Rhonda Fisher

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.

Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 433 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.

And this is Mike Morford.

Morf, how you doing this week, buddy?

Doing pretty good, just hanging out, getting some stuff done, running some errands and that kind of stuff. What are you up to?

Uh, you know, I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but my oldest daughter who got married this year is, is having a house built. So that's like an everyday thing for us. We, we have to go over to see this house and see how far they've, they've come along. It's kind of fascinating, to be honest with you.

Yeah, it's, you always want your kids to have a nice house and go over and help them when they need it. So that's pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah, they're super excited.

I was gonna say, the joys of a young homeowner.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's excitement now, but then once you get in, exciting, but then you also realize how much goes into it, right? Things break, payments that you don't realize. So they, they got a lot on their plate for sure. We didn't have any new Patreon supporters, but just want to thank everyone who does support us on Patreon. It really helps us out.

Yeah, we can't thank you enough. It helps us out and really boosts the show a little bit and, you know, helps us. So thank you to everyone that does it. And if you want to get started, head on over to patreon.com/criminology.

Well, let's go ahead and jump into this week's case. And we're focusing on one murder victim named Rhonda Marie Fisher. And we'll discuss how her murder was linked to a man named Vincent Groves, a serial killer who certainly has other victims, could have as many as 20. We'll talk about how solving Rhonda's case provided answers in her murder as well as to some of the other murders that Vincent Groves committed. To help us tell Rhonda's story, we thought we would bring in some help. And who better than two of the people who played major roles in solving Rhonda's case,

Michelle Kennedy and Shane Williams.

My name is Michelle Kennedy. I'm a crime analysis supervisor and investigative genetic genealogist with the Douglas County Sheriff's Office in Colorado. And I have worked at the sheriff's office for over 30 years. In the last five years or so, I have worked in our cold case unit.

My name is Shane Williams. I am a forensic serologist and DNA analyst, as well as the CODIS administrator for the Unified Forensic Laboratory. I've been in this field for approximately 12 years. And my role and capacity in this case today was examining the items of evidence, developing DNA profiles, and making comparisons to known individuals.

You'll hear a lot of helpful information from both Michelle and Shane throughout this episode.

To begin this story, we have to go back to 1987. On April 1st of that year, at about 8:45 a.m., a motorist was driving west along South Perry Park Road, also known as Highway 105, in a quiet area in Douglas County, about an hour south of Denver. He happened to glance down the embankment when he saw something terrible. About 10 feet down on the other side of the guardrail was the body of a nude woman. He quickly went for help and investigators from the Douglas County Sheriff's Department showed up on the scene and started to process it.

The scene where the victim's body was found was very remote and rural. And there were visible injuries on the victim's body that indicated that she had been a homicide victim. She was also not murdered at that location and she had probably been there less than 24 hours. And she didn't have any clothing or personal items on her body or near her body. So at the scene, she remained unidentified.

So the scene was processed, but there wasn't much to process since the homicide didn't occur at the body disposal location and because there were no personal items belonging to the victim. But they placed paper bags on her hands and secured them with black electrical tape to preserve any evidence that may have been on her hands or under her fingernails. There were also recent muddy tire tracks about 350 feet south of the body, which indicated a small vehicle was traveling northbound on Perry Park Road. It had stopped on the east shoulder and then turned around and went back south. The tire impressions were measured and photographed and a cast was made of the tracks on the east

side of the roadway. However, the impressions were shallow because of the cold ground. Based on some of the injuries to her body, it indicated that she had probably been tossed or rolled off the side of the road down the embankment.

It was pretty clear to detectives that the woman had been murdered. There was a ligature mark on her neck. Investigators fanned out one mile in each direction of the body, looking for clues in the area that may be connected to the case, but they didn't find any clothing or belongings that might be their victims, nor did they find any identification for her. In order to preserve potential evidence, they carefully placed paper evidence bags on the woman's hands and taped them securely to help trap any potential evidence inside. They had no idea at the time, but this would prove to be very solid police work that would one day help crack this case open.

They hoped that there might be physical evidence under her fingernails, and they also found what appeared to be a small clump of red synthetic fibers on the back of her left hand that they thought possibly could have come from a vehicle. And you'll hear more about these fibers later on. While detectives didn't find anything on scene to ID their victim, they did find one clue, a set of tire tracks in the snow. It appeared that someone had dumped the body over the guardrail and then driven up a bit further and then made a U-turn before heading back east. Photos of the tire tracks were taken.

So Morf, you know, we're talking about 1987 here, right? Real early days, early, early days of DNA. And I am always fascinated when we do a case where, you know, when you go through the, the police work, and that case later involves DNA, it's quite obvious that the, the police work was crucial. The evidence handling was crucial in allowing, you know, investigators many, many years later to, to, you know, capitalize on the presence of DNA.

