The persistence of a Boulder County sheriff’s detective and the sharp memory of an Oregon woman have solved a 40-year-old murder case.
The body of 18-year-old Harold Nicholson was found on May 24, 1970, in the trunk of his car, which was parked near the intersection of Sheridan Boulevard and 134th Avenue in Broomfield, then just three feet inside Boulder County. Nicholson had been beaten to death with a tire iron.
Nicholson had been reported missing the day before when he didn’t pick up his wife as expected. The couple had been married just five weeks.
Just a few days after the murder, investigators told the Camera they had a suspect, but no arrests were ever made.
But earlier this year, Boulder County Sheriff’s Detective Steve Ainsworth gave a detailed account of the case to an Oregon newspaper in the hopes that readers might remember a man who died in 1979 when his boat capsized.
Ainsworth believed that man was Nicholson’s father-in-law and the prime suspect in Nicholson’s murder.
Read the rest of this report and see photos of the victim and suspect at .
