Going West: True Crime - The Rocky Mountain Murders // 160

Episode Date: December 25, 2021

In January of 1982, two beautiful young women seemingly vanished in Breckenridge, Colorado during a relentless snow storm. But the next day, one would be found dead, and several months later, the other’s body would turn up as well. As police struggled to find the identity of a cold blooded killer, the investigation would take a number of unexpected turns that would last almost 40 years. This is the story of Bobbi Jo Oberholtzer and Annette Schnee, also know as The Rocky Mountain Murders.  BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in today. It is the holiday season. Tomorrow is Christmas. I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas or happy holiday, whatever you celebrate, and that it is a lovely, lovely weekend for all. Yes, we hope everybody has a good holiday season, work-sided about it, and today we have a crazy case out of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

Yes, it is officially winter now, and this is a very, very wintery case. So buckle up and let's talk about it. All right, guys, this is episode 160 of Going West, so let's get into it. Thank you. In January of 1982, two beautiful young women seemingly vanished in Breckenridge, Colorado during a relentless snow storm. But the next day, one would be found dead, and several months later, the other body would turn up as well. As police struggled to find the identity of a cold-blooded killer, the investigation

would take a number of unexpected turns that would last almost 40 years. This is the story of Bobby Joe Oberholzzer and a net-sneet, also known as the Rocky Mountain Murders. Barbara Joe Burns, who everybody called Bobby Joe, was born on Christmas Day, 1952, to parents Thomas Edward Burns and Dory Sardick in Racine, Wisconsin. Bobby Joe grew up alongside her older brother Kelly, and her father Tom was the owner of an electric appliance repair store. Bobby Joe was a beautiful, blonde, haired, blue-eyed girl who loved the outdoors and animals, especially horses, and

she attended Park High School in Racine, where she graduated in the spring of 1971. She was described as having a huge heart and not a single mean bone in her body. And during high school, she met a guy named Jeff Oberholzer and the two fell for each other pretty quickly, and in 1972, the couple had a daughter who they named Jackie. So they had Jackie just at a high school. And Bobby Joe and Jeff married in July of 1977, so about five years later, but they decided that they needed a change of scenery. So they moved all the way from Wisconsin to a tiny mountain town in Colorado called Alma

in May of 1980. Bobby Joe loved the fresh mountain air as we know she was super outdoorsy and she even acquired a wild mustang horse that she was training as well as raising and taking care of some birds from the nest to flight. And Jeff was settling in well too and open up an appliance repair store in the town as well. And it's funny that he did this just because Bobby Joe's dad owned an electric appliance repair store. So and now he has an appliance repair store.

Yeah, so he probably he probably learned his skills from Bobby Joe's dad. Yeah, I wonder if he did. So anyway, Alma Colorado is located in Park County, Colorado. And it's about two hours west of Denver, and it's actually the highest incorporated town in the US at 10,578 feet. But just 16 miles north of Alma is the ski and snowboard town of Breckenridge,

which sits at the base of the Rocky Mountains. It's picturesque mountain views filled with trees making an extremely popular destination for winter thrill-steekers, and in fact today, it's the home to many different world-renowned ski and snowboard competitions including the Do-Tour. Today the town hosts about 5,000 residents, but back in 1980, there were roughly 1200 who called this scenic mountain town home, and it's where Bobby Joe was employed. She worked for a local real estate developer's office

as a secretary and she absolutely loved her job and it also gave her the opportunity to make new friends and she was really good at her job. So much so that in early January of 1982, she was actually promoted by the office that she worked for. On Wednesday, January 6, 1982, Bobby Joe met up with some of her co-workers at a bar in Breckham Ridge called the Village Pub, which sounds very cozy for the winter. It does sound cozy.

