This post examines a series of unsolved attacks and murders that occurred in January, 1984 in the Lakewood suburb of Denver, Colorado. Note: This case is now SOLVED! Please see update.
Victims & Timeline
James Haubenschild: January 4, 1984 (wounded)
Kimberly Haubenschild: January 4, 1984 (wounded)
Donna Dixon (nee Holm), 28: January 4, 1984 (wounded)
Patricia Louise Smith, 50: January 10, 1984 (murdered)
Bruce Bennett, 27: January 16, 1984 (murdered)
Debra Bennett, 26: January 16, 1984 (murdered)
Melissa Bennett, 7: January 16, 1984 (murdered)
Vanessa Bennett, 3: January 16, 1984 (wounded)
Twelve Days of Terror
On January 4, 1984, an unknown assailant broke into the Haubenschilds’ Aurora, Colorado home and used a hammer to beat the couple. James Haubenschild suffered a fractured skull and his wife, Kimberly, got a concussion. Both survived. It is not known publicly, but is suspected, that Kimberly may have been raped. Later that evening, Donna Dixon (nee Holm), 28, was viciously assaulted in the garage of her home by a man with a hammer. Donna had just arrived home when the assailant attacked her, beating her head against the wheel well of her car and raping her on the concrete floor of the garage. Donna survived the attack but suffered a severe head wound, possibly from a hammer or sledgehammer.
Six nights later, on January 10, 1984, Patricia Louise Smith, 50, was raped and beaten in her Lakewood, Colorado home sometime between the hours of 1-3pm. She did not survive. Patricia had been on her lunch break from work and stopped at a nearby
Wendy’s on her way home. It is believed Patricia’s attacker intercepted her shortly after
she walked in the door. There were no signs of forced entry and it appeared her body had been posed, lain on top of a neatly-folded Winnie The Pooh comforter, part of which obscured her head. Patricia’s body was seemingly displayed, prone in a straight line, with her arms and hands crossed over her chest as if laying in a casket. Patricia was only four feet from her front door, on the floor next to the couch. A hammer was nearby and the television upstairs was left on. Two diamond rings and a gold necklace had been removed from Patricia’s body. Nothing else was missing from the home and it did not appear robbery was a primary motive as the killer did not search the rest of the home for valuables.
Police theorized Patricia had been attacked shortly after she entered her residence. The fact that the TV was on and her Wendy’s receipt and wig that she wore out in public were upstairs suggest the killer may have let himself into the home through an unlocked front or garage door and surprised Patricia. Many people in the 1980s did not lock their doors during the daytime, or sometimes, at all. It seems likely Patricia would have left her door unlocked during her short lunch break.
Six nights after that, the Bennett family was attacked in their Aurora, Colorado home sometime between 9pm and 10am. It is believed Bruce Bennett awoke after hearing a sound — perhaps the rustle of an intruder entering the home — and went downstairs to investigate. Bruce then encountered the intruder near the interior stairwell of the home where a great struggle ensued. Bruce, 27, was bludgeoned with a blunt object, likely a hammer, and also had his throat slit, possibly with a butcher knife obtained from the family’s kitchen. Bruce’s arms and torso sustained deep gashes as well. Blood spatter evidence on the stairwell indicated how hard Bruce fought with the intruder before succumbing to his injuries.
Debra, 26, and Melissa Bennett, 7, were found in their beds, both having been raped. Vanessa, at only 3 years old, had her face smashed with a blunt object with such force that her jaw was shattered and jagged pieces of bone were thrust down her windpipe. Her skull had been fractured on both sides. When the family did not arrive for work the following day as expected, Bruce’s mother, Constance, went looking for them at the residence and encountered the grisly murder scene. Upon her arrival, she initially believed all four family members to be deceased. A paramedic responding to the scene noted that Vanessa still had vital signs and swooped her from the house and into a waiting ambulance. She survived.