Yeah, you can't beat good police work. You know, even back then, they didn't know what advancements there would be, but they just did their job the best they could. And, you know, years later, it would bear fruit. But I just want to give the, the driver that found her body some credit because, you know, he could have easily been changing his radio station or looking out the other side of the vehicle and he just, he's out in this quiet secluded area, driving on a, a lonely road and happened to look down at the right second in the right spot and, you know, found her body. If he didn't do that, she might've stayed there for a while and maybe the elements and animals and things like that would have destroyed evidence.

Well, that's a great point because, you know, you can ask a lot of what if questions in cases, and I think that's a, that's a great one. What if her body is not found until much later?

Would they have had the same evidence to, to work with? And I think you could say, no, there's a good chance that, that they wouldn't have, but they still have a lot of work to do, right? And especially in trying to identify this victim.

By 11 a.m., the body was loaded up and taken from the scene. At the time, the county didn't have an official medical examiner's office. So the body was taken to a funeral home in the town of Castle Rock, where an examination could take place. It was determined that the woman had been sexually assaulted before being strangled with a ligature. The official cause of death was asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation. A mark on her wrist indicated she may have been tied or bound, and bruises on her body showed she may have struggled with her killer. Her time of death was estimated to have been earlier that morning between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. Toxicology results showed that she had no alcohol in her system at the time of her death, though a small amount of a prescent medication was detected.

Oral, vaginal, and anal swabs were taken into evidence with hope that they would one day link to her killer. Detectives came to believe that she had been murdered elsewhere before being driven to the spot where she was dumped. Photographs and fingerprints were taken in an effort to ID the dead woman. And it didn't take investigators long to discover that she was 30-year-old Rhonda Marie Fisher.

So the victim's body was transported to the Andrews Funeral Home in Castle Rock. The coroner's office didn't have a facility at that time in the 1980s. And so that was normal practice for the sheriff's office to transfer decedents to a local funeral home. And then the victim's fingerprints were obtained and they were driven to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation on the same day, and there was a positive match to a 10 print card that was on file for Rhonda Murray Fisher. Once Rhonda was identified, investigators focused on learning who Rhonda was, who her associates were, and where she had been during the last 24 hours.

A police report from March 11th provided a name of one of Rhonda's friends, and her grandmother provided some background information. Investigators also canvassed a Longmont bar that she frequented, as well as bars on East Colfax in Denver. But because she was somewhat transient, had unverifiable addresses, and her legal next of kin, her grandmother, was out of state, investigators were unable to determine where she had been during the last hours of her life.

So all of these factors meant that Rhonda was at high risk for victimization. The circumstances, behavior, and lifestyle choices of a victim can increase their vulnerability. And these factors aren't meant to blame the victim, but they can help investigators understand the risks and look for connections. The higher the risk, the greater the vulnerability. And Rhonda was considered high risk for victimization, which presented some challenges in the investigation.

A check revealed that Rhonda had had a rough patch in her life, and that several things in her life revealed significant risk factors. She had been divorced and lost custody of her son. She had struggled with alcoholism and bounced from place to place, sometimes turning to sex work to make ends meet. At the time of her death, Rhonda had been living in the Denver area and was known to frequent Denver bars along Colfax Avenue. Detectives spoke with various people in an effort to help construct a timeline of her last day. According to eyewitness accounts, on the evening of March 31st, at around 7:00 PM, hours before she was killed,

Rhonda was seen in the area of a grocery store at the intersection of Monaco Boulevard and Mexico Avenue in Denver. She was reportedly wearing a maroon velour coat, blue Levi jeans, red high heels, and was carrying a beige purse. That was the last time anyone reported seeing Rhonda Fisher alive.

Pretty early on, detectives had a suspect in mind, a guy named Vincent Groves, and he had a very troubling criminal record, which we'll get into. But it was another guy who really caught the attention of investigators, a guy who was never officially identified by them, so we're calling him Joe. And detectives didn't have to track down Joe, he came to them. On April 2nd, 1987, the day after Rhonda's body was found, Joe came into the station stating that he needed to speak to investigators because he had been with Rhonda on the evening of March 31st, and was quote, "probably the last person to see her alive." It was an odd circumstance for sure, but investigators wanted to hear what he had to say. He mentioned several times that he was upset about Rhonda, but didn't show any emotion.

When police asked Rhonda's friends about her relationship with Joe, they told police that Joe was obsessed with Rhonda and very controlling. Police learned that on March 28th, a few days before she died, Joe had gotten angry with Rhonda when she brought a man home to his place, and things got physical, leading to Rhonda leaving. But she did return later that night. Three days later, Rhonda called her grandmother in New York, asking for money. Rhonda told her that she needed money so that she could leave Joe. That's the night Rhonda was last seen alive. The next day, her body was found more than 30 miles from where she made that call.