And by the way, this bar was actually located in a mall called the Bell Tower Mall. It sat right off of Main Street and hosted a few different businesses in its two-story space, including Bobby Joe's real estate office, so the Village Pub was a great place for after-work drinks because it was so close. Bobby Joe had called her husband Jeff at about 6 p.m. that night to share the exciting news that she was being promoted to manager and that she was going to go celebrate with some co-workers. But she also told him that she didn't need a ride home

because she lived about 16 miles south of Breckenridge so one of her co-workers would give her a ride. And after a few drinks and some good company, Bobby Joe felt that it was time for her to go home, especially because her husband Jeff had prepared dinner for the family. But her co-workers weren't ready to end their night, so at about 7.50pm, Bobby Joe decided to leave alone and hitch a ride home.

Her friends were away from the bar at the time, so she just told the bartender to inform her friends that she was leaving. So that night, which again was January 6th, the weather was less than favorable. In fact, Jeff Overholter later explained that it was one of the worst nights that they had seen all season, with temperatures dropping below negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and a snow storm was beating up the mountain. But catching a ride was a pretty easy task in the town of Breckenridge, especially back in the 1980s.

It was a fairly small town, and almost everybody knew each other, so if a motor saw someone standing out in the snow, they would most likely pick them up. This was so common that there was even a designated spot for hitchhikers to find a ride even easier, and that location was about a block away from the Bell Tower Mall at a local minute mart where Bobby Joe would be seen for the last time. At 11.30pm that night, Jeff Oberholzher woke up and realized that he had fallen asleep on the couch after dinner while watching TV and waiting for Bobby Joe to arrive home. He originally believed that maybe Bobby Joe had just stayed a little bit longer to celebrate, and that's why she hadn't

returned for dinner. But now it was late, and he was really worried. So he started to call the friends that Bobby Joe had been out with to see if they had seen her. But after 8pm, nobody had. After two hours of waiting, Jeff finally decided that he needed to track down his wife. So at 1.30am, after the bars had already closed, he headed over who's your pass towards Breckenridge to find her. Jeff first stopped by Bobby Joe's office at the Bell Tower Mall to see if maybe she had

fallen asleep there, but the building was all locked up when he arrived and it didn't appear that anybody was there. So after this, he drove down to the Breckenridge Police Department to report her missing. But when he did so, the officer on duty told Jeff that he needed to give it till the morning, and if she hadn't been found by then, to come back and file a report. But Jeff just really wasn't satisfied with that answer, and he just took matters into his own hands, gathering a search team of local friends and acquaintances to help him find Bobby Joe.

So back at home, Jeff was preparing to start his search at sunrise. When he received a phone call from a local rancher, Gwetsom disturbing news. This man had called Jeff to tell him that he had found Bobby Joe's driver's license, just a laying in the snow off of US Highway 285. Jeff decided that he wasn't going to wait for police to join him, so he and a friend made the trip towards the rancher's home. But after 12 miles of driving Highway 285, Jeff noticed something familiar, lying just off the road in a snowbank, and immediately told his friend to pull over.

The night that Bobby Joe disappeared, she was wearing a blue-colored backpack, and that's exactly what Jeff saw just off of the road. But when he approached the backpack, it wasn't the only item that he found, and what he found next made his stomach sink. Lying on the ground right next to the backpack was a tan-ish grey-colored winter glove, and it was covered in blood. Right beside the glove was also a bald-up tissue that appeared to have droplets of blood on it as well, and Jeff knew that the glove and the backpack definitely belonged to Bobby

Joe. Inside the backpack, Jeff found Bobby Joe's make-up, a pair of sunglasses, a hairbrush, and a stack of Jeff's business cards for his appliance store called Alpine Appliance. Jeff informed police that he and a friend had not only found Bobby Joe's driver's license, but also her backpack and a glove, which were located five miles apart on the same road. So it seemed that if Bobby Joe was abducted, the perpetrator discarded her personal items while driving. Jeff wanted to follow through with his plans to organize a search party with friends, and he did so by starting a search at the top of Who's Your Pass. Who's Your Pass has

an elevation of 11,539 feet, and it marks the continental divide in the Rocky Mountains, and it also sits between Olma, where Jeff and Bobby Joe lived, and Breckenridge. He knew that starting his search at the top and then heading down in elevation was probably the easiest way to search, so he and a few carloads of friends began their descent just before 3pm on January 7th, so remember, this is the next day, the day after she was last seen. And among Jeff's friends were a few guys who had brought along their skis because there was a trail that sat parallel to the highway that they could take and the skis would kind of ensure that they could cover ground quickly.

