Cold Case Files - Ice Cold in Denver

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

In 1980, 21-year-old radio intern, Helene Pruszynski, is found bound and stabbed in a snowy field in Denver, Massachusetts. After 37 years of dead ends, investigators turn their attention to a public genealogy website. Check out our great sponsors! KiwiCo: Get 50% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code COLDCASE at kiwico.com  Progressive: Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive!

An A&E original podcast. This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. My philosophy on life, you should just be yourself and make the best of everything. And smile. That's what I do all the time. I met Helene in the 1970s. She was always smiling. Always smiling. I can still hear Helene's voice. I can still feel

her presence. And that's why I made a promise to her parents that I would not rest until we found out who, why, how, and get the answers for them. And I made a promise to her because it shattered all of us. There are 120,000 unsolved murders in America. Each one is a cold case. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's cold in Douglas County, Colorado, on the morning of January 17th, 1980. A woman and her children are driving through Daniels Park, a wide open expanse of land along County Road 67.

Snow still sits on the frosty ground throughout the fields, but something catches her son's eye as he glances out the window. The woman can't pull over because she has her kids in the car, so she drives on and finds a road worker. She tells him that she thinks there is a woman's body in the field. Douglas County Sheriff's officers arrive at the scene and find the body of a young female lying on her back. It's a disturbing scene, so the deputies call in the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for help. Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock and Lieutenant Tommy Varela recall how the victim was found. She was nude from the waist down, but wearing socks. Those are strong indicators that this is a sex assault murder. It appeared that she had some kind of gag around her face and mouth, and it looked like her hands were bound behind her back. When they rolled her body over, it

was clear that she had been stabbed numerous times. It was dark and wet where she had been bleeding into the ground. So they knew that this was probably where she was killed. You can't get a scene that has more tragedy in it. No one knew who this individual was. Law enforcement was really at that point just starting from scratch. Who is this in the field?

How did she get here? And what happened to her? The large red stain where the victim had bled out is a stark contrast to the glistening white patches of snow throughout the muddy field. The cold weather is surprisingly beneficial to crime scene investigators. Tire tracks and footprints are preserved in the frozen ground. Two sets of footprints can be seen going into the field, but only one is seen leading out of the field. It looks like a boot print, so investigators know that the victim had not just been dumped there.

They had been led there and killed. They still have no idea who she is, though. There are no women matching the description listed as missing in Douglas County. So they check with the neighboring towns. It doesn't take long for Englewood police officers to contact them and say that a 21-year-old woman had been reported missing the night before. Her name is Helene Pruszynski. Helene was the youngest child of Chester and Henrietta Pruszynski. She was born in New York and spent some of her childhood in Long Island before the family moved to Hamilton, Massachusetts, a small town north of Boston.

She attended Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School, where she met her friends Mitch Sherman-Thulen and Kimberly Latourette. I first met Helene freshman year in high school. We had study hall, and I met her there. There was a group of girls that all had the same schedule, and we all made a quick, close connection. She very much wanted to be part of the school and part of different organizations. Very much into drama, very much into the school spirit. She was into poetry, she was into singing,

she had a beautiful voice. She was in cheerleading, she was the editor of the school newspaper. She was on the honor roll. She was in the homecoming court. She just did it all. Helene was interviewed for the school radio show before she graduated. It was the beginning of a promising career as a broadcaster. Philosophy on life.

Your philosophy on life. Yeah, I have one. You should just, I don't know, be yourself and make the best of everything. Be yourself. And smile. Yeah, that's what I do all the time. Helene left home and began studying journalism at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. And during her senior year in 1979, she landed her dream internship at KHOW in Colorado.

Helene's classmate had also gotten a position at KHOW, so they stayed together with Helene's aunt and uncle just a bus ride away from their new job. News director at the station, Mike Anthony, and reporter Bob Scott remember the potential Helene showed from the start. You couldn't ask for much more out of an intern. She was spot-on everything that she did. I'd be in the anchor booth getting ready to do a newscast and a bulletin would come across and she'd always grab it and slip it to me. She was really not like an intern she was more like a regular professional journalist. I was so impressed with her from day one because at the end of each shift, she would call me on the two-way and say, how can I do this better? She was a hard worker. She wanted to do her job right and worked very

hard to accomplish that. Helene had been working on January 16th, and Mike had been one of the last people to speak with her before she went missing. It was a cold day, and it looked like it was going to snow. Helene came in the news booth and said, it's starting to snow outside, and I'm a little concerned about my bus ride home. And she said, could I leave a little bit early if I need to? I said, if you'll wait 15 minutes, I'll give you a ride home.

