A killer’s contempt for a woman he allegedly bludgeoned, sexually assaulted and strangled to death is what led to his arrest 17 years later, according to a police report.
Members of the Denver Police Department’s Cold Case Unit used a glob of spit found on Paula Joscsak’s hair to tie Corey Bailey, 36, a convicted sex offender, to her murder through updated DNA testing.
Bailey was already in custody after police allegedly discovered crack cocaine and a .357-caliber revolver in his possession during a traffic stop on July 7. He is currently in the Denver County Jail on the drug charges.
Bailey is now under investigation for first-degree murder and rape in connection with Joscsak’s murder on Aug. 6, 1990, said Sonny Jackson, Denver police spokesman.
Her battered body was found on a dock behind a business at 1620 High St., according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Joscsak had been beaten behind a business next door, then dragged to the dock, where she was sexually assaulted and strangled, the report says. She also had been sexually abused before and after death with a Roman candle bottle rocket, the report says.
Joscsak was drunk, with a 0.46 blood-alcohol level. A coroner’s report considered her beating and her high blood-alcohol reading as contributing factors in her death. Strangulation was the primary cause of death.
Witnesses told police at the time that Bailey had left a loud party on the 1600 block of High Street and when he returned, he had a split lip and blood splattered all over his body. He told them he had beaten gays.
One witness said he saw a man curse and slap a woman and pull her into an alley. Another said Bailey had blood splattered all over his shoes, socks, shorts and shirt.
Police interviewed Bailey, who told police a group of white men called him a racial epithet and he got blood on him after fighting them in the street, the report says.
At the time, Bailey’s DNA was compared to the spit and the test came up negative, the police report says.
In 2005, Denver’s newly formed Cold Case Unit resubmitted Bailey’s blood using advanced DNA testing and it matched the spit, the report says.
Bailey has a lengthy criminal record including arrests for assault, drug possession and sexual assault. In 1997, he was convicted of sexual assault in Corpus Christi, Texas, according to court records. He was a registered sex offender.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
