Aurora Hammer Slayer /// Part 1 /// 175 | Forensic Files

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[Music] [Applause] [Music] n Wednesday January 4th 1984 Aurora Colorado in the middle of the night
someone managed to enter the home of James and Kimberly hobbins child a young married
couple they were both asleep when a homicidal maniac crept into their bedroom the Intruder is dressed in dark
clothing there are no lights on in their bedroom and no light coming from the hallway as as he entered the room he
could feel his pulse start to speed up the adrenaline in him escalating it was almost as if he could
feel the blood flowing from his chest to his arms and legs and then down to his feet and
hands his breathing became louder with each step as he slowly stepped one foot at a time until he was at the side of
James and Kimberly's bed he has been thinking about this for a long time and now the time has finally
come he was prepared and ready for what was about to happen but the married couple sleeping in the bed were
not the Intruder looked down at the sleeping man James's head resting on a pillow the intruder with his weapon
heavy in his right hand slowly raised the weapon high above his head and as fast as he could with as much might as
he could muster he brought his fist down smashing the weapon into the center of James's
skull James is not moving but the force of the object hitting the Man created an
earthquake effect on the bed and the Tremors awaken Kimberly as she lifts her head from her
Slumber she opens her eyes the Intruder bends over placing one hand on the bed to sturdy himself and again he lifts the
heavy weapon high above his head and as fast as he could before Kimberly could turn and look at him he smashes in her
head with some kind of heavy object knocking her unconscious both James and Kimberly were hit multiple times before
the Intruder left their home somehow they both survived James and Kimberly suffered terrible head injuries due to
this attack neither could offer much of an explanation of who could have done this to them or why but what we do know
is sometime in the middle of the night on January 4th 1984 the terror had just [Music]
[Applause] [Music] [Applause] begun in the fall of 1983 50-year-old Patricia Smith from Nebraska she moved to Green
Mountain Village Town Homes located in Lakewood Colorado she was helping out her daughter Patricia's daughter Sherry
lton was only 29 years old Sher was recently divorced and had moved with her two children from rural Oshkosh Nebraska
to Lakewood as well Patricia was a loving mother and grandmother uh and moving in with them to help them out to
help them adjust from the divorce and being relocated over 3 hours away to Lakewood Patricia even though she was
moving in with her daughter she was happily married her husband Oliver had a government job in the state of Nebraska
and would have to remain there Oliver would often make the long drive to visit his wife daughter and Grand kids on most
of the weekends Patricia her daughter Sherry and the grandkids this is 6-year-old
Amber and 4-year-old Joe they rented a town home at 12610 West Bayard Avenue in Lakewood
Lakewood is just a short drive about 8 Miles Southwest of Denver Colorado and Sherry considered her mother Patricia to
be her best friend yeah Patricia was doing her best to brighten the lives of her family members during this this very
tough time for them and this to me Captain I think was this wasn't going to be a shortterm Arrangement mhm um it you
know Patricia was going to stay there as long as it took to get them settled in but it actually sounds to me Captain
like the plan may have been for Patricia's husband Oliver to eventually move out to Colorado to join the rest of
the family right so they could be closer to their grandkids yeah this would this
would be either after his contract was up with his government state job or maybe upon
retirement the two had a farm uh Patricia and her husband had a farm out in Nebraska so obviously this would
require selling the farm as well but Patricia started up her own business after having moved to Lakewood Colorado
she had a home interior design business the family had established a daily routine for the school and work
days the two ladies would get the kids ready in the morning and get in Patricia's car and leave the house each
morning they would first take Amber to school for kindergarten then take Joe to church uh this is where he he attended a
daycare center that was set up at the church right and then they would continue on and Patricia would drop her
daughter Sherry off at a bus station on 6th Avenue Sherry used public transportation to get to and from her
job Patricia would continue on and go to work in the evening when both ladies were done working for the day Patricia
would then meet Sherry at the bus station and then they would go get the kids so pretty much the evening routine
was the reverse order of the morning routine yeah let's let's talk about Tuesday January 10th
1984 yeah cuz that evening didn't go it didn't work out as usual you know Sherry
the daughter she arrived her bus arrived red at the station dropped her off but her mother who was always there waiting
to pick her up uh she was not there on this day her mother and the car were nowhere in sight right Sherry waited
around for a bit and then started to get nervous no matter where her mother was Sherry still needed to get her kids to
go pick up her kids so she used the pay phone and she started making phone calls
she tried to call the town home where they lived and there was no answer after several tries to the town home she then
called a friend the friend took her daughter from the school to the daycare she called her cousin and her
cousin picked her up at the bus station and from there they went to pick up the child uh the children from the daycare
center and they drove back to their town home well when they arrived at the scene
uh in front of the house immediately this the scene felt strange to Sherry keep in mind by now it's it's dark out
and it's evening time the first thing that Sher noticed was her mother's car was parked in the driveway was parked
out in front of the town home yeah now there were no outside lights on so you know how when there's no lights on if
there are any lights on inside the home if there's no lights outside but there's
