Investigators link ‘84 Lakewood slaying, brutal Aurora cold case
Constance Bennett, the grandmother who raised the only survivor of a 1984 killing spree, discusses recently linked cases.
LAKEWOOD – Police detectives from Lakewood and Aurora have linked two brutal 26-year-old crimes through DNA evidence and hope the link will help them find a hammer-wielding killer.
At a joint news conference in Lakewood Tuesday, investigators revealed the link between the January 15, 1984, deaths of three members of an Aurora family with the bludgeon slaying of Lakewood resident Patricia Louise Smith six days earlier.
The crimes were especially brutal, according to detectives, and the Aurora case grabbed national headlines as its sole survivor, 3-year-old Vanessa Bennett, struggled to survive severe head injuries inflicted in the carnage that took the lives of her parents and 7-year-old sister.
Aurora Police Det. R.J. Wilson said both departments are reviewing evidence from both crimes, hoping to find something common to both cases that could lead to the killer. “We never give up,” Wilson said.
Patricia Smith
Both departments collaborated early on in their investigations and, decades later, the joint effort “still is going on,” said LPD Commander Burdell Burch, who heads the department’s Crimes Against Persons Section. Burch also was involved in the original investigation into Smith’s death at her Lakewood apartment at 12610 West Bayaud Ave. on Jan. 10, 1984. Police believe she was beaten with a hammer.
Days later – investigators believe it was between 9 p.m. Jan. 15 and 10 a.m. Jan. 16 – Bruce Bennett, 27, his wife, Debra, 26, and their daughter Melissa, 7, were murdered inside their Aurora home in the 16300 Block of East Center Drive. Autopsies determined that all three died from blunt force trauma, but Bruce and Melissa also had injuries consistent with a knife and evidence indicated that Melissa had been sexually assaulted. Vanessa was found alive inside the residence, her skull was fractured and she had lost a substantial amount of blood.
A hammer also was used in the Bennett’s deaths.
Among other similarities: Both homicide scenes were very close to the Alameda Avenue corridor, and both were in areas where new-home construction was prevalent.
“Detectives are interested in speaking with anyone who was employed in the construction industry and working in those areas at the time of the homicides,” according to LPD spokesman Steve Davis.
But Davis cautioned that the only new turn in the investigation is the DNA link between the cases.
“We do know that the same person had involvement at the two crime scenes,” Davis said.
Still, 26 years later, detectives have new hope that a positive DNA match through the national Combined DNA Index System will lead to the still unknown.
Many states require DNA testing of prison inmates and some require testing of people suspected or convicted of certain crimes. Those results are then sent to the CODIS databank for comparison.
Aurora investigators hold an arrest warrant based on the DNA results from the Bennett crime scene.
“Now we wait for somebody to get arrested … and tested,” Wilson said.
Also waiting is Constance Bennett, Bruce’s mother, who found the bodies when she stopped by the Bennett home to see why Bruce failed to show up for work. She also raised Vanessa in the aftermath of the tragedy.
“There’s a definite hope that, if they are still out there, they will be caught. I feel good about this, and my family does, too,” said Vanessa’s grandmother, who was at Tuesday’s press conference. “It would be good to have someone brought to justice. “.
But just knowing the deaths were apparently random, as indicated by the DNA link, brings her some comfort.
“We know it was nobody who knew my kids … just a random act by someone out there,’ she said, noting that she is certain that the family and the Lakewood victim had never met.
Constance Bennett said Vanessa, now nearly 30, is doing well and “going to school” but has had a “hard struggle” with her injuries but also with the other repercussions that have arisen since the attack.
In a 2004 interview with Rocky Mountain News reporter, Constance Bennett said Vanessa has no memory of the attack, but Constance told the News of her own frequent nightmares in which she revisits the scene of the murder.
“It seems like yesterday,” she told Carnahan.
And it still does.
“It’s as if it happened just the other day,” she told reporters Tuesday. “It’s been difficult … .”
Anyone with information regarding Smith’s death should contact the Lakewood Police Department Cold Case hotline at (303) 987-7474 or e-mail at coldcase@lakewoodco.org
http://www.lakewood.org/index.cfm?&include=/PD/Coldcases/ColdCases2.cfm
and people with information about the Bennett case should contact Aurora Police Det. R.J. Wilson at 303-739-6106 or visit https://www.auroragov.org/AuroraGov/Departments/Police/HelpSolveACrime/ColdCases/043786?ssSourceNodeId=790&ssSourceSiteId=621.