But a hundred yards down the slope. One of the men noticed something lying down in embankment off the highway in the snow, and it appeared to be a human body. Upon further inspection, they immediately recognized the remains to be that of 29-year-old Bobby Joe Oberholzer. The skiers decided that it was best not to touch or move the body, but instead they climbed the embankment to Colorado Highway 9 and flagged down a police vehicle to help out. And remember, I mean at this point, like the police are not looking for Bobby Joe, and really the only reason she was found as soon as she was is because of Jeff and all the

friends. Yeah, exactly. And in an interview later, the investigators on the case said that they weren't extremely happy that Jeff decided to take it into his own hands, but they're kind of glad and hindsight that he did because obviously he found Bobby Joe. Right, I mean, and so quickly too, if you think about it,

I mean, just a hundred yards down, they already found her the very next day. And I mean, as we'll discuss, police think that this is kind of suspicious. Absolutely, I mean, he found all this evidence and her body fairly quickly. So Bobby Joe's body was found lying face up in a trail of blood droplets indicated that she had been injured near the highway and then it slid down a snow embankment off the highway where she eventually died. Her head was facing towards the highway and her knees were bent as if she was trying to stop herself from sliding down the snow bank.

And it didn't appear that she had been sexually assaulted either. Initially, Detective Jim Hardkey, who worked for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, couldn't determine how Bobby Joe had died, but discovered something that made him feel that foul play was involved right off the bat. Two plastic zip ties were found attached to Bobby Joe's left wrist, indicating that someone had likely tried to bind her before death. This also means that the abductor was unsuccessful in their attempt at restraining Bobby Joe, and that she was able to get away momentarily before being killed.

When an autopsy was conducted, it was determined that Bobbie Joe had suffered two gunshot wounds from a 38 caliber or possibly a 357 handgun, and the bullet was a jacketed hollow point manufactured by Remington, one to her right breast that appeared to be a grazing shot, and the other that appears to her right side of her back. She also had scrape marks on her knees as if she had fallen in some gravel while escaping, but the saddest part of all, as that neither one of Bobby Joe's gunshot injuries were fatal, and that she had actually died by freezing to death while she bled out. The evidence points to Bobby Joe's attempted escape where she had almost made it out alive. Yeah, it's just devastating that she had to lay there in the snow in the dark after being shot twice

and just waits to die. Like, god damn, that's just so sad. Yeah, and if somebody had just happened to come along and find her, they could have got her medical attention and she probably would have survived. Well, especially because she wasn't, you know, like we've mentioned, she wasn't that far away, like it was pretty easy to find her. Yeah, she was right off the road. So, the crime scene was sectioned off by detectives, of course, in order to see if they could discover any other clues

as to who committed this horrible crime against such a beautiful and innocent woman. And as investigators started scouring the highway, they came across Bobby Joe's knit beanie, her other glove, and a key ring with the hook attached to it that was supposed to be used as a defensive tool. So she had this like self-defense keychain that we'll talk about. Yeah, it looks like a little like, I don't even know what kind of hook it is, but it's a hook. Yes. So Jeff knew that his wife had shiked often, because as we mentioned earlier, you know, in the town at that time in the early 80s, it was completely normal. So he had made Bobby Joe that key ring kind of for her to use, you know, in case she got into any trouble, and it appeared

that the night she was killed, she had tried to use it. And also, I had read that one of Bobby Joe's rules was, she never got into a car or a vehicle with two men, and she never got into a van where you couldn't like, see out of the windows. That was like her two bugaboo's as far as hitchhiking. Smart gal? Yeah, and I know a lot of you guys are against hitchhiking, and nowadays it's very frowned upon, but back in that time

It just was so normal as we've mentioned like Everybody was doing it. Well, I think the reason it's more frowned upon now or at least not looked at as the smartest thing to do is because of cases like this where something happens to people or women who hitchhike so you know, but back in the 80s Like you're saying it was a lot more common, and this was the time when these kinds of murders happened when women were hitchhiking. Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of like we had to learn from these experiences over time. Exactly. So back to the key ring. So it had been found further down the road, about 130 yards away, in a parking lot highway pull-off.

