Joseph Curl will spend his life in prison with no chance of parole rather than face a trial and a potential death sentence under a plea deal he accepted today.
Curl pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of 20-year-old Linnea Dick on May 30, setting a fire to hide that she had been raped and strangled to death.
Curl, who turns 30 Friday, made the plea to Judge Terence Gilmore in Fort Collins today. The Larimer County District Attorney’s office said Dick’s family worked with the office on a suitable plea agreement.
Three days after the murder, Curl confessed to Fort Collins police detectives.
Family members spoke emotionally of their loss at sentencing hearing today, the District Attorney’s office said.
At her June 5 funeral family and friends called her as a “beautiful, intelligent and caring young woman.”
She was a student at Front Range Community College bound for Colorado State University to finish her bachelor degree.
Curl was an acquaintance of Dick’s boyfriend, and she did not like him, her friends said. Curl was a plumber and did maintenance jobs, as well as working as a home health aide who cared for an elderly man three times a week.
At the time of the murder, Curl’s Web page featured pictures of women bound in leather and chains on a background of skulls and roses.
A statement from the prosecutors office said the judge called the crime “heinous” and the life sentence without parole to be appropriate.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
