BOULDER, Colo.—Colorado authorities are holding regular meetings to try to bring closure to the state’s many cold-case murders after they were denied money by state lawmakers for a task force.
A gathering Thursday in Boulder was the eighth meeting of Colorado’s cold-case review team. The statewide group includes members of various law enforcement branches from all over the state trying to provide new insight into crimes that have languished for years.
So far, the cold case review board has gone back to the files of 21 murder cases, and two of them have yielded convictions, both in Boulder County. Last year, Boulder County juries convicted Michael Clark of the murder of Marty Grisham in 1994 and George Ruibal of the murder of Dana Pechin in 2007.
“These are cases that have been ignored for years for whatever reason,” said Boulder Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackely. “Now we’re dusting off those boxes and taking another look.”
Officials on Thursday declined to identify which cases were reviewed by the team.
The team was assembled in 2009, after legislation that would have provided funding for a specialized cold-case team at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation failed to pass. Without the funding, the bureau began to look into other ways to bring together a task force that would look into old murders.
The team includes police detectives, coroners and prosecutors.
“You get a complete case review, so everyone gets the same information but digests it in a way that’s unique to them,” said Audrey Simkins, the cold case analyst for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Simkins said the team looks at one to four cases at each meeting.
“We look for a case where they’re actually at a position where they tried a lot of things, and the agency has a good handle on the case but has some pointed questions,” Simkins told the Boulder Daily Camera ().
Simkins said the cold-case team is a way to make sure cases are not forgotten.
“Someone was murdered and taken from their family and their spouse, and there should be some justice for that,” she said.
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Information from: Daily Camera,
