A 42-year-old transient man accused of kidnapping and killing a Denver woman in August 2004, was formally charged today.
Billy Jene Wilson was charged with one count of first-degree murder after deliberation, two counts of felony murder and one count of second-degree kidnapping in the murder of Gina Gruenwald, 27, according to officials from the Denver District Attorney’s Office.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Tricia Ann Gruenwald, 30, who was Gruenwald’s sister-in-law. “We feel relief that someone capable of doing this is brought to justice, but upset that it’s rehashing a lot of painful memories.”
Gina’s Gruenwald’s mother Diane said as the years passed the family wondered if Gina’s killer would ever get caught and whether he was already dead.
“No words can express how happy we are that the man who did this is being brought to justice,” she said.
Still, there are a lot of unanswered questions about what happened that night, Diane Gruenwald said.
The charges allege that on the morning of Aug. 21, 2004, Wilson attacked Gina Gruenwald, 27, in the 1700 block of Lafayette Street.
Gruenwald was out with friends at a nightclub, and was last seen when they dropped her off in the 1300 block of Humboldt Street.
Gruenwald’s body was found later that morning. She had been stabbed in the neck.
No suspect was identified at the time of Gruenwald’s death.
Earlier this year, Wilson was arrested in San Francisco on an unrelated case, and a DNA sample was taken and entered into the national DNA database.
Wilson is in custody in San Francisco where he waived extradition. A Denver court date will be set sometime in the next few weeks, after Wilson returns to Denver.
Diane Gruenwald said her daughter was a star softball and basketball player. She loved to Rollerblade and take her two weimaraner dogs, Shilo and Jasper, to the park, her sister-in-law said.
She earned a master’s degree in business and before her death had two jobs working for a shoe store and Best Buy.
Gina was an excellent older sister to her brother Josh and sisters Emily and Sarah, Diane Gruenwald said. She was buried in Sperry, Okla. beside the grave of her father George, who died in a car accident when she was 2 1/2 years old.
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