Colorado gold miner Terry Hankins appeared infatuated with Cynthia Denise Runnels.
Although the 70-year-old Craig gold prospector was 34 years older than Runnels, he sent letters to the Texas prison where she was serving time for felony “family violence.”
“He apparently corresponded with people in prison because he felt they needed someone to talk to,” Craig Police Chief Walt Vanatta said Sunday.
After Runnels was released from prison in July 2006, Hankins tried to persuade her to come to Craig and marry him, Runnels’ mother, Willie Fay Runnels, said Sunday.
He would send Cynthia Runnels money. When she wouldn’t move to Colorado, he would send more, her mother said. Eventually, Cynthia moved to Craig and married him.
Now, Hankins is in the Moffat County detention facility, accused of murdering his wife of six months, among other charges.
Cynthia Runnels-Hankins’ body was unearthed Saturday near one of Hankins’ gold mines, 5 feet below ground, covered with a pile of dirt 12 feet wide at the base and 6 feet high, Vanatta said. She had been missing since June.
The body was found 33 miles north of Craig in Moffat County on Bureau of Land Management land. Vanatta said Hankins, who has no criminal record, had mined in Colorado and Wyoming for decades.
Hankins’ family was reluctant to talk about him. Pat Hankins, the first of Terry Hankins’ three wives, who divorced him in 1980, didn’t want to comment on her ex-husband other than to say he has several children. A man believed to be his son declined to comment.
But Runnels-Hankins’ family members and investigators say the relationship between the miner and his wife went downhill rapidly after they married in December.
In March, Hankins went to court seeking a divorce and a temporary restraining order against Runnels-Hankins, alleging domestic abuse. The allegations were similar to two criminal cases filed against her in Texas.
But days later, Hankins withdrew the divorce and temporary-restraining-order requests, Vanatta said.
Runnels-Hankins’ family members also said things didn’t go well in the new marriage – a marriage they said she was reluctant to enter.
“When she got out of prison, he was calling her to convince her to come to Colorado,” Willie Fay Runnels said. “She really didn’t want to go. I didn’t want her to go. He was too old for her.”
Runnels-Hankins would call home at least three times a day because in Texas she had two children – son Jordan O’Neal, 13, and daughter Tamera Runnels, 11.
She had originally wanted the children to spend the summer in Colorado with her and her new husband, Willie Fay Runnels said, but decided against it because the relationship was deteriorating rapidly.
“He was just so jealous,” she said. “Every time she went somewhere and came home, he’d accuse her (of being unfaithful).”
Eventually, her daughter made it clear to her family and Hankins that she’d had enough of the marriage and was planning to leave and divorce him, Runnels said.
The last time her family heard from her was around June 1. Officials said she disappeared June 3.
For months, Vanatta’s officers, assisted by other agencies, searched for Runnels-Hankins.
They executed search warrants on the couple’s apartment in Craig, on one of Hankins’ mining claims near Encampment, Wyo., and at the mining claim 33 miles from Craig and the adjacent BLM land. The couple’s vehicles also were searched.
Vanatta said investigators believe Runnels-Hankins was slain at the couple’s Craig apartment. A Human Remains Recovery Dog alerted police to the presence of human fluids in the apartment.
Runnels finds it hard to believe that Hankins might have killed her daughter.
She said her daughter, the youngest of her seven children – “her baby” – brought happiness to the old prospector from Colorado.
“She … kept him laughing and taking his medications,” she said.
Hankins visited the family in Fort Worth last year.
“He was the nicest man, I thought,” she recalled. “We told the police that he was really nice.”
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
