BOULDER — Police announced today the arrest of a suspect in the rape and beating death in December 1997 of University of Colorado senior Susannah Chase.
“The department is ecstatic over this,” Police Chief Mark Beckner said.
Police said the suspect, Diego Olmos-Alcalde, 38, was taken into custody Saturday at his mother’s house in Aurora. He was held initially on a parole violation charge out of Wyoming.
Olmos-Alcalde is being held in the Boulder County Jail on bail of $5 million. He faces charges of first degree murder, first degree felony murder, second degree kidnapping and first degree sexual assault.
Chase, 23, died several days after she was found beaten in a Boulder alley on Dec. 21, 1997. Police found several clues and received a “slew” of tips, but nothing ever came of them.
Police said today that Olmos-Alcalde was identified when a DNA sample taken at the crime scene matched another taken from the suspect when he was in the Wyoming State Penitentiary in connection with a 2000 kidnapping case.
The samples were matched in the national Combined DNA Index System. The computer data bank notified the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which notified Boulder police.
Detective Chuck Heidel, who had worked the case from the start, broke the news to Chase’s mother Friday. “She is extremely happy, she and her family,” Heidle said.
“As you might imagine our emotions have run the gamut since we first heard of the DNA match with Susannah’s case. We are delighted that a suspect has been identified and apprehended,” said a family statement.
