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Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fratwell-Ariola.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
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You can also help support the show by leaving us a positive rating with a review. Now, let's jump right into this week's case. In January 1984, murder arrived in Colorado for a 12-day stay. Over 12 long days, the cities of Aurora and Lakewood, Colorado were terrorized by a real-life boogeyman.
His M.O. was horrifying, yet simple and effective. He targeted strangers, he raped women and children, and then bludgeoned them to death. But just as quickly as he arrived in Colorado, the hammer killer mysteriously vanished.
The Hammer Killer's first attack happened on January 4, 1984, in Aurora, Colorado. The city of Aurora sits right outside of Denver and is known for its cultural food, artistic exhibits, and relaxing atmosphere. Of course, decades later, Aurora, Colorado will be known for the 2012 Century 16 movie theater mass shooting location.
But back in January 1984, Aurora, Colorado was a good, safe place to live. On January 4th, 1984, James and Kimberly Hobenchild were sound asleep inside of their home. The young couple had recently married in August of 1982 and were looking forward to starting their lives together.
Slightly after 2 o'clock in the morning, a male intruder gained entry into the home through an unlocked garage door. Once inside, the terror began. The intruder entered the couple's master bedroom and began bludgeoning James and Kimberly with a hammer as they lay asleep in bed. They both immediately woke up and started fighting for their lives. But after a few more strokes of the hammer, they were no match for the intruder.
Then just as quickly as the attack began, it ended. The intruder ran out of the house the same way he got inside through the unlocked garage door. What could only be described as a miracle, both James and Kimberly managed to survive the attack, but not without serious injury. James suffered a fractured skull and his wife Kimberly a severe concussion. Both were left mentally and emotionally traumatized.
The couple immediately called the Aurora Police Department to report what happened, but they couldn't provide the police with many details about what the attacker looked like. Kimberly was the only one to catch a small glimpse of her attacker, but couldn't provide much of a description. So the Aurora police were left to their own investigation to try and figure out why this attack happened and who was behind it.
Outside James and Kimberly's home, detectives found footprints in the snow leading up to the couple's home. They also found footprints along the sidewalk and in front of their neighbor's house. The footprints looked like someone was walking around the neighborhood looking for the perfect place to strike. So he targeted James and Kimberly's house because he saw an opportunity through the unlocked garage door.
Other than the footprints in the snow, the Aurora police officers couldn't collect much evidence, and they couldn't figure out what the motive was. Initially, it seemed like a random act of violence perpetrated by a random offender. The Aurora Police Department had no idea that this was just the beginning. Five days later, there was another attack.
Just after dark on Monday, January 9th, 28-year-old flight attendant Donna Dixon was getting home from running errands. She went out shopping because her boyfriend and pilot, Ronald Holm, was coming home the following day. As Donna approaches her home, she reaches into her center console to find the clicker to open up her garage.
After the door opens, she drives inside to park her car. Before she's able to get out of the car, she reaches into the back seat to grab her flight attendant's outfit. As she exits the car, she's immediately attacked and struck in the head with a hammer. The sheer force sent her flying back into the driver's seat and her head hit the steering wheel.
After being struck several more times with a hammer, she eventually loses consciousness and slumps over onto the passenger seat. The next thing that Donna remembers is waking up completely naked inside her garage. She has no recollection of what happened or even why she's naked and bleeding in the first place. The last thing she remembers is coming back from the store, parking her car in the garage, and that's it.
After several confusing minutes, she somehow manages to get to her feet and get inside her house. But instead of grabbing the phone and calling 911, she's still in a complete daze and decides that instead of calling 911, she's going to go upstairs to her bedroom where she falls asleep. Almost 24 hours later, around 8 p.m. the following day, her boyfriend Ronald Holmes arrives home from his business trip.
When he arrives at the house, he knows something is terribly wrong. He sees blood inside of Donna's garage. Her car is parked there. And all of her possessions are lying on the ground. Her purse, her clothes, everything. He rushes inside and runs upstairs to see if he can find his girlfriend. He discovers Donna naked, lying in the fetal position, groaning in her bed. He also sees that her skull has been crushed on one side.
He quickly grabs the phone and dials 911. The paramedics arrive within minutes. As paramedics rush Donna to the hospital, the police begin their investigation. The first key piece of evidence the police discover is the hammer.
Right there inside of Donna's car, on the passenger seat, they find a hammer, which is strange. It's not very common for killers to leave behind their murder weapon. Leaving behind a murder weapon means that investigators can test it for DNA and trace evidence. So Aurora police officers were scratching their heads about why whoever did this would leave the hammer behind. Was this some sort of sign?