But the strangest thing that detectives discovered that day just couldn't be explained at this time. Lying near the key ring was an orange footy sock, but the thing is Bobby Joe was found with both of her socks on, and neither one of them were orange. So how did this sock get there? And was it connected to Bobby Joe's murder? Of course, in typical fashion, police wanted to question the person closest to Bobby Joe, and that person was Jeff Oberholter. But it wasn't just the fact that Jeff was Bobby Joe's husband, police also found it suspicious

that he had been the one to find critical evidence in the case before police had. And to make matters worse, Jeff was also acting really strange in the weeks after Bobby Joe's body was discovered. He had fully inserted himself into the investigation, acting as somewhat of a detective himself by interrogating other locals for information about his wife's death. Which, in retrospect, you know, we're gonna talk more about Jeff, but in retrospect This is actually a good thing, you know, I think it's more suspicious to not give a shit than it is to give a shit Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with that. You know, but on top of this There was really no one who could corroborate Jeff's story that he had been at home when Bobby Joe went missing Well, I know that at this time, their daughter was what, like, 11 years old.

So I, I didn't personally read anything about where she was that night. Do you know where she was? Or if she was maybe asleep or if she was home? I tried to find information about their daughter and whether or not she was even living with them at that time. I'm not even really sure about that, so I can't say. I think even then, you know, she's so pretty young to where maybe police wouldn't find her, you know, information reliable anyway, because maybe her dad told her to say that, you know what I mean?

Yeah, it's not like she saw her mom go missing or something like that, so that totally makes sense. But, you know, Jeff agreed to take two separate polygraph tests, and he passed both of them with flying colors. And without any physical evidence tying him to Bobby Joe's murder, police kind of had to momentarily rule him out as a suspect, but they did keep an eye on him. So now police really didn't have any clues, but they did have Bobby Joe's bloody glove, so they sent it off to a lab to be tested, just kind of hoping that a blood type could narrow down their suspect list, which was pretty

short anyway. But when the glove was tested, the results came back as Bobby Joe's blood type, so this kind of didn't help at all. After that, the investigation went cold. That is, until one day in May of 1982, when another body surfaced in Park County. On Saturday, July 3, 1982, so about six months after Bobby Joe was found murdered, a 13-year-old boy was fishing in a rural part of Park County at the Sacramento Creek, which by the way was only about five miles from where Bobby Joe's body was discovered.

When he saw something strange floating in the water, when the boy got closer, he realized that it was human remains lying face down in the water, and he immediately ran home to phone the police. When detectives arrived at the scene, they immediately noticed a single bullet hole in the jacket that the deceased person was wearing. And this, of course, gave them chills, thinking back to Bobby Joe's cause of death. But due to the advanced state of decomposition, police couldn't identify the victim visually, but after searching the pockets of the victim's jacket, they found a wallet

insert, and inside was a driver's license and a social security card belonging to a 21 year old woman named Annette Kaye Schnee. So at this point, I mean police realize that Bobby Joe wasn't the only girl to go missing on that cold and stormy January night months earlier. Right, so now they're thinking do we have the potential serial killer on our hands, like what's going on here? Well, I think it's interesting that they went missing on the same night, because I feel like that doesn't really happen. You know, it's either, it's like maybe they both went missing around the same time, but not on the same night. Yeah, so whoever this person was,

whoever this perpetrator was, was pretty aggressive. A Netchni was born on January 16th, 1960, and Sue City, Iowa, to her mother Eileen and her stepfather, Laurel Franklin. She grew up with her two brothers Russell and Dennis, her sister Karen, her stepbrother Larry, and also her half-sister Cindy. But she was close with all of them. Sadly, her brother Dennis passed away in 1978 when he suffered an electric shock while on a roof and fell to his death. God, talk about a freak accident. Yeah, I know, and he seemed so young, too. Annette was described as a stunning model type. She was tall with light brown hair and

