Man recently sentenced for 1982 slayings of 2 women near Breckenridge dies in prison

A 72-year-old man who was sentenced four months ago for killing two women who disappeared near Breckenridge in the 1980s has died in prison. DNA testing by Colorado authorities identified Alan Lee Phillips as a suspect in the murders. He was 71 at the time of his conviction last fall. His death at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility was confirmed on Friday morning by the Crowley County coroner.

Phillips was found guilty on murder charges in the killings of Annette Schnee and Barbara "Bobbi Jo" Oberholtzer. Schnee was 21 when she was killed and Oberholtzer was 29.

The women's relatives called for the maximum punishment for the slayings that forever changed their families.

Authorities said the two women, whose bodies were found in the snow in separate locations, had no connection. Both were believed to have been killed while hitchhiking in the Summit County area when they disappeared on Jan. 6, 1982. Friends and family discovered Oberholtzer's body the next day in a snow drift on the summit of 11,542-foot Hoosier Pass. Schnee's body wasn't discovered until six months later, fully clothed, in a creek in rural Park County. Both women had been shot.

Phillips was arrested in 2021 in Dumont. A Park County jury in Fairplay convicted him of eight counts including first-degree murder after deliberation and first-degree murder involving felony kidnapping and robbery.