lights inside the home you can pretty much see everything you know right away yeah well Sherry could see lights
changing color and flickering coming from the upstairs bedroom window yeah and most people like once it starts
getting dark they turn on the outside lights right mhm I like to keep everything dark and wear night vision
goggles I feel like it gives me the advantage well the lights that were flickering they're coming from sher's
Mother's bedroom window okay so other than the odd thing of no lights it appears sher's mother Patricia was at
the home home by now when you say flickering I mean is this like turning on and off or no a Flicker and I'm glad
you asked that the the TV is on in the upstairs one of the upstairs rooms and so when you see the lights changing and
flickering it's just the TV yeah that's always a kind of a creepy look mhm by this time it's about uh a little after
6:15 p.m. uh of course the alarming thing here Captain is if Patricia was already at the home by this time why had
she not picked up her daughter from the bus or at the very least picked up the phone when her daughter had tried
calling her several times yeah Sherry and the kids got out of the car and they walked to the front door the door was
locked Sherry started to get her keys out the kids stepped in front of her both wanting to be the first to get
inside out of the cold Colorado winter evening Sher unlocked the door and Amber her daughter pushed past her and little
Joe and and ran inside unfortunately little Amber was the first to find her grand her grandmother on the
floor and an image in her own words that she said would never leave her mind 50-year-old Patricia was lying on the
floor near a sofa just about 4T from the front door she was lying on top of a Winnie the Pooh comforter the comforter
was slightly folded so that part of it covered Patricia's head her hands arms were crossed over her chest even to
little Amber's untrained eye it was clear that her grandmother had been killed and posed as if she were lying in
a casket left near the front door right where the next person to come in the home would immediately find her patri
Patricia's jeans were pulled down nearly to her ankles her boots were still on and she was wearing a sweater there was
a large amount of blood on Patricia's face and around her head someone had left a hammer lying on the floor next to
her Sherry immediately gathered the children and took them next door to the neighbor's home the neighbor man ran
back to the town home and saw Patricia's dead body and upon this he returned to his home to call
911 the police were quick to respond uh the family remained at the neighbor's home while the police searched the crime
scene for Clues I'm guessing with a a killer on the loose and a murder scene they may have gone to stay with the with
other family members you know they had uh in the Denver area the homicide investigation was pretty thorough the
they quickly determined that Patricia had been raped during the attack there was no sign of forced entry into the
home and they figured out that she had been killed between the hours of 100 p.m. and
300 p.m. however the initial report was that she had been killed between the hours of 300 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. well
also this is 84 so a lot of people are not locking their doors uh especially during the day maybe maybe more people
would lock their doors at night but it was it was less likely or more likely that people would have unlock doors back
in ' 884 than now so let's talk about real quick the the no sign of forced entry as you're as you're getting
towards there um couple scenarios there are two scenarios to talk about here Patricia was on her her lunch break okay
um and this is what the police were able to determine that she had gone to a Wendy's uh restaurant to pick up lunch
for herself mhm she had returned home and she was attacked as she opened her front door this was the police Theory um
the problem with this police theory is there's evidence to suggest that Patricia was actually home for some time
before the attack took place right first of all remember we talked about the TV being on upstairs her body was found
near the front door on the main level of the Town Hall all right so she gets her
Wendy's goes home she's going to maybe watch a little daytime TV while she eats her lunch and then
knock knock knock on the door she answers the door the attack happens there well right and and that's what I'm
pointing out here at the very least she couldn't have been attacked as she was opening the door because she had to have
enough time to get in the home go upstairs turn on the TV at the very least yeah and the and if she had food
and she was attacked when she was going in when there'll be food everywhere mhm okay and you you hint to something there
very important because the family had their own Theory the family suggested that Patricia who had grown up and
recently lived in a small town before moving to the larger City of Lakewood they said they think that the killer
knocked on the door thinking Patricia was just a trusting person and probably would have not have hesitated to open
the door letting the killer in and he attacked her immediately uh as upon her opening the
door again right and again this would not be uncommon for 1984 I don't think it would be that uncommon for today you
know you're at home during the day somebody knocks on your door there's so many of these solicitors how many people
are opening up the door for just whoever you know I actually have a problem with
both the the initial police Theory and the family's Theory okay and like I said the TV being on points to me that she
probably was not attacked as soon as she had opened the front door the problem I
have with her when she's going inside the house when she's going first going into the home and and here's why so the
police later find a receipt for the Wendy's food that she picked up upstairs so we know she went there this wasn't a
TV that was left on from the morning time this was a TV that was turned on unless the killer for some reason
decided to take the receipt to her fast food upstairs and put it in her bedroom the the food I believe was found up
there as well it sounds to me I don't know it sounds to me like she didn't sit down and consume much of this meal