Or did the killer simply forget it? The police dusted the hammer for fingerprints. The hope was that they would be able to lift a print and trace it to a suspect. But the police couldn't find a single fingerprint anywhere on the hammer. It was pointless.
Based on what the investigators observed, they believed he pulled her out of the car after the attacker struck Donna in the head with a hammer. He then proceeded to take her clothes off and sexually assault her. After the sexual assault, he probably was left thinking that Donna was dead or she was about to be dead.
However, when he decides to leave, thinking that Donna is probably dead, he accidentally left behind the hammer on the passenger seat.
Now, besides a bit of cash missing from Donna's wallet, nothing else seemed to be stolen. Her clothes were still there. She had jewelry. She had her purse. So because the intruder only stole a little bit of cash, the motive in this case didn't appear to be a robbery. Instead, the motive appeared to be far more sinister.
After several extensive surgeries, Donna survived the attack. The doctors believed that because she lay on the cold garage floor for as long as she did, she ended up saving her own life. The cold floor and freezing Colorado temperatures that night may have kept her from bleeding to death. Like James and Kimberly, it was a miracle that she was still alive. But surviving didn't come cheap.
When Donna finally regained consciousness and woke up in the hospital bed, she had to relearn how to do everything. Doctors described her mental capacity after the attack as, quote, the mentality of a two-year-old. She had to learn to walk again. It took her almost a year before she could speak in complete sentences. And to this very day, Donna Dixon is still recovering from the attack.
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About 25 miles away from Donna's house, 55-year-old Patricia Louise Smith was being attacked by a stranger with a hammer. Earlier that day, Patricia dropped off her daughter at work and her grandkids at school, like she did every day.
But an alarm bell rang in Patricia's daughter's head when she failed to pick them up later that day. This was entirely out of character for Patricia. She always picked them up and was always on time. Patricia's daughter got a ride home from a co-worker and then swung by the school to pick up her kids. After that, her co-worker drove her to her mom's house.
When they got to the house, the first thing they noticed was that Patricia's car was in the driveway and that the television inside the home was turned on. Weird. If Patricia is home, why didn't she pick up her daughter and grandkids? Once Patricia's daughter and grandkids got inside of the house, they were faced with a scene straight out of a horror movie.
On the floor next to the couch, they discovered Patricia's posed body, dead. Patricia's body was laid out on the floor with her arms crossed over her chest, like someone in a coffin. She was lying on top of a neatly folded Winnie the Pooh blanket that partially covered her face.
Although she was still wearing her boots and shirt, her pants had been pulled down, indicating that she had been sexually assaulted, just like Donna Dixon. Next to her body, the police found the murder weapon, a hammer. The police determined Patricia was murdered sometime between 1 and 3 o'clock p.m., based on the forensic evidence. Patricia stopped by a local Wendy's to grab lunch on the way home that afternoon.
Because the police didn't find any signs of a forced entry into the home, they thought that the killer probably got inside into the house through an unlocked door, maybe the garage.
Like the earlier attacks, robbery didn't seem to be the motive. The only thing missing was a couple of jewelry pieces that Patricia wore. Other than that, the house was left entirely untouched. There was a good amount of money found inside of her wallet. So again, the motive seemed to be far more sinister than just simple robbery.
At this point, it was clear to the Colorado police that all three crimes were connected and likely committed by the same perpetrator. The intruder attacked all the victims with a hammer and left the hammer at the crime scene. In two of the incidents, the female victim was sexually assaulted and the offender fled the area without leaving behind any DNA or fingerprints. He executed his attacks quickly and randomly.
To the police, it didn't seem like he was stopping anytime soon. By the fourth attack, the hammer killer was getting more violent. A little over 25 miles away from Patricia Smith's house lived the Bennett family in Aurora. Deborah and Bruce lived with their young daughters, 7-year-old Melissa and 3-year-old Vanessa, on East Center Drive.
26-year-old Deborah Bennett married Bruce Bennett back in 1976 before being deployed with the Navy. Both Deborah and Bruce made ends meet by working in a family-owned furniture shop right there in Aurora. Bruce was also busy taking classes at the local community college with dreams of working as an air traffic controller.
The Bennett family was new to the area, and by 1984, they had settled into their new home. It was supposed to be the perfect home and perfect community to raise two young daughters. On Sunday, January 15th, friends and family gathered at the Bennett's house to celebrate Melissa's birthday, who was turning eight years old in just two days. The last person at the party left the Bennett's house right before 9 p.m. that night.
