Boulder – For almost 20 years, since the nude body of Carol Joyce Murphy was found strangled and cut in the mountains of Boulder County, authorities say, they have suspected her ex-husband in the murder.
Monday, they arrested him.
“We don’t forget these cases,” Sheriff Joe Pelle said. “We don’t forget these victims or these families.”
Although police have always suspected Kevin Franklin Elmarr, Murphy’s former husband, for years they didn’t have the physical evidence they needed to prove it, Pelle said Monday at a news conference at the Boulder County Justice Center.
But last spring, the county sheriff’s office had original evidence in several “cold cases” re-examined by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation because of recent advancements in science and DNA testing.
Boulder investigators are now confident they have Murphy’s murderer, Pelle said.
Elmarr, 49, of Longmont, was arrested about noon in Boulder without incident.
Murphy, a longtime Longmont resident, was last seen by co-workers on the morning of May 22, 1987, leaving her company’s parking lot on the back of a motorcycle allegedly driven by Elmarr, Pelle said.
The pair had been in a “dispute over the custody of their two children,” Pelle said.
The body of Murphy, then 27, was found in Left Hand Canyon, about 5 miles east of Ward, by hikers on May 23, 1987. She had been strangled, and her throat had been slit.
Investigators logged thousands of hours on the case but for years were unable to put Elmarr at the remote crime scene.
Police declined to go into specific details about the DNA evidence used to make the arrest.
Sheriff’s Office Division Chief Dennis Hopper was a lieutenant at the time of the murder and oversaw the investigation. “There are no statutes of limitation on homicide,” Hopper said.
Hopper, who now oversees detectives and patrol officers, was involved in resending the evidence to the CBI, he said.
“It always feels good when we get something that gives us probable cause,” he said.
The couple’s children, who live in the area, could not be reached Monday.
Elmarr was being held at Boulder County Jail on $500,000 bail on suspicion of first-degree murder.
Detective Mike Wagner has been working the case most recently for the sheriff’s office.
“Every cold case we have is assigned to an investigator,” Wagner said. “I’ve been involved in this case for several years.”
“It feels great,” he said of the arrest.
Cmdr. Phil West said the sheriff’s office never lost track of Elmarr over the years and they weren’t worried that he was going to flee the area.
Elmarr had remarried and worked in construction over the years.
“We were always aware of where he was,” West said.
The sheriff’s office is investigating 13 unsolved homicides dating as far back as 1912, West said.