I said, I'd feel a lot better if you let me take you home. She thought about it for a minute, and she said, no, I think I'll just ride the bus. I left the station that night to go home, which was about 6.15. The phone rang about 8.30 or 9 o'clock, and it was Helene's aunt. And she said, Helene has not come home yet. Do you know if she went someplace that I'm not aware of?

And I said, no, she left the station right around 6 o'clock. Said she was going to catch the bus and go straight home. It usually takes Helene an hour to get back home after work. But as time passes, her aunt and uncle become more concerned, and they contact the Englewood Police Department to report her missing. The Englewood Police Department, you know, searched the area of the bus stop that she was dropped off at, as well as where she would have been picked up at, and then kind of the route between those two, the general area. A, you know, contacted businesses in the area.

Did they see anyone that looked like, you know, a 21-year-old young lady, you know, walking? They knew the route that she walked. Did anyone see her? Helene's colleagues at the radio station joined the search. They drive around town and along the route Helene would have traveled. One of the reporters, Bob, tries to get more information from the sheriff's office. I just kept hoping there's some other explanation.

We just kept hoping for some miracle that she would be okay. I was at the sheriff's office talking to a couple of investigators, see if they had any idea, anything else we could do. My best friend was a captain, and he said, we just had a call from Douglas County that they found a body of a young female, and they want you to go out and see if you can identify it. I just knew this had to be her.

This was the only reported missing young female. I was just sick in my stomach. I didn't want to go to the scene and identify the body, but didn't have any choice. We drove down to the location. I had to get out and walk out into the snowy field. But as soon as I got to the body, I knew it was her. I instantly knew it was her.

It was the worst thing I ever had to do. And it's never left my mind. Helene's remains are taken to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy. The coroner determines that she had been stabbed nine times in the back. Her death had been caused by severe blood loss and collapsed lungs. She had also been sexually assaulted. They were able to find some fluid, some dry fluid. It could possibly be saliva or it could be semen. So they took samples of it and they preserved it.

And in 1980, nobody really knew what DNA was. But for whatever reason, the people working on this case just did a phenomenal job of preserving all of her evidence. The way that she was murdered does give an indication that this is a crime of passion. And so that sometimes leads to an individual who might know her. The violence and brutality of the murder indicate that Helene had been killed by someone she knew. But she had only just moved to the area, and the only people she knew were her co-workers at KHOW. I was contacted by several investigators after the day that Helene was found, and they wanted all the information I could give them about people that worked for me,

people in the radio station, anybody she had come in contact with, or if there was anybody I thought that might want to harm her. Helene had worked just two weeks of her internship, but her colleagues are eager to help the police catch her killer. They issue a reward of $10,000 for any information and keep the case in the news in the hope of someone coming forward. A lady contacted law enforcement. She had saw a vehicle parked on the side of the case in the news in the hope of someone coming forward. A lady contacted law enforcement. She had saw a vehicle parked on the side of the road in the location that Helene's body was found. She saw a male suspect that appeared to be kneeling down by the rear of the vehicle and looked toward her. Investigators used hypnosis and a crime scene sketch artist

to develop a composite of a suspect that she thought she had seen. They have a composite of this white male with, you know, thick hair kind of parted to the side with a mustache. But it was aired, and nothing ever came of it. Helene's friends and family in her hometown are shocked and devastated by the news of her brutal murder. Going to her wake and her funeral was surreal. Absolutely surreal.

It was very hard to get through. I remember sitting there surrounded by my friends. We all held hands, we all cried a lot. Helene's family is shattered by the loss of the youngest child. The toll it takes on them will last for the rest of their lives. What could we say to her parents? When I looked at them, all the light had gone out of them, and their eyes were just hollow,

and it was just really hard. They were never the same. Investigators continue searching for Helene's killer, but more than a year after the murder, the case goes cold. There just wasn't any more leads for detectives to go off of. In the 80s, DNA wasn't something that you can go test to figure out who it was. There were no fingerprints, so the case became a cold case. That is, until 1984, when a confession from a notorious pair of serial killers jumpstarts the investigation once more.

