Revealing 4 murders hidden by assassins after death

When the two stopped the car, Debra was handcuffing Ervin when he took her gun and fired back. When he saw a passerby stop to help Debra, Ervin continued to shoot and fled.

Ervin was arrested at his home a few hours after trying to remove the handcuffs. He hanged himself before appearing in court, leaving a letter of guilt for this act.

However, even after his death, the name Ervin still haunts the police. He was the main suspect in 4 murders from 1978 to 1981. And with the help of DNA technology and genealogy, all of Ervin’s crimes were revealed.

Accordingly, in 2009, a police detective for Adams County, Colorado, happened to review a series of unsolved local cases 50 years ago. Among them is the case of Antoinette Parks, a 17-year-old schoolgirl, who was murdered with multiple stabs and dumped her body in the middle of a field. At that time, she was 6 months pregnant.

The investigation team sifted through about 20 pieces of evidence for potential DNA analysis and found the DNA of an unidentified man. The suspect’s profile was entered into the FBI’s combined DNA database (aka ODIS).

In October 2018, this record was confirmed to match that of the killer in three other Denver County, Colorado cases in the years 1978-1981. This means, four cases share the same culprit. But who is he?

This stalemate began to find its way out in 2019, when the Denver Police Department’s crime lab created an internal genetic genealogy and found a relative of the suspect.

A large-scale search of the family members involved, conducted in the early summer of 2021, has identified the unidentified killer that investigators are looking for as Ervin.

His remains were exhumed from a cemetery in Arlington late last year. The results showed that the DNA matched evidence from the scene of all four murders.

Joe Michael Ervin killed his first victim when he was 17 years old. That day, August 9, 1969, Ervin was hanging out with a friend near the bowling alley when he saw a car carrying two 21-year-old students.

Ervin walked up to the driver’s window pretending to offer them a beer and then pulled out a pistol, shot one in the neck and threatened to do the same to the other if he didn’t follow orders. The victim pretended to obey, took advantage of the distraction of Ervin and his accomplices, slammed the car door and ran away and asked for help.

Ervin and his accomplices fled the scene. The male student with a neck wound died four days later. In the early stages, the police had difficulty in locating the suspect, due to the random nature of the murder.

On the same day, Ervin called the victim’s family “sorry” for killing their son. When police issued a statewide arrest warrant with a $650 bounty, Ervin fled to Colorado and settled in Denver, changing his name to “Joe Michael Erwing” to conceal his identity.

Between 1970 and 1977, Ervin was repeatedly charged with theft, rape, child molestation and assault with a deadly weapon, but each time was found not guilty on the grounds of mental illness. .

On December 7, 1978, Ervin knocked on the door of Madeleine Furey, 33 years old, a housewife who was alone with her two young daughters. When she opened the door, he forced her into the bedroom and committed the crime. Madeleine’s body was later discovered by her husband when he got home from work. But at that time, Denver police were too busy with other cases and the killer was still “hiding in the dark”.

On August 10, 1980, Ervin continued to encounter Delores Barajas, 53, a hotel employee returning home from his last day of work, before retiring. He stabbed her, dragging her body behind a nearby apartment building. The body was found by residents a few hours later.

The third victim, a 27-year-old woman, was found dead with multiple stab wounds on Christmas Eve 1980, not far from the killer’s apartment.

Finally, on January 24, 1981, Ervin stabbed the 17-year-old victim to death.

These murders “cooled down” for decades due to lack of clues and outdated investigative techniques. Even up to the day Ervin was arrested for killing female officer Derba, no one knew he was really behind the other 3 murders.

With DNA technology, not only Ervin’s case but thousands of other deadlock cases from decades ago have also been successfully decoded. After a press conference on January 29 to announce the results of the investigation, concluding that Ervin was a serial killer, the Denver police chief also called for the cooperation of the people in the investigation process.

“If you have any unsolved murders or even the slightest clue, please let us know. Although finding the culprit will not bring the victim back, we hope it will help close the door. and heal their loved ones and the Denver community,” he said.

Hai Thu (According to CBS, Denver Post, ATI)