Rhonda's clothing that she was last seen in, a coat, jeans, and red high heels, as well as her purse, were never found. And this is a strange situation, Morf. I mean, you have a guy who's, I don't think really on radar to police, but he actually walks into the police station to talk to the police. So, you know, and then obviously after they start talking, the things that they're hearing from him, all right, he's, he's gonna be on their radar. Now, they might have, and probably would have, figured out that they needed to talk to this guy pretty quickly anyway,

but it's just a strange circumstance.

At this point, Joe was clearly suspect number one in the eyes of police. On April 6th, just days after coming into the police station, he agreed to take a polygraph examination. The polygraph examiner concluded that Joe's truthfulness could not be verified, and he could not be cleared in the matter. Additionally, detectives interviewed Joe's ex-wife, who told them that she had been threatened by him during their marriage. Although there was nothing to solidly link Joe to Rhonda's murder, police kept them on the back burner.

Early in the investigation, investigators primarily focused on 39-year-old Joe because he inserted himself into the investigation and told investigators that he was the last person to see Rhonda alive. He also admitted to having physical altercations with Rhonda. And then in September of 1987, 32-year-old Vincent Groves was investigated as a possible suspect. Groves had just been released from prison six weeks prior to Rhonda's murder and was known to strangle women in vulnerable circumstances.

Joe was interviewed several times the following day after Rhonda was found, and also several times throughout the week. He was initially cooperative, and then his cooperation deteriorated. By day six, he had conducted a polygraph and those results were inconclusive.

After his initial interview, when he inserted himself into the investigation, and then the subsequent days after that, because of that inconclusive polygraph, and some of the information that they had learned about his controlling and jealous behavior toward Rhonda and his ex-wife, he was considered the primary suspect at that time. Investigators talked to most of Rhonda's male associates and her female associates as well to kind of get a picture of her life, so other men that she had been involved with were also considered.

While looking at this Joe guy and Rhonda's life in the month prior to her murder, police discovered that in mid-March, just weeks before she was killed, she had reported to police that she was sexually assaulted. We don't have all the details about that, but certainly the fact she was raped and then murdered weeks later had to jump out to investigators. Despite this assault she had reported, and this troubling information about Joe, police didn't have enough to arrest anyone, and the case went cold. Yeah, police had to be disappointed when the case started to go cold because, you know, here's this Joe guy, comes into the police station, right away he's suspicious, and then police check him out, and sure enough, there's troubling things with him, but, you know, they're just lacking that smoking gun to really

link him to Rhonda's murder, so they had to let him go on the back burner. And in the mean, meanwhile, they had to keep progressing with the case and looking at other potential leads, I'm sure.

And definitely one of those would have been her report of a sexual assault. Like you said, Morf, we don't really have all the details around it. I feel as though if it would have been related to Joe, that probably would have come out. So if it wasn't related to Joe, and it was someone else, you know, then police are maybe moving in that direction. But that's where some of these cases get tough, right? You think you've got one solid direction, but you just can't get there. And then some other things pop up that, you know, make you have to go down different paths.

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For years, evidence from Rhonda's murder sat on a shelf waiting for technology and science to advance to a level where it might solve the case. In 2017, evidence from Rhonda's case was submitted for DNA testing for the first time. A laboratory report from August 2017 analyzed multiple items of evidence to include swabs from Rhonda's body and fingernail scrapings, but unfortunately, the results showed insufficient DNA for comparison, and more time would pass before fresh eyes and evolving technology would help to finally solve the case.

In 2020, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office implemented an in-person evidence review when re-examining cold cases. Prior to the evidence review, the team also completed a thorough case review with all the reports, photographs, and other documents in the case. Those two steps helped us determine the importance of each piece of evidence as we evaluated it at the in-person evidence review. That evidence review consisted of a cold case detective, a crime analyst, myself, Shane Williams, the DNA analyst from the United Forensic Lab, as well as a persons crime and cold case unit sergeant. And at that evidence review,

we used the DNA analyst to help us, to help provide input regarding the forensic probative value of each item.

