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For nearly four decades, the murder of 30-year-old Rhonda Marie Fisher in the foothills outside denver remained unresolved.
On April 1, 1987, a passing motorist discovered Fisher’s body down an embankment in the south side of rural Douglas County. colorado capital. Yet despite the suspects, the killer was never found.
Now Douglas County police say they have identified the culprit as “one of Colorado’s most prolific serial killers” based on 38-year-old DNA evidence found inside a paper bag.
County Sheriff’s Office announced on wednesday He cold Case Investigators had found correspondence with convicted murderer Vincent Darrell Groves, who is believed to be responsible for at least 12 and possibly as many as 20 murders.
Groves targeted several women between 1978 and 1988, before and after serving a five-year sentence for second-degree murder. He was finally released from prison permanently in 1990 and died of liver failure in prison in 1996.
Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekley said, “Although Vincent Groves cannot be held accountable in a court of law, we are hopeful that this long-awaited resolution will bring answers and peace to the family and friends of Rhonda Fisher.”
“This case is a testament to our commitment to bringing justice to every victim – no matter how much time has passed.”
According to police, Fischer was last seen walking north from Monaco St. toward Leetsdale Dr. in urban Denver the night before her death. Signs of sexual assault and strangulation were visible on her body.
Investigators initially suspected one of several acquaintances with whom she had stayed during the previous few weeks, but were eventually cleared of suspicion. Investigations into several known killers found no connections, as did a new round of DNA testing in 2017.
But earlier this year, the Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit reopened the case. According to local broadcaster 9NEWSNew investigators realized that one piece of evidence had never been tested: paper bags placed over Fisher’s hands by the original coroner at the crime scene, intended to preserve her body for later analysis.
“DNA was not a science that was being focused on or even known about in 1987,” a Douglas County detective told 9NEWS. “It was very, very new, and the coroner might not have been doing it for that purpose, but thankfully he did.”
The DNA inside the paper bag matched that of Vincent Groves, convicted of second-degree murder in 1982 who was released on parole in 1987.
Within a month, he attempted to murder a sex worker and soon became a prolific criminal strangling young women. He was eventually sentenced to life in prison in 1990, in what the sheriff described as “one of the earliest successful uses of DNA evidence in Colorado courts.”
The Sheriff’s Office said, “Obtaining a viable DNA profile from a nearly four-decade-old paper bag is exceptionally rare and underscores the extraordinary value of careful evidence preservation and periodic forensic re-evaluation.”