before she was interrupted right here's the thing that makes me believe that she
did not answer the door and this makes this makes the no sign of forced entry very tricky because
we're saying she she may not have been attacked Upon returning home and she herself didn't open the door Patricia
wore a wig mhm the wig was found upstairs and you know I don't want to I don't want to receive any crappy email
for this but here's here's my guess okay send Nick crappy emails if here's my guess if I wore a
wig uh somebody knocks on my door I'm going to put on my wig before I go answer the door does that sound like a
fair statement I thought you did wear a wig you should see the these locks man this is my real hair not my real color
Madison Reed thank you no but um that's just a guess I'm just guessing there maybe that's not true 100% of the time
all of the time but I'm going I'm going off the assumption that if I were wearing a wig somebody knocks on the
door I would probably put the wig on before going downstairs to open up the door all right so your theory is that
she gets food she goes inside the house she goes upstairs to watch TV while she's going to eat her lunch mhm and the
Intruder comes in the doors unlocked mhm yeah that makes the most sense to me yeah yeah and well and and like I said
it's just the idea that sometimes when when break-ins happen and they go there's no Force no side of force entry
sometimes people just don't lock the door it happens well and I also want to talk about real quick Captain why the um
well real quick though sorry but to me this points as an individual if she didn't have have if she didn't consume
much of her meal mhm that this is not just some random attack where he just picked this house for no reason or he
was just riding by on his bike and sees this lady in the window watching TV I think this was probably somebody that
saw her getting the food um you know fancied her on some level and Then followed her back to her place mhm and
probably you know studied the scene little bit just kind of figure out is she by herself or there other people in
the house right and and and I think they kind of got the feeling the attacker had
this um the feeling that no it's just her you know and he just went in well the other thing too is if you're
watching from the outside depending on how light it was out that day um you may you may be able to observe the town home
and see that from the windows even if the shades are cloth that there's likely no lights on in the home right and if
she returns home and you're watching her as you said and you see boom a light turn on as soon as she walks in the
front door boom a light turn on in the upstairs bedroom you can ass you might one might assume she's the only person
in the home that there was nobody there before she returned the other evidence Captain the autopsy showed that the
cause of death was several very hard and violent hits to her head um this of course consistent with the hand Hammer
that was found lying next to her as the most likely murder weapon whoever killed
the woman had removed two diamond rings from her fingers and removed a gold necklace that was around her neck
nothing else was stolen from the home in fact the killer didn't even check the rest of the home this is according to
the police to see if there were other valuables that he could take evidence of a sexual assault was collected from the
body one thing that her daughter Sherry would point out in a later interview was
that there were no defensive wounds on Patricia's hands and arms this suggesting that she was knocked out by
one or more blows to the head before the sexual assault took place let's get back
to the case of the rora hammered Slayer after this quick beer break [Music] this show is sponsored by better help do
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] today all right we're back cheers mates cheers Captain stay safe out there it's
uh it's all snowy where we're at so hopefully it's uh warmer wherever you are all right so in our timeline of the
hammer Slayer we have the first attack and that is of the couple yeah so that is James and Kimberly hobbins child that
were attacked in the middle of the night inside their home on January 4th 1984 but they survived yes and then we have
the second attack which is going to be of Patricia Smith and she unfortunately did not survive correct later that same
day January 10th by now it's evening time the attack and murder of Patricia Smith took place in Lakewood now I know
this is the same day but this next part of the story is going to take us back to
Aurora Colorado remember from the first trailer the first attack took place in the middle of the night in Aurora so
Aurora is just about 15 miles from Lakewood give or take depending on how far west in Lakewood you are and how far
east you would be in Aurora I don't have an address for Donna Dixon so we will just have to use the 15 M dist as
something to keep in mind an aurora 28-year-old flight attendant Donna Dixon who worked for Frontier
Airlines uh she is driving home she pulled into her driveway and parked her car in her
garage as she got out of her car she was attacked she was struck in the head something very hard smashed into her
left temple she dropped to the ground her attacker pulled and stripped her clothes off of her Donna was sexually
assaulted on the concrete garage floor after the attacker fled the scene Donna Dixon was left bloodied very badly
beaten and unconscious her attacker had left her there to bleed out or to succumb to her head injuries and die
there on the cold concrete floor eventually Donna and the Bloody scene were discovered a call was placed for an
ambulance to transport her to the nearest hospital MH Donna was in a coma uh but somehow she survived the brutal
assault but because of the severity of her injuries Donna spent weeks relearning how to
talk which was important here Captain because the police were hoping that she could tell them who had attacked her
right uh later when Donna Dixon would describe the attack she says that the attacker bashed in her head with a
sledgehammer and beat her head against the wheel well another curious thing though is that that same article that
same news article where the crime reporter had asked Donna to describe the attack and give her insights into the
case there's a troubling phrase in there where it is stated Donna's attacker or attackers had used a sledgehammer to
