The Capitol Hill Rapist, who terrorized Denver women in the mid 1980s, has died of natural causes in a prison on the eastern plains, authorities say.
Quintin Keith Wortham, who was 46, was found by correctional officers during a routine morning count Monday in a single-bunk cell at Limon Correctional Facility, said Alison Morgan, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections.
Wortham was convicted in 1988 of raping five women and trying to rape a sixth woman, but he was a suspect in six other rapes as well.
Denver District Judge Lynne Hufnagel sentenced Wortham on May 13, 1988 to 376 years in prison, exceeding Colorado’s previous record sentence by 152 years. His term was to run until the year 2383.
Wortham attacked women from June 5, 1985 until May 10, 1986. He would conceal his face from the victims after he broke into their homes. One victim said he also wore knee-high woman’s nylons on his arms. Sometimes he wore a blue baseball cap.
Wortham threatened his victims with knives and robbed them.
“If you move, I’ll kill you; if you scream, I’ll kill you; if you look at me, I’ll kill you,” witnesses testified he told them.
Wortham became a suspect in the serial rapes following a May 10, 1986 rape. In that instance he saw a woman sunbathing in front of her apartment and snuck into her apartment. When she entered the apartment, Wortham grabbed the woman by the throat, choked her, tied her with a piece of electrical cord and raped her.
A witness gave a description of Wortham and his car, which police found parked in front of his house. He wasn’t caught until the following year at an Atlanta toilet manufacturing company.
Denver formed a task force to catch Wortham, assigning more than 20 detectives to the case.
Acting as his own attorney, Wortham repeatedly confronted victims in court. Then during appeals in 1994 he indicated he had no remorse.
“I’m not repentant. I’m not sorry she was raped,” he said of one of his victims. “I’m in prison doing 400 years. I don’t have time to feel sorry for her.”
Funeral arrangements will be made through Pitkin Mortuary in Denver. Wortham’s parents, Wallace and Mattie Bean, do not wish to be contacted, said Shirley Neal, director of Pitkin Mortuary.
“They just want him to rest in peace,” Neal said.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
