s car was there and the TV looked to be on in the upstairs bedroom. When the family entered the home, the scene inside was one the grandkids would never forget. There, on the floor next to the couch, merely feet away from the front door, was the deliberately posed body of Patricia. Break – When we return from the break, we’ll find out the horror that faced Patricia’s daughter and kids when they found her. Patricia had been laid flat down with her arms crossed over her chest. Beneath her was a neatly-folded Winnie the Pooh comforter, it, and the floor around it was soaked in blood. Patricia had on her sweater and her boots, but her jeans were pulled down. Next to her was… a hammer. It was later determined to be the murder weapon. Police examined the scene and put together the events leading to her demise. She had been killed sometime between 1 and 3 pm. She had stopped by Wendy’s and had come home to eat her lunch. She had left the garage door open and had probably left the front door unlocked after entering. She had gone upstairs, removed her wig, as one does, then turned the tv on. No signs of forced entry were found, so it’s believed the killer entered through the unlocked door and killed Patricia. Robbery didn’t seem to be the motive as only the jewelry that Patricia had on her was missing but nothing else. The house seemed to be in order, except for Patricia’s purse which had been turned out with all the contents strewn about. Police were unable to pull any fingerprints or any other usable evidence that they were aware of. They did collect whatever they could in case of technological advances in the future. 26 miles away from the previous incident, back in Aurora again, where the first incident occurred, the Bennett family was settling into their new home. They had recently relocated to this home at around Thanksgiving from a few miles away and were happy with their quiet new neighborhood. They lived in a cul-de-sac where most of the houses had recently been finished and were up for sale. Bruce Bennett was just 27 years old and had previously worked on high-tech sonar equipment in the navy in Pearl Harbor. At this time in his life, he worked at a family-owned furniture store and was taking college classes to become an air traffic controller. Bruce’s wife, Debra, who was 26, had married Bruce before his Navy deployment and she also worked at the same furniture store as her husband. She was also raising their two children, Melissa who was seven and Vanessa who was just 3. On Sunday, January 15th, 1984, family gathered at the Bennett home to have a party for Melissa’s birthday who was to turn 8 on the following Tuesday. The last guest left at about 9pm, after which Bruce noticed the garage door was still open. Bruce mentioned to Debra that he wanted to make a last-minute run to the store before going to bed so they left the garage door open for that trip since he would just have to open it up shortly. Sometime between 9pm and 10am an unexpected visitor entered the family’s home. At some point, Bruce had been alerted to the intruder’s entrance into the house as was evidenced by a struggle that took place. Bruce and the trespasser must have fought up and down the stairwell and at some point, Bruce was struck with several blows by a hammer. Even after having been struck repeatedly and having sustained major injuries, Bruce continued his fight for his life and that of his young family. It seems he even dragged himself up the stairs after the assailant believed he was unconscious or dead. The intruder grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed Bruce viciously over his entire upper body and once Bruce was disabled, the offender used that same knife to slit Bruce’s throat from ear to ear. After putting up the most valiant fight he could, Bruce succumbed and lay silent. The killer didn’t leave after the fight. He continued upstairs where he attacked Debra in her bedroom where there was evidence of a struggle. Debra was raped and beaten to death with a hammer. You’d think at this point, the killer was maybe quite tired and would be satiated, but he wasn’t. This freak entered the oldest daughter, Melissa’s room. There, he hit the sleeping girl in the head with a hammer. As blood flowed from her wounds, the attacker lifted her out of her bed, leaving an imprint from his shirt on her blood-soaked pajamas. He put her on the floor and sexually assaulted her and she perished from her injuries on the floor of her bedroom. He then moved on to the youngest in the family, Vanessa, the toddler. Oh man, this is rough. Vanessa, only 3 at the time, oh my god, this asshole… Vanessa was also struck savagely with a hammer. The attack was so vicious, that her jaw was shattered, and her skull was fractured in several areas. She was then left for dead. The intruder