attack her and why is that a troubling phrase well I it's not so much that that in particular is super troubling it's
that a lot of people over the years have looked at the you know now we've discussed three different attacks three
separate attacks and a lot of people have looked through the details of those attacks to determine if in fact they are
all connected if they were all committed by the same perpetrator so some people have pointed out through the years that
well while a hammer what what we would believe to be a traditional Hammer was left next to the body of Patricia Smith
and then we had this next account the third attack where uh we have the victim describing a sledgehammer and I think
there's a couple things there to consider first of all if a traditional Hammer was used to kill Patricia Smith
and was left at the scene right well then the attacker just hours later would would not have that same weapon to use
on his next victim mhm now where says the word Sledgehammer I don't think we're looking at or thinking about the
same thing that you and I would consider a traditional Sledgehammer with the long
handle I'm thinking that we're probably talking about something that is just um right it's still short Hammer correct
you can have a short Hammer Sledgehammer I mean I watched Property Brothers before and but here's one thing that I
want to point out to the listeners when when thinking about if these attacks are
connected and if in fact the details of these different uh attacks could lead one to believe that or take you away
from believing that with Donna Dixon in that news article uh there where she gives this account years later of how
the attack went down she is giving you information that was provided to her by the police okay
where she says that she was hit in the head with the sledgehammer and pulled to to the ground and then her head was
bashed against the wheel well this information didn't come from her witnessing this attack she actually had
no memory of the attack at all um other than getting out of her car basically for Donna Dixon she got out of her car
and then she woke up many days later in the hospital right and that's as far as she remembers and and I know me and I'm
sure a lot of people out there the same way that would have happened to me me the first thing I'm asking the police is
one who did this why did they do this and describe the attack to me as the evidence points out to you because I
want to know what happened to me right it's probably a crazy fan that you made mad that's probably what would happen
well and I'm sure that she's able to give this account because the police are relaying what they can see from evidence
to to to tell her you know hey you were attacked immediately as soon as you got out of your car right you were attacked
in your garage and we can tell by Blood you left on the wheel well that your head struck that wheel well at least
once if not multiple times well I mean I guess the bright side of this is that she does not remember the attack and
that she doesn't have those memories that would haunt her right right and it was a long recovery but she would make a
full recovery and go on to live a a normal life not affected by those injuries many years later and one
question that has come up time and time again regarding this this case regarding
the hammer Slayer case is people have always been curious why the police would move the reported time of death
regarding Patricia Smith remember early on it was reported that she was killed sometime between 3 and 5:00 p.m. but
then later reported that she was actually killed between 1 and 300 p.m. now the police the reason why this
remains a question Captain is the police offer no information or no insight as to
why they changed that time frame mhm I think here if we look at the events of that day and if we look into the lives
of these of the victims involved that we can probably piece together why they made that change make some inferences
here and what I think I would point out is what did what do we know about Patrica Smith well we know that she is
living at that town home with the sole purpose of helping her daughter and her grandkids we talked about their daily
routine during the work week well their daily routine was to get up drop off the
kids and then drop off the her daughter at the bus station for her to go off to work so what inference can we make from
that is that their workday Patricia Smith's workday and her daughter sher's workday is based more off of the kids
schedule what time they need to arrive to school and what time they need to be picked up after school yeah so we know
that her body was discovered around 6:15 p.m. that night my guess is that 300 p.m. around 300 p.m. was the first time
that she was known to be missing she was not where she was supposed to be meaning
she had not picked up her daughter she wasn't waiting at the bus station phone calls are made to the town home where we
know she's ultimately found dead later so one can assume that they came up with the idea of 3 to 5 being that she was
unaccounted for starting at 300 p.m. and she's found by 6:00 p.m. dead and we know that it we had to have some time
for the attack to actually occur and for the attacker to flee the scene so you come up with that three to five marker
right yeah I think I think it makes more sense to take a look at her receipt to see if there's a Time on it you know
that would be the starting point wouldn't it well and I think that where you are exactly right my friend because
now later they're going to tell you that the attack probably most likely occurred
between the hours of 1 p.m. and 300 p.m. MH okay well why would that move we have
to again look at the victim and what that person was doing that day and like you said they found a receipt did it did
it have a time stamp on it it would have had a time stamp on it yes this information was not released to the
public you mean the the time was not released correct time stamp but what we can the inference we can make from what
police did release stating that we believe she returned home on her lunch break MH meaning that there that
timestamp is going to point them more towards a traditional lunch hour time MH um and then we know that she would have
had to have been killed or most likely would have had to have been killed before 3 p.m. because that's when she is