It's been four years since 21-year-old Helene Pruszynski was brutally murdered in Colorado, and two men who claim they've killed hundreds of women say that Helene is one of their victims. Okay, the time is 11.20 a.m. We're back in our interview with Otis Toole. Do you remember if you were sitting at the bus stop waiting for somebody to get off? I wouldn't just pull up on the bus stop and wait for somebody to get off the bus and ask me one question. Was this girl right at the bus stop or was she... I say she was waiting for the bus. Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Toole are known serial killers in the United States who have confessed to numerous murders. They've been in Colorado and Otis Toole are known serial killers in the United States who have confessed to numerous murders. They've been in Colorado, and Otis Toole claims that they killed Helene. She was found in a field, wasn't she?

Mm-hmm. In a big open field, not too far from the road. Otis Toole says that Henry Lee Lucas tied Helene's hands up, but much of his confession contained things that had already been published in the media. During the interview with these two individuals, investigators were getting a lot of information that was common in the Helene crime scene.

That she was abducted, that she was taken to a field, that she was sexually assaulted, that she was taken to a field, that she was sexually assaulted, that she was stabbed, and then one of them said that they had shot her in the head. That caused the investigators to pause, because we know that that didn't occur. Everything you told us today about that girl that we showed you the picture of, that's true? Yeah.

You can't just make that up out of your mind. You don't think I'm that smart, do you? I can make up all that shit for you. As it turns out, Otis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas confessed to numerous other murders they didn't commit because they want to be notorious serial killers. They repeat details about Helene's death, known through the media, and fabricate information that can quickly be discredited.

Without a solid case against them, investigators rule the pair out. They did not kill Helene. Helene's friends and family do their best to keep her memory alive, and they continue to check for new leads in the case. I continued to follow everything that took place. And I checked back frequently

with people that I knew in Denver to see if anything had ever been discovered and if they were on any trails or had any new input. And every time I checked back, it was nothing, nothing. Some people were frustrated, thinking, you know, we'll never know, but it certainly never left our minds and we were always talking with one another about what else could we do. Over the years we stayed in touch with Helene's family.

It was difficult because it was way before cell phones and social media, but I stayed connected with her sister. I stayed connected with her parents. I used to go and visit them, but, you know, you look around the room and who's missing? Helene. And that never should have been. Helene's parents established a scholarship in her name to be given to a student each year that embodies the characteristics she had. Her high school

friends Kimberly and Mitch and choir director CeCe Fogner-Hunt never give up on their pursuit of justice. We were all building families now, we're married, we're having children, we're building careers, but this never left us, not for a moment. Then outside of my marriage, outside of a moment. Then outside of my marriage, outside of being a mom, outside of my career, you know, people say, well, what's your hobby? And mine wasn't golf. Mine was solving Helene's case for her family.

Because we didn't think that her parents or her family should carry that burden, that we were going to start to just at least drive it with the detectives in the sense that we would be calling the detectives, where are you on this case? Have there been any advancements? I made a promise to her parents that I would not rest until we found out who, why, how, and get the answers for them.

And when Kimberly makes a promise, there's no breaking that promise. Years stretch into decades, and there's no breaking that promise. Years stretch into decades and there are no leads to pursue. With the evolution of forensic technology, the evidence is logged into the database in the early 2000s. The DNA sample is run through the Combined DNA Index System, also known as CODIS, but there is no match. It seems that Helene's killer has gotten away with murder. On the 26th anniversary of Helene's death in 2006, Kimberly and Cece and other members of the original Harmony Choir travel to Colorado and retrace Helene's steps. They contact every media outlet. Helene's case is headline news, but the outreach doesn't bring the spark they hoped for.

Kimberly tries something else, building a website dedicated to Helene's case. I secured a friend of mine who is a software developer, and we built traps on the website to say, if anyone goes to the website, we want to, you know, collect their IP address, and we want to know how long they sit on each page of the website. And then they would generate a report and send the Colorado Bureau of Investigation a report of who went to that website, in the hope that the killer would go to the website

and we could find him that way. Because the DNA through the CODA system, there were no hits. And so we were trying to find other ways to trap him. Kimberly keeps pushing for nine more years, asking to try new forensic techniques and desperately seeking answers. Eventually, things change within the police department. A new sheriff, Tony Spurlock, and a new unit heats the cold case up.

