For more than 40 years, the identity of a killer who stabbed four women in the Denver, Colo., area has been a mystery. Through DNA evidence, the perpetrator was found in a Texas grave.
Joseph Michael Ervin died by suicide in 1981 at 30 years old.
At the time, he was on trial for allegedly killing 26-year-old suburban Denver police officer Debra Sue Corr. When his body was exhumed earlier this month, authorities found that his DNA also matched evidence collected from four unsolved murders, according to NBC News.
These murders took place between December 1978 and January 1981. The victims were: 33-year-old Madeleine Livaudais, 53-year-old Dolores Barajas, 27-year-old Gwendolen Harris and 17-year-old Antoinette Parks, said Denver Police Department Cmdr. Matt Clark.
He said each woman was stabbed multiple times.
Antoinette Parks’ older brother George Journey told reporters Friday that three of his other sisters have died since her murder, including one who died from a “broken heart” over the violent crime.
“With that being said, I'd like you guys to know we have closure,” he said. “We can finally have peace knowing who did this to my little sister.”
“These women were not forgotten,” Clark said.
Before DNA evidence collected from two of the murders linked them in 2013, investigators did not think the slayings were connected, according to Clark. This DNA was then linked to two other cold cases.
Clark said there was an “underlying sexual component” to the killings.
Once Ervin was identified as the possible suspect, investigators exhumed his body from a cemetery in Arlington, Texas. His DNA matched the evidence that linked the cases together.
While Ervin wasn’t implicated in the killings during his lifetime, he was apprehended for allegedly killing Corr, who was fatally shot in Aurora, Colo., on June 17, 1981 when she pulled him over for a traffic stop.
A 19-year-old man who tried to help Corr was also shot but survived.
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