now unaccounted for so if you take a look at that receipt as you had pointed out and the receipt says 12:30 12:45
1250 and we know that she's not accounted for starting at 300 p.m. then it's looking like this attack occurred
sometime between the hours of 1 to 3 my guess is that they had not discovered that receipt upon releasing that initial
information yeah possibly and then what like you said depending on what that time stamp is let's say it is uh 12:30
then she has this travel time to get back to her house and and again with the reports it's stating that well she
didn't consume much of this food so unless she was interrupted with a phone call which would have phone records of
that um if there wasn't something uh hindering her or being a hindrance is that even the right word yeah let's go
with that let's go with that word but for whatever reason she has her food and she
didn't she didn't eat all the food you know so you would assume that that the attack happened pretty quickly once she
returned home some other things though here Captain is that they after these attacks they started rounding up um
construction workers and home builders in the area and I mean the area of Aurora and Lakewood right apparently
both of these neighborhoods um in both of these cities were I mean it was a housing boom for both of these cities
during this time period of of late 83 early 84 so there's a lot of homes being built and a lot of houses going up
everywhere yeah and their thought was the weapon is commonly used tool and construction yes but the tough thing
about this tool is it's not this is also a household object you know most houses
have uh a hammer and then the question becomes is the is this person showing up without a hammer and finding one at the
scene or is he brining a hammer with them well that's you bring up an interesting point because first off in
the Patricia Smith murder the hammer was left meaning that when they state that the hammer was left that means that
they've shown it to the people the remaining people that lived at that home and said was this Hammer here before
this event happened yeah and to the you know the accounts they're getting from these these people the family members of
Patricia Smith are no that's not that was not in this house prior to this attack then in the situation with Donna
Dixon I don't think that we have a hammer that was left or a sledg hammer that was left at the scene there's no
report of that M um one thing I wondered though with them rounding up all of the
construction workers and the home builders and this might sound this might sound silly but sometimes it's these
silly little things that can solve a case or at least give you a decent lead all right let's hear your little silly
idea okay so we know that at at least one hammer was left at a crime scene on January 10th yeah I would be curious to
know if there were any if they if they spent time looking at Hammer purchases on the 11th or the 10th or the 12th or
the 13th and the only reason why I'm pointing that out is obviously like you had said a common tool used by
construction workers and and home builders is in fact a hammer um or you know anybody in that a similar trade
right but my thing is if the perpetrator at least left one hammer at a crime scene is there a chance he needs to
replace that I I mean here's what I'm getting at if you have a you have an area like Lakewood or Aurora and there's
these attacks going on and it's fairly well known that the weapon used in the murder was a hammer that was left there
and then two days later you and I are at a sight we're working together in some form of uh you know we're Craftsmen or
we're we're Builders or something of that nature yeah I'd be the foreman yeah you would be the boss and I'd say hey
Foreman uh captain and I'd say go fetch me that concrete you mule and and I would go I would I I'll fetch you the
concrete but do you have a hammer I can borrow and you'd go Nick uh I'm tired of
you showing up without your tools let me try Nick I'm tired of you showing up here you got got a future you got some
real skills natural gifted but you can't can't show up empty-handed my my friend
you need to show up with your tools I'm just getting at would it be a little uh suspicious if if all of a sudden one of
these guys is showing up without that very common Tool uh yeah but look if there's let's say there's a 100
construction sites that probably happens every day it might happen every day but
where I'm going is to the hardware stores and looking to see hey has anybody purchased hammer in the in the
past 24 48 72 hours I don't think that your idea is that silly but I think you would want to take it one step further
if there is some kind of evidence uh based on the autopsy that it was a different kind of hammer not the
traditional Hammer you know that maybe you should look into was there multiple purchases was there a purchase of an uh
the traditional hammer and then one of the smaller Sledgehammer I think if you could find that because those were the
same day those purchases might have been made at the same time mhm um but it's also P it's also possible that um
whoever this nut job is going around attacking people with a hammer is you know let's say he's living
with his mom his father has passed away but his father was into construction these could be tools that you know that
that would be another question that was not reported was the hammer that was left
what what kind of condition was this in was this a 10-year-old Hammer yeah did it look purchased recently or yeah
that's a good that's a good insight there well and and the reason why I wondered that is because I personally
probably own I don't know five six different hammers right me I would say I owned minimum three maybe four or five
and yeah and there's a you know they all vary in age you know and I have a couple
older hammers that I probably should throw away but you know sentimental value Grand grandfather's hammer or
whatever MH so um I I don't know that that's one thing I'd like to know is this a new Hammer you know uh and and
then then you're again they probably did this if it was a new Hammer if it was a
new Hammer they probably were checking local hardware stores right uh and and like I said though I also think it would