That was the last time anyone saw the entire family alive again. Sometime before 9 p.m., when the last person left the party, an intruder entered the Bennetts' home, likely through an unlocked garage door. Shortly after entering, Bruce woke up and was confused and confronted with a stranger standing in the middle of the bedroom. He immediately got up and started fighting back.
The intruder pulled out a hammer during the struggle and repeatedly struck Bruce over the head with it. Badly beaten, Bruce continued to try and fight the attacker off. Then the intruder went downstairs into the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife. He knew that Bruce wasn't going to go down with just a hammer.
the intruder took the butcher knife and repeatedly stabbed bruce once he had fallen to the ground the man took the knife and slit his throat from ear to ear bruce was dead which meant that the rest of the bennett family was next the intruder's next victim was deborah
It's not clear whether Deborah became involved sometime during the struggle with Bruce, but at some point, the intruder began repeatedly striking Deborah with a hammer until she too succumbed to her injuries and collapsed on the floor. Once incapacitated, the intruder sexually assaulted her as she lay on the floor bleeding out. Next were the two young girls.
Sometime after Bruce and Deborah were likely dead, the man entered Melissa's bedroom. He struck her multiple times with a hammer until she could no longer fight back. As blood is rapidly pouring out and soaking her pajamas, the intruder picks her up by her pajama top. But as he picks her up, he accidentally leaves behind a print in her blood-soaked shirt.
He then takes Melissa to the floor where she is also sexually assaulted. And like her parents, she also passes away from her injuries. The last victim inside the home was three-year-old Vanessa. She was also violently hit by the hammer and left for dead inside her bedroom. The blows were so severe that one shattered her jaw and others fractured her skull. This is a three-year-old little girl we're talking about.
Once the intruder thought that Melissa was dead, he began making his way out of the home. On his way outside, he grabbed Deborah's purse and dumped it on the outside in the snow. He got rid of the butcher knife used to kill Bruce, but this time he took the hammer.
Concerns about the Bennett family arose when neither Deborah nor Bruce showed up to work the following Monday. Them not showing up for work was entirely out of character. So co-workers feared that something terrible had happened. One of the co-workers was so concerned, they called Bruce's mother, Constance, to let her know that neither Deborah or Bruce showed up to work that day.
When Constance got to the phone and she called, called the Bennett family, no one answered. She knew that something was wrong right away. She decides to get in her car and drives over to the Bennett house for herself. When she gets there, she sees the garage door is unlocked. And when she gets inside, she's confronted with her worst nightmare.
Bruce, Deborah, seven-year-old Melissa are all found dead. But wedged between her bed and the wall, the police find three-year-old Vanessa clinging to life. She's badly beaten and barely breathing, but miraculously, she's still alive. Paramedics rushed her to the hospital, where she ended up surviving the attack. She is the only member of the Bennett family to survive.
The Aurora police suspected that the Bennett family murders were sexually motivated. Evidence suggested that both Deborah and her daughter Melissa were sexually assaulted. Besides their clothes being pulled down, the police collected semen from both the carpet as well as a comforter in Melissa's bedroom.
But nothing of value was stolen from the home, just like in the earlier attacks. The police didn't find any signs of a forced entry into the Bennett's home, again, just like the earlier attacks. And it looked like the intruder was just simply able to walk through the front door or walk through an unopened door, maybe the garage.
The attack on the Bennett family confirmed that all of these attacks were connected. The police could link these crimes after discovering those footprints found in the Bennett's backyard, finding that they matched footprints found in Donna Dixon's garage.
This meant that Denver had a serial killer on the loose, a serial killer who likes to target his victims at random and liked to kill with a hammer, sometimes leaving the hammer, sometimes not, sometimes sexually assaulting them, sometimes not.
After the Bennett family murders, the residents of Aurora were terrified. People began installing additional locks on their doors and setting up security systems because no one knew when or where he would strike again. But just as quickly as the attack started, they stopped. This episode of Forensic Tales is sponsored by Wild Gallery. With the holidays coming up, art can make for the perfect gift.
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After murdering the Bennett family, the killer seemed to move on, or at least moved out of the Denver area. After the Bennetts, the killings completely stopped. People began wondering, was the killer dead? Was he arrested on some other criminal charges? Or was he simply waiting for the right time to strike again?
In the days, weeks, and eventually months following the murders, the police received very few leads in the investigation. Investigators also had very little forensic evidence to go on. Besides some footprints found in the snow, they only had a small DNA sample that they got through semen found inside the Bennetts' home.