beautiful eyes, and her former high school boyfriend said that she was liked by everyone. She was also described as pretty outgoing and goofy, but also a person who cared for others deeply. She attended East High School in Su City, where she was a part of the drill team before graduating in 1978. After graduation, she decided to move to Omaha, Nebraska, and attend Patricia Stevens College, which is essentially like a beauty and business school, where she wanted to become a model. But after a year there, she decided that she wanted to move to Colorado and had dreams of becoming a flight attendant.

And when she found out that there was a room available at a house in Blue River, occupied by five other single females, Annette jumped at that opportunity. And Blue River, by the way, is located between Breckenridge and Alma, where Bobby Joe lived, and it's right near who's your pass, and about 10 minutes south of Breckenridge, so very close to Breckenridge. Annette had moved to the area in 1981 and she absolutely loved the scenery. She was able to get a job in the neighboring town of Frisco, which is just north of Breckenridge, where she worked as a housemaid for the holiday inn. But ours were somewhat slim, so she decided to acquire a second job right there in Brecken

Ridge at a bar called the Flipside, located on Main Street. On January 6th, 1982, that fateful night, Annette had just finished her shift at 3.30pm at the Holiday Inn, but she was feeling a bit under the weather. She did have another shift that night at 8.30pm at the flip side, but she needed to pick up a prescription for medicine before then. So just like Bobby Joe, she decided to hitch hike to Breckenridge. Thankfully, Annette was able to make this trip safely, and she arrived at the pharmacy right around 4.30 pm. We know this because the pharmacist working that day remembered

her. And another witness described that she was with another woman, and Annette was overheard asking this woman to remember to grab cigarettes from the drugstore. But to this day, we have no idea who this woman was. Which is so bizarre because if she's saying, oh, don't forget the cigarettes. Like, obviously, this is somebody she's with. And why did this woman never come forward? It's just so weird. That, and like, was it one of her roommates? Like, was it, you know, what? Why would her roommates not be like, oh oh yeah, I was with her there.

Like, how would this person never come forward? That's what I'm saying. And this isn't the only mystery in this story, which we'll get into later. So after she picked up her prescription, Annette left with the intention of returning home to Blue River to change into her Western style waitress dress before heading to her shift at the flip side.

But, Annette never made it home that day. And two days later, she was reported missing by a colleague of hers at the holiday in when she missed her shift. Sorry to keep interjecting, but again, this makes it even weirder about this woman because if the last place she has seen is at this pharmacy, and this woman never came forward to be like, oh yeah, I saw her get into a car, I saw her this, like, what the hell, like this woman would be pretty crucial to the case and where is she? Just a complete mystery. So Annette's mother, Eileen, was informed that her daughter was missing, and when investigators checked in that room, they found that her waitress uniform had been untouched in her closet. And in the weeks after Annette's puzzling disappearance, her siblings actually made it

out to Park County to help search for clues, but nothing had initially been found due to the heavy amount of snow. And it wouldn't be until that summer that her remains would be found. When Annette's body was discovered, she was wearing a pair of pants, a blue jacket with the single bullet hole in it, a light brown pair of boots, and a long striped sock on her right foot. But when Detective Jim Hartke removed her left boot, he was baffled at what he saw. An orange footsie sock was on a net's left foot. And in that moment, he knew that Bobby Joe's murder and a net's murder had to be connected.

So the weird thing here to me, so basically her mom confirmed that the orange socks were a net's, because she had been the one to give them to her and she's the one who chose the orange color because it was a net's old high school color. But it's weird if on her right foot she's wearing a long striped sock and then a short footies sock that's orange on her other foot and then the other sock would be found. You know what I'm saying? Like, wouldn't that other sock be in her drawer if she decided to wear mismatched socks? I mean, yeah, that's one of the things that I can't understand either.