So when I became elected sheriff, one of the first things I did is I created a cold case unit with a full-time detective. And that unit, their only job really was to start from scratch. And I brought in Lieutenant Tommy Barella, and I said, listen, I need you to solve those cases. I need you to make some moves on us. He established a cold case review team that's made of five civilians. Two of them are lawyers, one of them is a doctor, and the other two are people that had an interest in this. He really wanted us to put a lot of energy

and work into getting these cold cases solved. And he said, you know, I would like to see two solved in the next two years. The renewed hope in the case centers around the DNA sample investigators had collected from Helene's body 40 years earlier. DNA technology wasn't around in 1980, but the cold case investigators have new tools that may help them identify Helene's killer. The investigators begin to work with United Data Connect. Co-founder of the organization Mitch Morrissey explains the new technique they would be utilizing.

Genetic genealogy is using a DNA technique that then allows you to apply genealogy techniques, liken it to getting you in the ballpark. And now you use genealogy techniques to find your seat. The cold case team gives them the suspect's DNA and the genetic genealogists build a family tree using commercial genealogy sites. They run the DNA through those sites and look for anyone with even partial DNA matches based on the science behind something called centimorgans. Centimorgans is a unit for measuring DNA. You and I may not be related at all, so there'd be no centimorgans. If you and I were siblings, it would be a very high number. The genealogists work on building the family tree for weeks

until they finally get a promising lead. Thanks to the advancements in DNA technology, investigators were able to identify what looked to be the killer's mother. Finding the mother of the person responsible for Helene's murder wasn't the home run investigators hoped for, though. She was the mother of multiple kids, but the women could be thrown out right away. They didn't commit this crime because it was a male sample.

It was a semen sample, but by all accounts and all records, she didn't have any boys. So we thought, well, this is a problem. Everything was re-looked at again and phone calls started being made to possible family members in this possible family tree, asking people if they would voluntarily give samples of their DNA. And as we're testing these people and getting their DNA,

these centimorgans, the numbers are increasing. And as the numbers increase, that means we're getting closer and closer to our suspect. Detectives question the woman's relatives, and they discover that she had two sons, and she had placed both of them up for adoption. Using contemporary research through old newspaper archives, the team finds an article about a reunion between this woman and her son. The article also references another son. They are able to eliminate one of the sons quite quickly because his DNA was

already in the CODA system and it did not match the DNA found at the scene. So they focus on the other son, Curtis Allen White. Curtis Allen White had committed a violent rape at Knife Point prior to 1980 and had been convicted, but DNA was not taken back then, and he was paroled to Colorado after serving a very short sentence. I was out here during the time that Helene came here in 1979 and was out here during the time

that Helene would have been murdered. So now we're feeling like, OK, this could be our guy. We check his fingerprints, and they come back to a guy named James Curtis Clanton down in Florida. So detectives follow up on that, and James Curtis Clanton is arrested in 1998 for domestic violence. And once they send the booking photo to us, when it was compared to the composite drawing that was given to us by a lady under hypnosis in 1980,

we're almost identical. Now we know that Curtis Allen White and James Curtis Clanton are the same person. He changed his name to Clanton in 1982. And in 2019, he's living in a small town in rural Florida and working as a truck driver. Investigators are sure this is their guy. He looks just like the composite sketch from 1980. But they need to get his DNA to prove that he's the killer.

It's now November 2019, and the detectives board a plane from Colorado to Florida to tail Clanton and discreetly obtain his DNA, if possible. When you're out looking for someone's DNA, you have to be careful. What you do is use undercover officers to surveil the individual, and you're looking for abandoned DNA. Clanton wakes up early in the morning and drives off in his truck. By 3 or 4 p.m., he's back at home and stays there for the night. His pattern of behavior gives the investigators no chance of getting a sample of his DNA without being noticed until he decides to head to a local bar. When he leaves, the waitress takes the mugs off the bar and puts them underneath.

Doesn't wash them yet, just puts them underneath to wash them at a later time. And the detective is watching it. And the owner comes in and meets us out back and hands us these mugs. And within days, those detectives got back a positive result that the DNA that was found on the beer mugs matched the DNA that he had left 40 years earlier on this poor victims clothing and we had our man James Curtis Clanton is our murderer now there's a murderer on the loose so we send four detectives down to conduct 24 hours of surveillance on him because anything he does at this from this moment on, we would be responsible for.