Investigators believe the intruder brought his own hammer or other blunt object to the scene. By all accounts, the attack appeared random and lacked any obvious motive. Nothing was taken from the Bennett home, save whatever knife was used to slit Bruce’s throat. There was no apparent forced entry. A purse was taken but then deposited on the front lawn in the snow, its contents scattered about.
The Investigation
DNA evidence would later link Smith’s rape and murder to the slaughter of the Bennett family six days later. This DNA evidence also ruled out any blood relatives of the Bennett family as being the perpetrator. Investigators questioned more than 500 people but no leads resulted from the inquiries. Despite gathering DNA evidence as well as a shoe print from the concrete floor of the Bennett’s garage and fingerprints from inside the home, no leads materialized and no one was ever arrested or implicated in the attacks.
Investigators were able to identify the imprint of some letters, stamped in blood, on Melissa’s pajamas. They believe the letters were transferred from the killer’s shirt when he pressed himself against Melissa, perhaps while picking her up, and that the letters may have been from an embroidered name on the shirt’s lapel or pocket. Two independent labs examined the letter imprints; one lab believed the letters read “RICHAR” while the other lab believed they read “PETAW-C.” The second lab claims the first three letters, “PET” are the most definitive.
Shoe prints left outside the Bennett family home matched prints located outside the Holm residence. A laser was able to salvage smudged fingerprints from inside the Bennett residence. Despite these clues and other DNA evidence, investigators have never been able to identify the perpetrator.
Based on DNA evidence, District Attorney Jim Peters filed an arrest warrant for John Doe in June 2002 for the Bennett family murders. John Doe was charged with 18 counts, including three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of sexual assault, first-degree assault and two counts of sexual assault on a child and burglary. The hammer attacks ended after the Bennett family was murdered. No other cases have been definitively linked to the Bennett or Smith murders since.
Theory
Some question whether or not all four attacks were related. Given that DNA links the Smith and Bennett cases without question, we know those two attacks were perpetrated by the same individual. We also know this attacker raped females and murdered his victims using a hammer. The Bennet and Holm cases were linked through matching shoe prints and, given that Holm was likely attacked with a hammer and also raped, it seems reasonable to surmise that the Smith, Bennett, and Holm attacks were all committed by the same individual.
The Haubenschild attack was the first in the series and there is the least information posted about it online because the other three attacks had not yet occurred so it was not known at the time to be one in a series of attacks. It is unknown publicly if Kimberly was raped by her attacker (although there are rumors she was raped), however, we do know that the attacker used a hammer to attack the Haubenschild couple. Given the timing (this attack was the same day as the Holm attack and same month as the other attacks) and MO (hammer, blunt force attack on men and women in a residence), it seems reasonable to assume the Haubenschild attack was committed by the same person as the other three.
The Bennett family had recently moved into their home, around Thanksgiving, from another home several miles away. Patricia Smith had also recently moved into her home. The Smith and Bennett murders took place near what was known as the Alameda Avenue Corridor where a lot of new construction was taking place. It is possible the perpetrator was a worker at the new residences and was able to see who was moving into the area?
Each attack was committed six days apart. Was the offender working, perhaps a six-day shift? And this prevented him from attacking in the intervening days?
Based on the bloody embroidery lettering lifted off Melissa’s pajamas, these are some possible offender names or the name of a business he worked at: Richard, Richards, Richardson, Pritchard, Water (PETAW backwards) such as the local water supply company, Peter, Peters, Peterson, Petrol.
These attacks were crimes of opportunity. The offender did not select victims based their personal characteristics. Rather, he selected them based on availability. The offender chose locations — a specific house because the garage door was left open or he knew the family had just moved in. He did not care how many people were inside, whether they were male or female — he was going to break in, attack, and cause extreme chaos and mayhem. His motive was rape, destruction, and violence — to terrorize.
Proposed Offender Profile
- Caucasian male of western northern descent*
- Blue eyes*
- Brown hair*
- Impulse control problems
- Substance or alcohol use problems
The offender as he may have appeared at the time of the attacks in 1984 - Possible construction, petrol, or water company worker (perhaps a meter reader for the Aurora Water Company?)