But when they ran the semen sample, the DNA sample through CODIS, our national DNA database, it didn't match any known offender. So it was basically a useless DNA profile at this point. As the leads and tips came in, they were exhausted. And then eventually the leads dried up altogether. And the 1984 Colorado Hammer murders became a cold case.
Over the years, investigators kept working on the case and hoping that a suspect would be identified someday. The biggest piece of evidence they had was the unknown DNA sample from the Bennetts' home. But without a match, they had no idea who the DNA profile belonged to or who their suspect was.
It wasn't until 2002 that investigators moved the needle in the case. Almost two decades after the killing spree began, Arapahoe County prosecutors filed what is called a John Doe arrest warrant against the person responsible for the murders based on the DNA profile. A John Doe arrest warrant can be an incredibly helpful tool in cold case investigations, but
When prosecutors have a DNA profile but no CODIS hit, they can file a John Doe complaint to initiate prosecution and basically ask the court to issue an arrest warrant.
Once the court issues the arrest warrant, this will then toll the statute of limitations and allow the investigators to continue investigating the case and not have to worry about the statute of limitations running out. Now, there is no statute of limitations on murder in the U.S. You can be arrested and charged with murder years and decades after the crime.
But when it comes to sexual assault, there are statute of limitations in most, if not all, jurisdictions. These limits can vary from one year, three years, or even 10 years and beyond. So John Doe arrest warrants can be really helpful when it comes to sexual assault cold cases.
And besides the tolling of time, a John Doe arrest warrant also establishes the due diligence of prosecutors when an offender's DNA is known. This demonstrates that the prosecution and law enforcement are doing everything in their ability to try and solve the case. They're doing what is called their due diligence.
So in 2002, prosecutors were successful in securing a John Doe arrest warrant based on the DNA profile found inside the Bennett home. Even though there wasn't a CODIS hit then, that doesn't mean they were out of luck. Because as soon as CODIS got a hit, the prosecutors would already have an arrest warrant waiting for that individual.
Even though the John Doe arrest warrant seemed to spark some life in the case, it didn't generate any new leads or suspects. It would be another eight years before the case came back in the public eye. By 2018, there had been a considerable advancement in DNA profiling and genetic genealogy.
After the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, law enforcement agencies across the country were turning to genetic genealogy to try to solve their cold cases. Like I've mentioned before on the show, genetic genealogy is one of my favorite forensic techniques, if not my absolute favorite.
Cold case investigators can take an unknown DNA profile and run the sample through genetic databases with genetic genealogy. Then, using websites like GEDmatch or 23andMe, investigators can compare the sample against other known samples to generate a familial hit or a hit to a sample that belongs to someone in the offender's family.
So although we don't know who a DNA sample belongs to, our suspect, we can compare it to other DNA samples in a database and find potential relatives of that person. Once we have a relative like a grandma or a cousin, we can use basic genealogy to create a potential suspect list.
So by 2018, all of these years later, police departments everywhere were using this method, including Colorado cold case investigators who were working the hammer murders.
But this method, this method isn't easy. It can take years for forensic genealogists to identify family members. And then once family members are identified, it can take several more years to create a list of potential suspects. So genetic genealogy is not an overnight process, or at least not in most cases. But this method seemed to pay off for Colorado investigators.
because by the summer of that year, 2018, they got a big break in the Hammer case. On August 7th, 2018, investigators announced a big break in the case and that the police were holding a press conference at 10 a.m. on Friday, August 10th.
At the press conference, Colorado police informed the public that law enforcement in Nevada was retroactively swabbing and entering current inmates' DNA into CODIS. Even inmates who had been incarcerated for years were getting swabbed and had their DNA uploaded to CODIS.
It was Nevada's big push to get all of their state's inmates into the system who may have fallen through the cracks over the years. So as Nevada authorities are swabbing inmates and entering their DNA profiles into CODIS, our national DNA database, they get a hit with one of their inmates. And that hit makes them pick up the phone and immediately call the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
One of Nevada's inmates who was swabbed as a part of this project was a guy by the name of Alex Christopher Ewing. Alex Ewing was serving a 40-year attempted murder sentence after beating a couple nearly to death with an axe in August of 1984, merely months after the Colorado Hammer murders.
Yet, even though he was arrested and convicted in Nevada, his DNA was never entered into CODIS until this project, until 2018.
So when investigators uploaded his DNA profile into the system, they were alerted about this John Doe arrest warrant. Ewing's DNA was a perfect match to the DNA left inside of the Bennetts' home. And without a doubt, this meant that Alex Christopher Ewing was in fact the Colorado Hammer Killer.
