Max sentence handed down in 1985 Colorado murder of Roger Dean, daughter says she has "no respect" for killer
After nearly 40 years, the loved ones of a murdered Colorado man finally got the justice they have been seeking.
Roger Dean was 51 in 1985 when he became the victim in a murder that was so horrific it was like a scene from a movie. A man in a ski mask broke into Dean's Lone Tree home, forced him to tie up his wife and tape her mouth shut. Then, the intruder shot and killed Dean. A backpack was left behind when the suspect left the scene.
It took decades of advancements in DNA technology for detectives to link the suspect with items left at the scene in the cold case -- the backpack plus the ski mask.
The killer, Michael Jefferson, was arrested in 2021. In August of last year the 67-year-old pleaded guilty in a plea bargain.
On Thursday a judge sentenced him to 32 years in prison for the murder. It was the maximum sentence, but Douglas County's district attorney believes he could be paroled in as little as 8 years.
The victim's daughter said on Thursday that her father's killer has never taken accountability.
"I have been sitting behind him for 4 years," said Tamara Dean Harney, referring to all of Jefferson's court hearings of the past few years. "His expression is exactly what it was the entire time. He seems emotionless, he doesn't take any accountability, he doesn't seem like he cares."
"He could have done a lot for me, and a lot for himself, if he would have just talked about why he did what he did and offered an apology at least, or a recognition at all would be helpful. I have no respect for the person at all," Harney said.
Harney and her mother claimed they received threats of violence and extortion attempts from Jefferson in the years after the crime. And all of the years of waiting for the crime to be solved eventually became unsufferable for Dean's wife DJ. She committed suicide in 2020 -- seven months before genetic genealogical evidence wound up linking the killer to the crime scene.
"Given trial delays and the debacle with (the recent DNA scandal in the Colorado Bureau of Investigation), I think it's a good thing mom wasn't here to witness this. If she wasn't already dead this process would have killed her," Harney said.
The DNA test that would link Jefferson to the crime is also the reason he pleaded guilty to a lesser offense -- conspiracy to commit murder -- than he was originally charged with. Former forensic scientist Missy Woods worked on this case, and after she was found to have manipulated DNA in other cases prosecutors felt it was too big of a risk to go to trial, even though Jefferson's DNA result was also confirmed by an independent lab.
The loss of Roger is not the only tragedy to affect the family. Two years prior to the murder, Harney's brother Troy was hit by a train and killed.