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Kidnapped victim in apparent murder-suicide was able to call friend

Tonya Bina
Sky-Hi Daily News
Vail, CO Colorado
Byron Hetzler/Sky-Hi Daily NewsGranby Police Department Sgt. Jim Kraker and an investigator from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation leave the house at 109 Timber Court in Granby on Thursday. A possible murder-suicide is being investigated at the location.
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GRANBY – The victim of a suspected murder in a Granby Ranch home made one phone call while under her kidnapper’s watch.

Reaching out to a roommate, presumably while her ex-boyfriend/kidnapper monitored the call, the 38-year-old Parker woman told the friend that she was “being held against her will,” said Granby Police Chief Bill Housley, “and she told the friend to tell her mother that she loved her and to pick up her son.”

The mother of the 4-year-old boy was able to convey who her kidnapper was, but couldn’t say where they were located, Housley said.



The friend then reported the kidnapping to Parker police about 2 p.m. on Wednesday.

Parker officers found the woman’s car at a service station in Parker, according to Parker Police.

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The kidnapping culminated in a Granby Ranch home Thursday morning, where a 53-year-old male appeared to have killed the woman before committing suicide. Both individuals had a single gunshot wound to the head, and the male suspect was found with the handgun in his hand, Housley said.

It appeared that “considerable” time had lapsed between the death of the woman and death of her presumed killer, he said.

The chief said he believes the crime had been premeditated.

“It was planned to end in the manner it ended,” he said.

Granby Police Department officers were informed of the kidnapping on Wednesday through a state-wide broadcast from the Parker Police Department, working with the FBI.

The report indicated the suspect had vehicles registered to an address in Saddle Horn Court in Granby Ranch.

Granby Police responded to the local address but did not find the suspect’s vehicle there. Housley and another Granby police officer then canvassed the neighborhood and found one of the suspect’s vehicles a block away at 109 Timber Court.

Police made numerous attempts to call the victim’s and the suspect’s cell phones, but it was later learned that the batteries had been taken out of both of them.

With a perimeter set up around the home, police worked through the night and tried to use a pole camera to view inside, but did not detect any activity within, Housley said.

Police heard a single gunshot at 5:21 a.m. after they had bored a hole in a window to insert a telephone inside for negotiations with the suspect.

Upon entering the home, Housley said, both individuals were found dead.

No gunshots had been fired by law enforcement, according to Housley.

The male suspect had been convicted of second degree murder in 1987, and had a long criminal record that contained other convictions, according to police.

Housley said the suspect, an investor in distressed properties, had keys to the Granby residence, which belonged to an ex-business partner of his.

Names of the deceased have not yet been released, pending notification of relatives. Positive identification of the pair in question is pending.

Further investigation is being conducted by the Parker Police Department, Granby Police, the Grand County District Attorney’s Office, the Grand County Coroner and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

The last murder in or near Granby was in August 1990, when a woman shot her disabled husband in their Granby-area home on Fourth Street.


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