On August 13, 2018, Ewing was charged in Jefferson County District Court with murder and sexual assault in the Patricia Smith case. He was then subsequently charged with 18 more criminal counts, including murder, attempted murder, and the sexual assault in the death of Bruce and Deborah Bennett and their seven-year-old daughter, Melissa Bennett.
He was also charged with attempted murder for trying to kill then three-year-old Vanessa, who did survive the attack. In August 2021, Ewing was extradited to Colorado to stand trial in Arapahoe County. The man responsible for the Colorado Hammer murders was finally facing justice nearly 37 years later. The prosecution's nail in the coffin at trial was the forensic evidence.
The DNA sample collected inside the Bennett's home. The prosecution told the jury that without a doubt, the semen collected on the Bennett's carpet and on Melissa's comforter was a perfect 100% match to Alex Christopher Ewing. After several days of emotional testimony, a Colorado jury found Ewing guilty of murder and he was sentenced to life in prison.
It was an incredibly emotional moment for the victims, as well as the community, almost 40 years in the making. Because of this guilty verdict, Alex Christopher Ewing will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. Ever since the Colorado Hammer Killer was identified, criminal profilers and forensic psychologists have tried to explain how and why someone decides to commit random violent crimes.
One of the profilers to study Alex Ewing was Ronald Walker, an FBI supervisory special agent. According to Ronald Walker, the hammer killer wasn't some criminal mastermind. Instead, he was just an average burglar who eventually evolved into becoming a murderer.
Long before Ewing graduated to murder, he was a simple burglar. He prayed in certain neighborhoods, saw an opportunity, either an open door or an open window, and then simply seized the moment. It was just as simple as that. If he tried a door and it was locked, he would just move on to the next house. He didn't make methodical decisions or rational choices, but
He was simply picking houses and victims at random, simply based on opportunity and availability. FBI agent Ronald Walker describes this behavior as juvenile. He walked down the street and jiggled front doorknobs to get inside people's homes. That's it. Then once he became bored of committing simple burglaries, he went on to kill some of his victims and then sexually assault them.
But again, nothing about Ewing, nothing about what he did was sophisticated. The weapon he chose says a lot about this type of offender. An unsophisticated criminal can't afford to purchase a gun. Instead, these types of offenders pick an easily accessible and cheap weapon. In this case, it was a hammer.
Once he got inside, he didn't know what he was going to do. He didn't have any sort of plan. It was like once he found a home that he could enter, he just went with the flow. That could explain why some victims were killed while others weren't or why some were sexually assaulted and some weren't.
According to Agent Walker, Alex Ewing was also likely driven by rage. Unfortunately, his victims were the target of that rage. Similar to road rage, perpetrators who take out their anger on random drivers on the highway or street. In addition, Ewing also suffered from drug and alcohol abuse, another common trait in violent offenders.
Ronald Walker was spot on on his initial assessment of Ewing. He was the type of violent offender who would continue to offend until he was arrested, dead, or traveled out of state. In this case, the only reason why the Colorado Hammer murders stopped was because Ewing moved away and got arrested in Nevada for a similar type crime.
The killings and attacks would have probably continued if he had never moved away. The investigation into Alex Ewing's crimes isn't over. There are potential other crimes that he might be considered a suspect in. If any additional charges are brought against him, I'll get those updates to you in a future episode of the show. Now, I don't want to end this episode only talking about the killer.
I want to finish by talking about the victims. The first victims, James and Kimberly, divorced in 1987. James sometimes posts online about this crime, and he posts about how deeply this has affected him. The second victim, Donna Dixon,
Just a few months after the attack, Donna and her pilot boyfriend, Ronald Holm, got married in May 1984, and they remain married even to this day. Patricia Smith, a loved mother and grandmother who was senselessly killed at only 55 years old. Finally, the Bennett family.
The only member of the Bennett family to survive that day was the youngest daughter, who was only three years old at the time. Although she survived the attack, she was left with permanent disabilities and injuries. Plus, she now has to live with the fact that someone brutally murdered her entire family.
The 1984 Colorado Hammer murders has encouraged many states to improve their DNA collection process and participate in CODIS. If every state improves its DNA collection laws and practices and actively participates in CODIS, there's the potential to uncover many more suspects in other cold cases. These practices can also bring justice to crime victims quicker.
The victims and their families suffered enough. The least we can do is implement the proper systems. So no family ever has to wait 40 long years for justice. They deserve better. We can do better. To share your thoughts on the 1984 Colorado Hammer murders, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales.
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Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.