Crime Junkie
Crime Junkie
"It's definitely an image that never leaves your mind." — Amber (Victim's granddaughter)
"He was very juvenile in his approach. How does he gain entry into homes? He walks on the street and jiggles doors." — Ron Walker (FBI Profiler)
"This guy was sitting in prison right under their noses the whole time, literally, since less than two weeks after the murders." — Brit (Co-Host)
The episode details the brutal murder of Patricia Smith on January 10, 1984, in Aurora, Colorado, initially attributed to robbery and sexual assault due to missing jewelry and her pants being pulled down. However, as detectives processed the scene, they found limited evidence typical of the era. The narrative then reveals that similar, unreported attacks, including an assault on James and Kim using a hammer, and an attack on flight attendant Donna Dixon, occurred days prior. The connection between these incidents and Patricia's murder was not immediately apparent to the public or all law enforcement agencies.
The investigation intensifies with the discovery of the murders of Bruce, Deborah, and Melissa Bennett on January 16, 1984. Autopsy results confirmed the use of a hammer in these brutal assaults, and Melissa was confirmed to have been sexually assaulted. The presence of a bloody footprint on a comforter and the lack of forced entry in the Bennett home mirrored elements from the earlier Aurora attacks, leading authorities to suspect a pattern and a single perpetrator. Despite efforts to process evidence, including sending items to a lab in Lubbock, Texas, definitive leads were scarce.
Decades later, advancements in DNA technology played a crucial role. Evidence from the Bennett crime scene, specifically semen found on a comforter, was retested. In 2018, a CODIS hit identified Alex Ewing as the perpetrator responsible for the Bennett family murders. This connection was then retrospectively applied to Patricia Smith's case, confirming Ewing as her killer as well. The episode highlights that Ewing was apprehended shortly after the Bennett murders for a separate assault in Arizona and had been serving time in prison, yet the cases remained unsolved for so long due to failures in inter-agency communication, limited DNA analysis capabilities at the time, and issues with prison administration regarding mandatory DNA submission.