Like about this case is, why was there the orange sock found at Bobby Joe's crime scene was? And then why was the other sock found on a net? I don't know. This part's really weird to me, but obviously it's the same sock, so I don't know if she had the orange sock over the other one, but I don't know why she was even wearing the strife sock, but anyway anyway it doesn't really matter. So two Annette's cause of death.

She had suffered one gunshot to her back, likely caused by a 38 caliber handgun, which as we remember Heath mentioning earlier, is thought to be the same caliber handgun that was used on Bobby Joe. But for Annette as well, it could not be confirmed whether or not she was sexually assaulted. So at this point, police were feeling that whoever killed her must have been a local because of all that, you know, rural terrain where a net's body was found. But they still didn't have any solid suspects, and they hoped that the woman seen in the pharmacy with a net would just come forward with some information. But that never freaking happened.

So the case was at a standstill. That is until September of 1982, so a few months later, when a net's backpack was found, just lying on the side of the road off Highway 9 near who's your pass. Insighted net's backpack were a number of items, including some chapstick, some loose change, a key ring, and a photo of an unidentified man who looked to be in about his mid-20s. But one thing that investigators found had them questioning everything. Inside the backpack was a loan business card, and the name on it was Jeff Overholzer. Jeff told detectives that yes, he did give him a ride once in the summer of 1981.

Which was like a year earlier at this point and over six months before she went missing. So pretty like that was a long time ago. Right. So he said that she had been hitchhiking and that he had dropped her off in Frisco for one of her shifts at the holiday in. But first he stopped at the bank to make a deposit. A witness later stated that they saw a net and Jeff's truck at the bank, but at the time they just thought that it was Bobby Joe. Jeff then told detectives that he dropped a net off in the parking lot of the holiday

in, and before she got out of his truck, he handed her a business card for his appliance store. But after that, he explained that he never saw her again. Now, please, we're extremely suspicious of Jeff, but they were also very curious about the man in the photo found in a net's backpack, and they thought that maybe he could be connected to the case. But strange enough, the man in the photo has never been identified, and he remains a mystery even to this day. Which is so bizarre, I can only wonder that maybe it was an old boyfriend or some like a

pen pal, like something like that, because I don't know why she would have a photo of her killer in her backpack, you know. Right, I mean, and you would assume that this person would have been identified somehow, but they never were. So Jeff had originally told investigators that he didn't know Annette Schnee, but he said after seeing news headlines about her, which included photographs,

that's when he decided to come forward and explain that he did give her a ride. Which is a little suspicious. I understand if he's like, I don't know who Annette Schnee is because he didn't know her on a name basis. You know, he had just picked her up once, apparently, but still pretty weird. Yeah, I know.

Just making that connection. And what are the chances? Right. That's what I'm saying. Like, what are the chances that Bobby Joe's husband is the guy on the business card of another girl that was found dead? And murdered on the same night. Like, it's just, it's pretty weird.

But again, I mean, there was absolutely no evidence that could possibly connect Jeff to the murders. And investigators did do their due diligence questioning him for a second time, but there was just nothing. So once again, the case had gone cold, and Jeff was officially ruled out as a potential suspect. Seven years later, the Breckenridge Police Department decided to assemble a task force with the hopes of revitalizing the investigation, and a local private investigator felt that he

was the right man for the job. Charlie McCormick had previously worked as a homicide detective in Denver, Colorado, between the mid-1960s and 1972, but the life of solving murders had really burnt him out, and by 1976, he was divorced and he really needed a change. So that's when he moved to Breckenridge to work as a PI, and he had actually become really good friends with the sheriff, whose name was Richard Eaton, who was assigned to Bobby Joe and

Annette's murders. When Charlie McCormick picked up the case files for the killings in 1989, he became obsessed with the investigation, and he offered up his services to Annette's mother for a whopping $1 a year, which I wonder why even the dollar. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it was just some sort of legality that he had to. That's a good point. Yeah.

