The wood deck adjoining the master bedroom of a home for sale near Morrison offered a “fabulous” night-time view of Denver and of a bloated homicide victim.
Brenda Flick, an agent at RealPro Real Estate Professionals, was standing on the deck Monday evening showing a client the $380,000 home with vaulted ceilings and cedar siding nestled on 3 acres of lush pine forest when the client pointed and asked, “What’s that?”
The answer left both women speechless. About 50 feet from the side of the house was a man lying on his back, facing away from them.
“He was bloated, and he had a swarm of flies around his head,” Flick said. “It was stunning.”
The Jefferson County coroner’s and sheriff’s offices are scrambling today to identify the man found by the real estate agent and her client near the vacant home about 10 miles south of Morrison.
An artist is working on a sketch of the man, and deputies are answering numerous calls from people wondering whether the victim could be a lost loved one, said Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
“We have such limited information about this homicide victim — who he was, how he died, where he worked,” Kelley said. “We’re not any closer to identifying him than we were yesterday.”
The identification is critical in solving a homicide, Kelley said. Once investigators learn who he is, then they can start asking questions of relatives and associates that can lead to the killer, she said.
“When you have the identification, you run like the wind,” Kelley said.
For Flick and the potential homebuyer, the discovery of the body was upsetting.
“We were staring at each other not knowing what to say,” Flick said.
She noted that when she and her client arrived, the back door was open but the contents of the house did not seem disturbed. Authorities told her there doesn’t seem to be any connection between the murder victim and the house, Flick said.
“It wasn’t your typical day at the office,” she said. “It was pretty shocking.”
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