- If construction worker, may have had view of homes he invaded or the victims as they milled about the area. May have been laid off or had work temporarily shortened/restricted due to less construction work available during the cold winter months in Colorado
- May have worked for a moving company or otherwise been aware of new residents in the area
- Lived or worked in Aurora or Lakewood, Colorado in January, 1984
- Traveled along the Alameda Corridor to/from work and home
- Was available to commit the attacks in the early morning hours on a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday without being noticed missing
- Did not know his victims
- Selected victims based on availability and convenience, not based on personal characteristics or prior relationship
- Did not have much to lose at the time he committed the attacks. May have recently lost something important such as a job, spouse, or family member.
- Felt wronged or aggrieved by society, his job, or people in his life. Expressed rage through violence toward strangers.
- Felt impotent or powerless in daily life. Used rape and surprise attacks to terrorize individual victims as well as an entire neighborhood, to feel powerful and indomitable.
- May have been injured in the fight with Bruce Bennett. May have presented for first aid at a clinic or ER. May have succumbed to injuries in the days after the attack.
- Committed suicide, was killed, or was arrested for an unrelated crime and incarcerated and has either been incarcerated ever since or died while in prison. This is a person who was unlikely to stop committing violent crimes unless death or incarceration intervened.
*These physical traits are definitive given the DNA phenotype results
Anyone with information regarding this case is encouraged to contact the Lakewood Police Department Cold Case hotline at (303) 987-7474 or e-mail at coldcase@lakewoodco.org
UPDATE: SOLVED!
August 12, 2018
Alexander Christopher Ewing (also known as Alex C. Ewing), 57, an inmate in a Nevada prison, has been charged with murder, felony murder, and attempted murder for the deaths of Bruce, Debra, and Melissa Bennett and Patricia Smith as well as the attack on Vanessa Bennett. Ewing is already serving a 40-year sentence for 2 counts each of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.
On August 9, 1984, Ewing escaped the custody of two Arizona Sheriff’s deputies while stopped at a gas station in Henderson, Nevada. At the time, he was being transported in a prison van, along with 11 other inmates, from St. George, Utah to Kingman, Arizona. Ewing was scheduled to be transferred due to prison overcrowding; he was serving time for attempted murder and burglary charges stemming from a January 27, 1984 incident in which he entered a Kingman resident’s home and beat his head in with a rock. The same day he escaped custody, August 9, 1984, Ewing proceeded to enter the unlocked home of Christopher and Nancy Barry and beat them to near-death with an axe handle. Their two young boys were sleeping nearby in another room and survived, unharmed.
Ewing is now in the process of being extradited to Colorado to face charges in the Bennett and Smith cases. He has been incarcerated since 1984 and would have been eligible for parole in 2021 with a release date of 2037 had these new charges not arisen. Despite the similarities in his known crimes, Ewing’s DNA was not entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database until recently. Once entered, it pinged a match to the Aurora hammer cases and authorities connected the dots.
It is unclear whether Ewing will be charged in the Haubenschild and Dixon/Holm attacks. Anyone with information as to Ewing’s whereabouts in 1983-1984 is asked to contact the Aurora Police Department at (303) 739-6400 or email the Lakewood Police Department at coldcase@lakewoodco.org
Suspect Timeline
January 10, 1984: Patricia Louise Smith, 50, murdered in her Lakewood, Colorado home by an intruder with a hammer. DNA evidence ties Ewing to the crime.
January 16, 1984: Bennett family is attacked in their Aurora, Colorado home with 3 out of the 4 family members murdered by an intruder wielding a hammer. DNA evidence ties Ewing to the crime.
January 27, 1984: Ewing attacks a man in Kingman, Arizona in his home; beats man’s head with a hammer. Ewing is arrested and incarcerated.
August 9, 1984: Ewing, aged 24 at the time, escapes custody while in Nevada; beats a sleeping couple in their home with an axe handle. Ewing was caught two days later and led to his subsequent incarceration in Nevada which continued until 2018 when DNA evidence linked him to the Bennett and Smith crimes.
