Alan Lee Phillips sentenced to 2 life sentences for 1982 slayings of 2 women in Breckenridge area

A man convicted in the cold case slayings of two women whose bodies were found near Breckenridge in 1982 was sentenced to two life sentences. On Monday, Phillips, 71, was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. 

Alan Lee Phillips was arrested last year in Dumont after local, state and federal authorities using DNA evidence identified him as a suspect in the killings of Annette Schnee, 21, and Barbara "Bobbi Jo" Oberholtzer, 29.

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

Local, state and federal authorities used DNA testing to help identify Phillips as a potential suspect officials said at the time of Phillips' arrest.

Authorities said the two women, whose bodies were found in separate locations, had no connection. Both were believed to be hitchhiking outside Breckenridge, a ski resort town about 60 miles southwest of Denver, 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, near Breckenridge, one day after she disappeared. Schnee's body was discovered six months later, fully clothed, in a creek in rural Park County. Both women had been shot.

The victims did not know Phillips or each other.