Decades-old Colorado murder committed by serial killer who died in 1996, sheriff's office says

A sheriff's office in Colorado said on Monday that it solved a cold case murder that occurred in Larkspur in 1987.

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office said on Tuesday that 30-year-old Rhonda Marie Fisher was killed by Vincent Groves, who's tied to multiple killings in Colorado throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He died in prison in 1996.

Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly said Groves and another man were long considered prime suspects, but new DNA technology was able to connect Groves to Fisher's killing through "trace" evidence — or small amounts of skin cells left at the scene of the killing and preserved at the time.

Weekly said solving a nearly 40-year-old murder through evidence collected at the time is "exceptionally rare."

"Rhonda Fisher was a mother, daughter, sister, and friend," the sheriff's office said in a statement on Monday. "This resolution is a testament to the persistence of Douglas County investigators, the importance of evidence preservation, and the continued advancement of forensic science."

Fisher was found strangled to death in a culvert on April 1, 1987, near the 3500 block of S. Perry Park Road.

Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly says the DNA was found on paper bags placed on Fisher's hands, which was originally placed there to preserve evidence. Groves' DNA matched that of three previous homicides that the sheriff's office had retained.

Michelle Kennedy, a crime analysis supervisor at the sheriff's office, said Fisher's immediate family are all deceased, but officials told a cousin of Fisher's about the conclusion of the case.

"They're very happy to have answers," Kennedy said.

Groves was an athlete at Wheat Ridge High School and then a college dropout who got into using and selling drugs, human trafficking, and eventually murder, according to Weekly, who called groves "one of Colorado's most prolific serial killers."

State and local law enforcement, in the time since DNA technology has advanced, have tied Groves to seven homicides of women and girls in Colorado, and in 2012, Denver police detectives said he might have been responsible for around 20 murders.

Weekly went on to say that the sheriff's office is close to concluding several more cold case murders.