took Debra’s purse out the front door, dumped the contents into the snow and threw the knife he had killed Bruce with. He took the hammer with him. When the Bennetts didn’t show up for work at the furniture store on Monday, a coworker called Bruce’s. She immediately went to their house to check on them, knowing they wouldn’t skip work without at least a call. When she arrived, the garage door was still open. Constance, Bruce’s mother, entered the home and called the police immediately upon seeing the grisly scene. Police swarmed the scene and checked each victim. One by one, family members are declared deceased. When they reached Vanessa, the toddler’s room, they found her wedged between the bed and a wall. She was choking on fragments of her jaw-bone and desperately clinging to life. She was frantically transported to a hospital and her grandma, Constance, went on watch by her bedside. Doctors and nurses worked feverishly to save Vanessa’s life and she went through multiple surgeries. Vanessa pulled through and lived, but would go on to suffer from permanent physiological effects from the attack. The backyard of the Bennett home was the only one without a fence and it backed up to a somewhat dark and lonely stretch of road. Other attacks had happened off of this main road and it’s thought that the assailant could have entered the area from that point. Police believed the attacker had brought his own weapon as none of the tools at the home seemed to have been disturbed. Donna and the Bennett’s cases were quickly connected, and some sources say they were able to do so with the matching of shoe prints at both scenes. After the break, I’ll tell you about evidence and developments in the case Investigators had a difficult job ahead of them in discovering who the culprit of the attacks was. Forensics showed that the hammers used in each case was different. There weren’t any usable fingerprints or other apparent evidence. However, with the advance in DNA technology, that would change. In 2002, a profile was gathered from DNA at the Bennet murder scene. So, they had the DNA of the offender, but no one on file to match it to. Then, in 2010, investigators compared that DNA profile with DNA from the Patricia Smith murder. It was a match and proved that the same person had killed all four victims. In 2015, leaked information gave up an important clue at the Bennett murder scene. I mentioned it earlier when talking about the Bennett murders. When the murderer had lifted 8 year old Melissa off of her bed, he had left an imprint from his shirt in the blood at the scene. 2 different crime labs assessed the fuzzy imprint, and both came up with different results. The imprints contained very fuzzy lettering. One lab thought the letters were “RICHAR.” The other lab felt that the letters said, “PETAW C.” The public buzzed about this information, wondering why it had been withheld. Armchair detectives online poured over this evidence and rumors went nuts but nothing concrete developed from it. So, this is where I nerd out on technology. Detective Steve Connor decided to use any and all technology at his disposal to see if the DNA could somehow be traced to the perpetrator by some other means than simply having existing records on hand. One of these techniques used an imaging tool by Parabon Nanolabs which analyzes the DNA to produce an approximation of what the offender could have looked like at the time of the crimes and would also age progress that into current day. Another technique used was DNA genealogy where the DNA was put into a database like ancestry or 23 and me. There, relatives of this DNA holder were identified and Colleen Fitzpatrick, a well-known DNA genealogist, came up with the possible last name of “Ewing” for the offender. This is also how the Golden State Killer was finally identified not long ago. In 2018, it was announced at a press conference that when authorities went back and retroactively swabbed inmates and entered that info into CODIS, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation got a hit. The name of the assailant was Alex Christopher Ewing. That last name was a match the what the DNA genealogist had come up with. Arizona criminal records showed that Ewing left Colorado within days after the hammer attack on the Bennetts. Twelve days later, Ewing picked up a 25-pound granite slab and entered an unlocked door to a Kingman, Ariz., home. He carried the granite slab into a bedroom and immediately began pummeling a man in the head. The man survived even though he required 100 stitches to close his head wounds. Around 7 a.m. the next morning, a Kingman police officer stopped a man on a highway on-ramp and asked to see the soles of his shoes. Believing the pattern on the man’s shoes matched the prints outside the victim’s home, the