be worth checking in case this person needed to replace it immediately for their occupation if if they believe that
now the other thing though is we got to keep in mind we've not even determined that these three attacks are actually
connected yet it's looking that way there are similarities that would have you believe there are there's no sign of
forced entry into Patricia Smith's home there's no sign of forced entry into the
hobbins child's home right um we also and then we have Donna Dixon who's attacked outside of her home in her
garage but there was a fourth attack and I want to start off by saying this you know when when you do a very simple
Google search of this case uh and you can look it up in under several different tags yeah um that's that was
the hardest thing about this case yeah you could look it up under the title we chose the Aurora Hammer Slayer um I've
also seen it called Colorado Hammerman uh or any of the many many different tags given to these cold cases you will
get about one of three three different articles reporting the fourth attack uh so what we have done for this this
portion is sort of compiled those three uh more popular articles regarding the fourth attack to to tell to tell you the
details uh of that fourth attack and in relation to uh the next part of our Cold
Case investigation because there are plenty of questions in this case but I think let's go through this fourth
attack first and get to those questions after but before we do the fourth attack
ATT we have to take you back a bit to tell you about a man named Bruce Bennett uh Bruce married his high school
sweetheart Deb um they were they were young they were actually just out of high school when they got married after
they married Bruce joined the Navy he was there he served uh four years stationed at Pearl Harbor from 1976 to
1980 uh Bruce was a sonar analyst after the Navy Bruce was enrolled in college and he was training or trained as an air
traffic controller Bruce's family owned a family run furniture store and Bruce was working there however he was excited
for a possible future career as an air traffic controller now Bruce Bennett and his wife Deborah Bennett they both
enjoyed living uh what others would later describe as a quiet life the two along with their small children we have
7-year-old Melissa and 3-year-old van Nessa they had moved to a nice home in the
16300 block of East Center Drive in aora Colorado Bruce and Deborah are uh pretty
young themselves Bruce is is 27 and his wife is 26 mhm they moved there over the
course of the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend in 1983 where we left off in our case so
far is January 10th 1984 well we're going to move forward to January 15th 1984 this is a Sunday
Melissa the Bennett's 7-year-old daughter she's going to be turning 8 years old later in the week so the
Bennetts are going to celebrate Melissa's birthday on that Sunday so they had some other family members over
that day to join in the celebration so you know sometime on Sunday evening things are winding down people have to
work in the morning so their guests are starting to leave I can't say for certain here what time
the last guest or guest left but I do have something in my notes Here suggesting that the last guest were
leaving around 9:00 maybe as early as 9:00 or as late as 10: p.m. Bruce and Deborah they cleaned up the party and
put the children to bed sometime during the night a cat burgler entered the home
armed with a knife and a hammer trying to steal cats a noise must have awoken Bruce and upon which he went to
investigate the noise Bruce encountered the Intruder on the stairs to the home and immediately a fight ensued yeah from
the way it looks this was was quite the fight we have an intruder here with a weapon and Bruce presumably unarmed uh
regardless of how unfair this fight is this this would be what I can say is Bruce did the best
to he could to protect his family well you said the Intruder had a hammer and a knife correct yeah he he Bruce did the
best he could to protect his family he he had been slashed uh he was slashed several times in this attack he was hit
over the head with the hammer um but yet even though he had all these injuries he
rep repeatedly crawled the stairs up the stairs covered in blood trying to save and protect his family however he was
unsuc uccessful the Intruder went to the master bedroom and he pummeled and sexually assaulted the 26-year-old
Deborah leaving her head bashed in next he walked the hall to 7-year-old Melissa's room where he did the same and
then he walked into the youngest girl's room Vanessa and repeatedly hit her in the head and face with a blunt object
presumably a hammer and fast forward and ahead a little bit to January 16 at 10:00 a.m. it's going to be the
discovery of the bodies yeah and this happens because Bruce has not shown up for work yet and as we said it's a
family-owned business so one of the people that works there not sure maybe if if she's the owner of the company but
this is Bruce's mother constant and like others I'm sure at the store was just at the Bennett residence
the day before for the birthday party and it's not like Bruce to miss work certainly without notifying someone so
constant tries calling the house several times and with no luck she decides to go
to the Bennett house later she would say that she was afraid of something like uh
Co poisoning um right yeah so that maybe you know maybe the whole family had fallen asleep for forever because of Co
poisoning so she makes the drive and Bruce's Body was discovered that morning by his own mother Constance Bennett who
immediately called police now the Bennett house was a horrible scene as you can imagine and and these attacks
that took place I mean the the house and the rooms were so bloody and the the victims so badly beaten and constant
having arrived at a home to see the unimaginable well she failed to notice something very important that out of all
the Death that had taken place in those dark early morning hours death had missed the little three-year-old girl
Vanessa yeah Bennett didn't know that Vanessa had had survived the attack until a paramedic
rushed out of the house cradling The Battered little girl in his arms she was in very bad shape uh but she was rushed
off to the hospital the other three family members of the of the Bennett family Bruce Deborah and Melissa sadly