Like he's got to charge or something. Either way, a dollar is, of course, very generous. Right. So Charlie started looking at violent crimes that were committed in the area over the previous decade. And a few names popped up. Police had DNA from the crime scenes that were potentially neither Bobby Joe's nor Annette's, but when they tried to find a match in Codis, nobody was a match in the system.

First they started looking at a convict named Tracy Petra Celi, who started a long crime spree in 1981 by killing his wife in Washington and then fleeing to Colorado, where he coincidentally stayed at the same holiday inn that a net worked at on the very same night that the murders occurred. Coincidence? Kind of weird. So he eventually made his way to Reno, Nevada, where he was ultimately captured. But when detectives tested his DNA against the DNA that they had, they couldn't find

a match. So naturally, they just kind kinda had to move on. But it's just weird that this murderer happened to stay at the hotel that she worked at that night. I know, it's a crazy connection there. But there was also another suspect that caught investigators eyes who had been looked at as a potential suspect from the beginning. A man named Tom Luther. A few months before Annette's body was found in July of 1982, Tom picked up a 21-year-old

woman who had been hitchhiking in Frisco, remember where the holiday in is located, and attacked her with a hammer in his truck after raping her. The woman was able to escape with her life, and Tom was sent to prison for 11 years. But while in prison, Tom bragged to other inmates that he had killed Bobby Joe. Police also tested his DNA, but again, there was no match. But get this, when Tom was incarcerated, he began a relationship with a woman on the outside. And when he was released in 1993, he killed her and then fled to West Virginia, where he raped and beat a hitchhiker in 1994, before being caught in extra-dited back to Colorado for

his second sentence. This time, it was life. Another super weird, I guess you can say, coincidence of this case. And the fact that he started a relationship with a woman while in prison and then got out and then murdered her, like what the f? Yes, I go. he started a relationship with a woman while in prison and then got out and then murdered her like what the f yes psycho but also the fact that he bragged about killing Bobby Joe trying to like insert himself in that case. But then the DNA didn't match and then he was just a murderer anyway and in that area

it's just so weird. Yeah, I don't know. It's just extremely coincidental and bizarre. So McCormick and Company were yet again at a standstill with the investigation. In 1998, investigators were definitely able to determine that blood DNA found on Bobby Joe's glove, as well as the discarded tissue, showed that it belonged to an unknown male, but this didn't really get them any further along. But then 20 years later, in 2018, so one of the original investigators passed away, and his son was able to hand over all of the case files, the DNA samples, and more to a former prosecutor named Mitch Morrissey, who co-founded United Data Connect, which tests familial

DNA and genealogy to help solve crimes. Charlie McCormick had been working on the case for several decades at this point, and he convinced Mitch Morrissey to test the blood samples taken from the crime scene and Mitch agreed. They were able to narrow down to 12,000 people within a specific family tree, I mean, which is still a lot of people, but we've got a family tree. And after that, they asked a large number of those people to voluntarily submit their DNA, and they all agreed. And this is how they were able to narrow down the suspect list even further, and eventually, they zeroed in on one person. Allen Lee Phillips.

Allen Lee Phillips was just 30 years old when the murders occurred back in 1982. He didn't have a criminal record and he worked as a mechanic. He had lived in several different areas of Colorado throughout his life. But in February of 2021, he was living in Dumont, Colorado, which is about a 50-minute drive northeast of Breckenridge. He was now a 70-year-old father of three who was semi-retired when police began to track his every move. On February 20, 2021, detectives watched Alan pick up food through a sonic drive-through,

then head to the Dumont post office to drop something off. But while being watched, Allen dropped a brown paper bag into a trash can in the post office. And when he left, detectives retrieved it right away. Just a few days later, that bag was tested for DNA in a laboratory in Denver, and miraculously, after 40 years, police finally found a match. On March 3rd, police set up a pre-planned traffic stop But did he have any connection to the two young women he's accused of murdering? Aside from giving them a ride, we're not really sure.