officer asked him to come to the police station to answer some questions. The man ran, leading officers on a 30-minute chase into Clacks Canyon – a winding, rocky area cutting north from the old part of town. According to documents, officers found Ewing, hiding beneath a bush. When he was questioned, Ewing claimed he’d hitchhiked to Arizona from Colorado, riding into town on a Coors truck driven by a man who went by the handle “Polecat” on the CB radio. Arizona prosecutors charged Ewing with attempted murder in the attack. Kingman officials sent Ewing to a Washington County jail in Utah to await trial as part of an interstate contract because of jail overcrowding in Kingman. On Aug. 9, 1984, Ewing was among about a dozen prisoners being returned to Kingman for court hearings. The two deputies transporting the prisoners stopped at a gas station in Henderson to give the inmates a bathroom break. The inmates had to be uncuffed and unshackled, and after they were, Ewing bolted, running to a nearby Kmart, where he apparently ditched his orange jail jumpsuit and fled wearing a pair of red shorts and tennis shoes. That night, wielding an ax handle, he entered the unlocked home of Christopher and Nancy Barry and chased Nancy, who was screaming, into the bedroom she shared with her husband. Upon entering the bedroom, Ewing began pummeling Christopher Barry with the ax handle. He went on to continually beat the man’s wife, Nancy as she attempted to shield her husband from the blows of the ax handle while simultaneously on the phone to 911. Ewing would not stop hitting her the entire time and eventually Nancy realized that she would have to play dead in order to get him to stop. And then the man was gone, disappearing into the desert behind their home. “He was long-term affected,” Nancy Barry said of her husband, who died of cancer in 2011. “He lost his sense of smell. His jaw was … out of alignment, so his bite was all messed up. He Couldn't taste food anymore. His eye kind of was set back in his head. And then scarring.” She suffered fractures to both hands – she tried to cover her head to fend off blows from the ax handle – as well as a head injury that required surgery. The best clue responding police officers had, according to documents, were footprints in the dirt outside. Ewing, who was 23 at the time, was arrested 2 days later by – get this – I seem to find cases where this happens – he was discovered by park rangers at Lake Mead. When rangers arrived, Ewing ran. The ranger chased him over a small rise and ultimately cornered him against the water’s edge. There, heordered Ewing down to the ground twice. “He doesn't do anything,” Meyer, the park ranger, said. “So the third time, I yell out, ‘You're not hearing me – I'll shoot you.’” Ewing surrendered. For that offense, he was given 110 years. He’s been fighting extradition to Colorado to face charges for the additional rapes and murders in Colorado. Ewing had been behind bars in Nevada since the summer of 1984. After the DNA match was made to the Colorado cases, Ewing told investigators in 2 separate interviews that he lived in the Denver area in 1984 and worked construction jobs. During the interview, Ewing was shown a photo of Patricia at the murder scene and he apparently jumped back in his chair and stared at it. When confronted with the DNA evidence, Ewing appeared shocked and said that it had to be a mistake and couldn’t give any excuse as to why his DNA would have been at the murders. Vanessa, the sole survivor from her family, the Bennetts, who was 3 at the time of her attack, fortunately remembers very little about it. Now 40, she is physically scarred. After the attack, she was in a coma and her jaw was wired shut. Tubes run through her nose and down her throat to feed her. She has a metal plate in her forehead, has endured multiple operations and physical therapy and she suffered from anger issues growing up. She was made fun of in school because her parents were killed. She said, "I was made fun of because the hammer man or whatever you want to call it was going to come to my house and hurt everybody when I had slumber parties and stuff." They saw her parent’s killer as a boogeyman who would attack and them and kill them if they went anywhere near little Vanessa’s home for parties or play dates. Although the Colorado legislature outlawed the death penalty earlier this year, the new law did not apply to cases filed before the measure took effect on July 1 of this year. Ewing was formally charged in early March after he exhausted appeals of an order that he be extradited from Nevada to Colorado. Ewing is due back in court Feb. 23 for a hearing in the Bennett case. His next hearing in the Patricia Smith case is scheduled Dec. 10. Coldcasewriter.com CPR.org The Denver Post Genwhypod 9 news.com