were killed that night and pronounced dead at the crime scene Bruce was found on the stairs Deborah in her her bedroom
and Melissa in her bedroom Melissa go ahead I was just going to say I mean it's it's just so so sad I mean
one you know you applaud Bruce for trying you know to save his family and his little girls and then I think just
sometimes when it's uh when there are kids involved in an attack like this it just seems
like H you know like this one just feels different than the other attacks well it's a it's a lot to it's really a lot
to take in all at once there and but but then now we have this you know very young victim that's alive that maybe
they could give us some information yes and that's that's what we're hoping Vanessa had skull fractures to both
sides of her head um her jaw was shattered which ended up sending Jagged bones into her windpipe um and I and I
don't say that to paint a horrible picture for you I only say that to try toate well I only say that to try to
describe how right vicious it was you're yeah whoever did this has to be a [ __ ] monster well and the thing here
is Captain I point that out because I believe that whoever did this didn't know that the girl was still alive I
think that she probably looked so bad after he had attacked her that he believed that she was dead um a massive
investigation had begun obviously uh this produced very little leads uh regarding the house itself the early
reports indicated the following that there again was no signs of forced entry into the home there was also no obvious
motive for the killings for the police nothing was taken taken from the house except for a knife used to slash Bruce
and a purse uh belonging to Deborah which was scattered the the contents of the purse were scattered in the front
yard outside and the purse was left in the front yard as well and you'd think with all these attacks happening that
people would start locking their doors not saying that they didn't lock their doors just because there's no sign of
force entry right doesn't mean that somebody doesn't know how to pick a lock right doesn't know how to get you know I
could break into a lot of homes and you wouldn't know that I actually broke in there like there wouldn't be any sign of
that I probably shouldn't have said that out loud no you should of of regarding Bruce uh the early report stated that he
had been cut and slashed numerous times and struck in the head with a hammer the
district the I'm sorry the deputy district attorney had this to say quote it was quite clear he had fought with
the Intruder it's apparent he had struggled with his attacker in more than one location and on more than one floor
of the house he had numerous this is this is this is is where you like it's sad because you're you're sad that Bruce
um didn't survive the attack right but you're you're in a way kind of proud of him yeah uh because because you know why
cuz [ __ ] the Intruder you know well and this is this is from the deputy District
Attorney's mouth you know she says that that Bruce had numerous injuries that could have killed him that's how that's
how hard he fought and how badly he was hurt during the course of that fight and
he wouldn't stop fighting it's going to sound a little silly but this you get attacked right and then it's time to you
know you're down on the ground you got to make a decision right are you going to get up right you're going to fight
you're going to keep fighting you have your wife there you have your your children MH and I bet he pulled one of
the Hulk Hogan moves you know where he started waving his finger up well round two you know and and yeah did he did he
stop him no but like I said that Intruder you know had his hands full and and like you said it's it's a weird
thing to I guess say that you're proud of them but I you know I don't know what else to call it
you mean yeah it it's it it sounds weird to say that but I I mean there's no other way to put it for me okay so let's
talk about this because I said that we took kind of you know three newspaper articles uh of the more of the immediate
ones that will pull up when you go to look into this case and kind of smash them together to present the whole thing
to you as far as the fourth attack and the murders of the Bennett family go um and I want to point out a couple things
here because many armchair detectives many web sluther have taken a look at this case over the years and tried to
figure out a lot of things about this case regarding the details about you know we've always heard the devils in
the details so that's why we pour through the details and try to see if we can gain anything or learn anything
about the potential attacker or attackers that committed these crimes I want to First address one thing it has
been it has been brought up several times over the years that potentially if if all four of these
attacks are in fact connected that the killer was escalating meaning that he he chose to bring a
knife and a Hammer with him to the fourth attack where on the first second and third there's no evidence of a knife
being present but later in that story we hear that the knife was probably taken from the Bennett family home and then it
was the bloody knife was found out in front of their home was thrown down near the purse in the front yard yeah when we
try to figure out this person this this attacker and if in fact they were escalating I I would suggest maybe not
because it doesn't appear that this attacker brought the knife with him it it appears that he in fact took the
knife from the Bennett home and used it during the attack my guess is that he went looking for the knife that he had
encountered Bruce he had this fight with Bruce he probably hit Bruce in the head
multiple times with the weapon he brought with him the hammer and when Bruce kept getting up at
some point this attacker believed that his own weapon was failing him yeah and that he went looking for the knife and
decided he needed to use a different a different weapon a different method to kill the man that's trying to stop him
inside the home that he's entered and we know this because Bruce's Bruce's throat was Slash so
ultimately he he used a different method to to kill Bruce however we heard the uh
Deputy Deputy district attorney stating Bruce had suffered many injuries that would have killed most people yeah so
