Small-town politics and nearly nonexistent funding have hampered the renewed investigation into an unsolved mass-murder case in Kit Carson County, authorities say.
Linda Holloway, investigator for the 13th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, said Kit Carson County commissioners have declined to fund a search for more bodies believed buried on the 2,800-acre McCormick ranch near Stratton.
“They don’t want me out there,” Holloway said. “They say, ‘We’ve already had enough shame on this community.’ It’s politics and small-town mentality.”
Kit Carson County Commissioner Dave Gwyn agrees he isn’t in favor of a renewed search but denies he has impeded the investigation.
“I think it was pretty clear we weren’t real interested in it, but we weren’t throwing up any roadblocks either,” he said.
As many as 17 homeless men recruited at a Denver church mission worked on Tom McCormick’s ranch about 150 miles east of Denver before they disappeared. Witnesses — including his son — have said the men were killed and buried on the ranch.
In 1986, Mike McCormick showed authorities where to find four bodies, including that of Hubert “Bert” Donoho, after he was charged with theft for allegedly stealing Donoho’s semi truck. He told detectives his dad killed Donoho and several men on the ranch.
Mike McCormick was convicted in Donoho’s death, and Colorado Bureau of Investigation officials stopped searching for bodies because of a tight budget.
DA’s unpopular push
District Attorney Bob Watson reopened the murder investigation in 2006 after Mike McCormick won an appeal and was released from prison, but investigators haven’t had enough money to pay the expenses for volunteers to drive to the ranch and dig for more bodies.
Contributions have started to come in since The Denver Post reported the story Monday, Holloway said.
Watson agreed with her that reopening the investigation was not popular in a town that didn’t like the bad light put on it years ago. But his interest is in doing what’s right for the potential murder victims.
“They deserve a lot more dignity than to be left in a field,” he said.
Holloway said Kit Carson County commissioners told her the McCormicks are good people and she should leave the investigation alone.
Tough for family to bear
Gwyn said Tuesday he wouldn’t be interested in a new investigation in part because he once worked with Jim and Dan McCormick, brothers of Tom McCormick, who died in 1997.
“I guess from a personal point of view I wouldn’t be real wild about doing that,” Gwyn said. “I guess you have a different perspective when you know all the neighbors and relatives.”
Gwyn said he treated sick cattle on a feedlot owned by Dan and Jim McCormick when the bodies became national news in 1986. It was hard on the family, he said. They didn’t feel comfortable going to the grocery store where everyone knew them.
He has no problem seeing justice done in the McCormick case, he said, but he thinks the prospect of finding more bodies is remote: “I just got a gut feeling there is a slim chance they would find any evidence.”
County Commissioner John Nichols did not return a phone message.
Commissioner Jim Whitmore said opening up the McCormick Ranch investigation would be controversial. The ranching community has very little serious crime, he added.
“We didn’t know whether they were going to pursue it or not,” Whitmore said. “I’d rather not comment on that.”
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