It's December 11th, 2019, one week since Clanton's DNA was confirmed to match the DNA found on Helene's body 39 years earlier. Investigators gather on Clanton's property and tell him that they are investigating a large insurance scam, and his name came up as a suspect in a multimillion-dollar case. We want to talk to him and try and get a confession. I had never interviewed a murder suspect. Detectives in the cold case unit weren't comfortable interviewing the suspects for the same reasons. So we were wondering how we want to approach this, who should approach it, what sex should the interviewers be? We're playing with very high stakes right now.

And we want justice for Helene and just arresting a person is injustice. Having that person, you know, being held accountable is justice. Clanton agrees to go to the police headquarters for an interview. In the interrogation room, Clanton begins to wonder if he will be able to get to work the next day. His question is answered when Corporal Trindle slides a photograph of Helene across the table. He makes it clear this isn't about insurance fraud. You can probably tell by now that there's more to this than this financial case, right? So we talked about how I don't really care about stolen cars, 1980 in Colorado, but we do care about a young woman in Colorado in 1980.

And we want to show you a picture of her and see if you recognize her. No, Jim. I think I want to turn now. The investigators are certain that they are face-to-face with Helene's killer, and they let him know. We actually do have a warrant for your arrest for first-degree murder and kidnapping.

For what? First-degree murder and kidnapping. You got the wrong guy. We actually have your DNA in her at honor. James Clanton is arrested and turned over to the custody of the Union County Sheriff's Office, where he is held without bond pending his extradition. On the flight back to Colorado,

Clanton opens up to Lieutenant Barella about that cold January night in 1980. Do you remember what you were wearing? No. You had been wearing cowboy boots, shoes? I'm sure I was wearing cowboy boots. What made Helene the right target? Faith.

Clanton says he saw Helene stand up to get off the bus as he was driving past and he made a U-turn. As she was crossing the street, Clanton shows her his knife and she tells him she sees it. He put his arm around her and told her to come with him before he used the strap from her purse to tie her hands behind her back. She didn't tell me about herself.

She asked me what I was doing, and I told her that I was kidnapping her for money, and she said, well, my parents don't have any money, and, you know, stuff like that. I didn't tell her what I was really doing until we got in the backwoods. During the six-hour flight, Clanton and Lieutenant Barella speak about everything and anything.

Clanton is adamant that he had not committed any other crimes besides Helene's murder, and he angrily tells the lieutenant that women have always been the cause of pain in his life. He knew he was going to grab a girl, kidnap her, rape her, and kill her. It was one of those kinds of feelings where it hits you in the chest.

You're like, we've got this guy. It's the news Helene's family and friends have been waiting almost four decades to hear. It is bittersweet as Helene's brother and parents passed away before her killer was caught. I was just amazed. Just amazed and glad. I'm her killer was caught. I was just amazed, just amazed, and glad. I'm glad that they caught him. That was a phone call I won't forget.

Finally hearing that they got the guy was such a shock. It was just like this huge jolt of happiness. I was just totally elated that it finally happened after 40 years. It was a relief, but there's never closure on something that's so heinous like this. In February 2020, James Clanton pleads guilty in a Colorado courtroom and is sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 20 years. It took 40 years and countless dedicated people to finally bring him to justice.

We went out for the sentencing of this murderer and we got in a big group for a group photo afterwards and it was mind-boggling how many people played a significant role in all of this. We will forever be grateful for everything that they did. The big void is now closed, and now we can really start with the healing. You can't heal when that wound remains open, and we'll never heal completely, but now we can soften the edges around the broken pieces of our hearts and be with

Helene in a different way now. Not being buried in her murder, but being buried back into the joy and the spirit of her life. Cold Case Files is hosted by Paula Barrows. It's produced by the Law and Crime Network and written by Eileen McFarlane and Emily G. Thompson. Our composer is Blake Maples. For A&E, our senior producer is John Thrasher

and our supervising producer is McKamey Lynn. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz, Maite Cueva, and Peter Tarshis. This podcast is based on A&E's Emmy-winning TV series, Cold Case Files. For more Cold Case Files, visit aetv.com.