where I say that people of question was this this attack or this Intruder escalating I would guess I would say no
and for the simple fact that I think that this was an unplanned portion of this guy's attack you know we saw the
previous scenes where there was no knife used but he also left all of those victims in a manner which I believe he
thought they were all dead when he left there and I think he broke into the home
with the intention of killing who was ever inside and doing whatever he wanted while he was in there um but I don't see
escalation here I think that it's just happen stance that those people survived and thankfully they survived but don't
you think that with some of these attacks there it suggests that he would be casing uh the house or casing
whatever situation he's going into um you know we talked about that earlier where you know you could have
watch Patricia Smith's home from the outside and judging by whether she turned on lights and there were no
lights on before that that would indicate that she was in fact alone the problem I have with that is if
that were the case he could he could essentially do this in each one of these attacks you know Donna Dixon was by
herself so maybe he followed her in her car saw her driving home decided to start following her and then he he Blitz
attacked her as soon as she got out of her car he could have parked near her and just ran up and started attacking
her in her garage knowing that she either was alone or if there was somebody inside the home they would have
he would have a few minutes to gain control of the situation yeah you could have potentially followed Patricia Smith
home and and figured out if she was in fact home alone or not these other two cases the the females not by themselves
you know if in fact that that was his goal we know that that there was rape involved in several of these cases um if
if you're trying to get a female alone that was not the case with the hobbins child attack or the case in the Bennett
house so therefore that tells me one thing or one of two things either um he's casing the houses as you
suggested and maybe the whether there's a man present or not does not affect his
determination of going into the home right and my that's what my argument would be is that to me it's a clear sign
of escalation if the person cased the house and knew that it wasn't even just two
people in the house but there were four but there the four and that there were children involved and that you know
wouldn't that be by definition escalating it it it would be but then you have the other situation um part two
of my answer would be maybe he's not watching the houses and does not care who or what is inside yeah that he's
just going to go in and take over the scene and leave a horrible horrible bloody mess when he's
done let's talk about questions here because one thing that we've tasked our selves with with this case because this
is a you know this is a fascinating Cold Case and there I've I've come across many common questions that people have
come up with within the first few years after these attack had happened now we said Cold Case so you need to keep in
mind it's cold for a reason there were these four attacks that may or may not be linked but there were no more attacks
that we can find that were similar that could be linked to this so the questions
that we've tasked ourselves with answering and we're going to have to do this in the next episode because we're
getting a little little lengthy here today but um that's what she said of the of the the first question is this it's
not clear if all four of the January attacks are connected so we'll try to answer that one tomorrow um also because
there were no signs of forced entry into the homes how did the Intruder get into
the Bennett home or the other homes did the killer know his victims and if not did he how did he choose these
particular people or houses also what was the motive for these attacks or killings why was
Patricia killed during the day and the Bennetts killed overnight and then also as we had
already stated the killings ended with the Bennett family murders why did the did the Killer die or did he just stop
killing or maybe he moved to another state so we're going to do some additional digging and see if we can
answer these questions for [Applause] you thanks for listening thanks for subscribing and thank you for telling a
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that I

Aurora Hammer Slayer /// Part 1 /// 175

Part 1 of 2

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January 1984- A hammer wielding monster is attacking individuals and families in the cities of Aurora and Lakewood, Colorado. Two cities just 15 miles apart and both south of Denver. In several of these cases the attacker entered the victim's homes. It is not known how he gained access. All of the attacks were brutally violent and in each he either killed the victim or left them for dead. This sent a panic to all residents in the greater Denver area. Home alarm system sales and gun sales increased as people tried to protect their families. The killer who local police and detectives said would never stop seemingly did. The Hammer man slipped back into the nightmare from which he emerged. Tonight we discuss the details from the attacks and murders in this Colorado cold case.Beer of the Week - Fat Tire Belgian White Ale Garage Grade - 3 and 3 quarter bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

Four brutal attacks in Colorado in January 1984, including murders and survival, raise questions about a possible serial killer.

Key points

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The Intruder's Attack. In the dead of night, an intruder attacks a young couple in their home.
Patricia's Tragic Discovery. A young girl finds her grandmother's body in a horrifying scene.
The Hammer Slayer's First Attack. James and Kimberly Hobbins survive a brutal attack in their home.
Patricia Smith's Tragic Fate. Patricia Smith is attacked and murdered on January 10, 1984.
Donna Dixon's Harrowing Assault. Flight attendant Donna Dixon is brutally attacked in her garage but survives.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The terror had just begun.

Describing the onset of a violent event

7:05WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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