Monster (42 page)

The forensic anthropologists of NecroSearch International were called in to carefully exhume Cher Elder’s remains. Detective Richardson slept next to the snowy site several nights to make sure it was not disturbed by anyone or by animals.

(
Photo courtesy Lakewood, Colorado Police Department
)

Cher Elder had been shot three times in close proximity behind her left ear, leading investigators to conclude she was either unconscious or being held down when executed.

(
Photo courtesy Lakewood, Colorado Police Department
)

On February 12, 1982, Mary Brown was sexually assaulted and nearly beaten to death before escaping from Luther’s car a few miles from Breckenridge, Colorado. Luther received a sentence of 15 years after pleading guilty to first degree assault. (
Photo courtesy Summit County, Colorado Sheriff
)

Investigators believed Luther attacked women who reminded him of his mother as she looked when he was a child. Her wedding picture shows her as petite, with shoulder-length dark hair.

(
Photo courtesy Lakewood, Colorado Police Department
)

Debrah Snider and Tom Luther in the visiting room at the Colorado state penitentiary two years before his January 1993 release. Snider, a nurse, met Luther when he was hospitalized for an allergic reaction and began a correspondence with him that led to a serious relationship.

(
Photo courtesy Debrah Snider
)

Luther (
lower right
)
,
his mother Betty (
top center
)
,
and his sisters and brothers. (
Photo courtesy Debrah Snider
)

21-year-old Annette Schnee’s body was not found until July. Both she and Oberholtzer had disappeared within hours of each other and had been shot in the back as each tried to flee from an attacker. After Luther was arrested for assaulting Mary Brown, he told fellow inmates about killing two other women. The timing and locale of Brown’s attack and the the details of Luther’s remarks, led police to suspect him in both Schnee’s and Oberholtzer’s murders.

Police composite drawing of the man who attacked Heather Smith in April 1993, two weeks after Cher Elder disappeared.

(
Photo courtesy Denver, Colorado Police Department
)

Heather Smith was attacked and stabbed five times. She identified Luther as her attacker after seeing his photograph in a newspaper reporting his 1995 arrest for Elder’s murder.

 (
Photo courtesy Heather Weiser
)

Luther was sentenced to 35 years for sexually assaulting and beating Bobbi Jo Jones, 32, near Delray, West Virginia in August 1994. Like many of his other victims, she bears a striking resemblance to his mother.

(
Photo courtesy West Virginia State Police
)

Detective Scott Richardson of the Lakewood, Colorado Police

Department. (
Photo courtesy Scott and Sabrina Richardson
)