But we do know that he was in the area that night and not just based on DNA evidence. This part absolutely blows my fucking mind." Okay, so on the night of January 6th, 1982, at around 11 p.m., a Jefferson County sheriff named Harold Bray was on a commercial flight headed over the Rocky Mountains, would he peered out the window to see something strange down below. He saw the flashes of lights signaling in SOS, which is a distress signal in Morse code. So Harold Bray quickly notified the captain of the plane, who then made an emergency search

and rescue call to the town closest to the signal. The location was, I believe, its Guanela Pass, which is a high mountain road sitting at 11,000 feet that's virtually undrivable in the winter months, especially on that stormy weathered evening. It's also about an hour's drive from Breckenridge and 40 minutes from Dumanth. A man named Dave Montoya was the first person to spring in action to rescue whoever was stuck up on that snowy mountain. And when he arrived, he noticed a 30-year-old man with shoulder-length hair sitting in a pickup truck. And that man was Alan Lee Phillips. Yeah, and when Alan saw Dave, he said, quote, oh, thank God, I'm saved. Before Dave said,

you came up over the pass. Alan said he thought that it was a pretty good idea and he appeared to be intoxicated. Dave noticed that Alan had a rather sizable bruise on his face as well, which Alan explained he suffered when he got out of his truck to go to the bathroom. He said after he relieved himself, he tried to get back in his truck,

but slipped in the snow, hitting his face on the corner of his vehicle. But Dave actually recognized Allen after a minute, because they had worked with each other at a local mine where Allen was a mechanic and Dave was a minor. But little did anyone know that the man who had been stuck in a snow drift on Guinella past that night was the same man who just hours earlier had taken the life of two beautiful young women. Only after seeing the news 40 years later, did Dave Montoya recognize the man that he once rescued?

It's really weird to me though that, you know, obviously this is insane, but that he was stuck in the snow about an hour away from Breckenridge, which is where both Annette and Bobby Joe were found. And obviously this was a few hours later, this was at 11pm and we know that Bobby Joe was lashing at around, you know, what was like, almost 8pm and then Annette a few hours earlier, but it is just weird that he was stuck so far away. Yeah, and, you know, to clarify, Bobby Joe and a network found outside of Breckenridge. So not directly in Breckenridge, they were picked up in Breckenridge, but their bodies

were found on, like, rural roads outside. Well, right. But I mean, what I mean by that is just that it wasn't, like, it's not like he was right where they were found, you know what I'm saying? True, true, yeah. But I guess, you know, Duman and Guinella Pass might be in the same area, so I'm assuming that after he'd killed the two women, maybe he was deciding to drive home to Duman and got stuck on Guinella Pass.

And I mean, maybe he was in that area because he was hiding more evidence. We just really don't know. Yeah. But anyway, so Alan Lee Phillips now faces charges currently of kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, and murder after deliberation. Right now, Alan sits in a park county jail awaiting trial and has not been granted bail. For Bobby Joe Oberholzzer and Inet Schnee's family and friends, it's been one long nightmare. But Inet's mother, Eileen, says that she's glad that she's still alive to see her daughter's case get justice.

And by the way, she's now about 88 years old. For Jeff Oberholzer, he's hoping that Alan's arrest will finally bring himself and the rest of Bobby Joe and Annette's family at some closure. For Charlie McCormick, the man that never gave up on the case and continued to fight for justice over the years, was just almost at a loss of words, saying, quote, I've tried to define my emotions and it's been very hard to do. I never thought I'd see the day, frankly. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Happy holidays, we hope you guys stay safe and healthy and have a lot of joy and cheer.

Yes, absolutely. And with this case, obviously, although I hope that more information comes out, I hope that Alan Phillips confesses and tells everybody what happened so that the families get actual closure. But at the end of the day, we have to remember his DNA was found at the crime scene, so that's huge. Yeah, definitely. And if we hear anything more about this case, we'll definitely keep you guys updated.

Well, yeah, if, you know, the trial is a big deal and a lot is uncovered, we'll definitely do a part two. So thank you guys so much for listening. Like Keith said, I hope you guys have a wonderful holiday. If you're by yourself, hope we can keep you company. And we love you guys. Yeah, and continue to keep sharing the show and leave us a review if you guys want to, we love those.

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