So like Michelle said, I was, I was present at the evidence review, having, you know, eyes on the actual evidence. I also reviewed the case file, previous forensic work that had been done over the decades. So having that case background, other work that had been done, helped me make informed decisions about different items that could be beneficial for moving forward for DNA analysis, and also helping to educate everyone involved on, you know, why one thing might be beneficial over another. And so, you know, like Michelle said, having us all involved and together in the same room while we're looking at the evidence, makes it extremely beneficial to make decisions about, you know,

what we can test, the limitations of DNA analysis, especially on a case that's, you know, was approaching 40 years old, and what the possible outcomes might be. Late 1980s, DNA science wasn't really prevalent among, you know, investigators. It was really just getting started in the early days of DNA, but they weren't thinking about that. And so, you know, like I said, part of that education with the cold case detectives and everyone involved is that, you know, we might develop DNA profiles, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to link back to the perpetrator of the case. It could be from

an on-scene detective, it could be from an emergency responder, if the victim was looked after by, you know, medical staff, EMS, or doctors. And then in this case specifically, I had high concerns about the, the mortuary staff. So like Michelle was saying, at that time, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office didn't have a coroner's office, and so decedents were taken to the coroner's office for autopsy and examination. And my concern at the time was, you know, if we develop a profile, could it be from the staff working there, or on-scene

detectives that had placed those brown paper bags over Rhonda's hands? Old samples in degradation, that is something we did discover in this case, and I wasn't surprised by it. You know, DNA does degrade over time. Thankfully, we have a pretty dry and arid climate here in the South Metro area of Denver, which actually helps to preserve DNA long-term. High heat and humidity can really destroy DNA. So we did see some degradation going on, but thankfully, we still had plenty of DNA evidence to make comparisons to the suspects in this case.

In February 2025, a comprehensive case and evidence review was conducted involving a multidisciplinary team consisting of a cold case detective, forensic scientist, a crime analyst supervisor, investigative genetic genealogist, and staff from the property and evidence facility. During the in-person review, each item of evidence was viewed and not removed from the packaging, and it was evaluated as a potential source of evidence. The review team recognized the potential value in evidence sources previously overlooked, particularly focusing on the paper bags that had been placed over Rhonda's hands at the crime scene in 1987. This innovative approach to evidence analysis would prove crucial

to the case resolution, demonstrating the importance of preserving and re-examining all physical evidence, regardless of how unconventional the source might appear.

The following month, longtime suspect Joe and his brother were contacted and agreed to provide a voluntary DNA sample. Joe's brother's DNA was requested, as he had also been with Joe on Rhonda's final day. All items of evidence and the brother's DNA were submitted to the Unified Forensic Laboratory. In August 2025, forensic examination began on the brown paper bags at UFL. Thankfully, the medical examiner and law enforcement officials had the foresight to retain these paper bags after scrapings were taken from under Rhonda's fingernails.

Each bag was its own item of evidence, and they were not co-mingled. And each bag had the black electrical tape adhered around the opening from when the bag was secured around Rhonda's wrist at the scene. Cotton swabs were used to collect DNA, and DNA profiles were developed from the cotton swabs. The collection taken from Rhonda's right wrist had a more complete DNA profile and proved to be the most helpful to the investigation. A DNA mixture originated from three individuals was developed.

And to me, this is where, you know, the amazing developments in DNA technology come in, and they're fascinating. There's, there's just no doubt about it. When you look at how the technology has advanced from, let's say, you know, 1985, which is kind of when we think of DNA first being used to, you know, help in convictions, to today. It's unbelievable what they can do now that they couldn't do in years prior. They can get

a viable sample from so much less, just through the, the use of technology.

Yeah, and you almost have to have a scientist working in the police departments to sort of oversee some of this stuff and explain it to the, you know, to the less, you know, knowledgeable people working there. Because as smart as a lot of, you know, these officers are and detectives trying to solve this case, they probably don't know a lot of stuff about this, you know, science of the DNA. So when it gets us involved, you've got to have an expert there to help the case go smoothly.

So they have this DNA mixture, and it included Rhonda and an unknown major male component. And then a third contributor, which was a minor component of unknown gender. Using advanced DNA mixture software, the major male DNA profile was separated from the DNA profile of Rhonda and the minor component. Joe and his brother were excluded as potential donors of the DNA mixture.

So after we had the evidence review and we decided what evidence to submit to the crime lab for processing, that evidence was transferred here, and I spent a couple of weeks going through the evidence, making collections, and going through the, the lab process to develop DNA profiles. Took another, you know, few days or weeks to interpret all of that data, write the reports, and make comparisons to the known individuals in the case. At the time of the initial DNA testing, we had the known DNA samples from

Joe and also his brother that had been collected by detectives in 2025. Ultimately, I was immediately able to eliminate or exclude Joe and his brother from the DNA profiles generated in this case.

So at this point, the number one suspect in Rhonda's murder, Joe, was finally off of the suspect list. But the number two suspect, Vincent Groves, was still of interest due to his troubling background.

In the late 1980s, investigators from across the Denver metro area saw a pattern in which young women in vulnerable circumstances had turned up dead in remote areas. The ages of the victims ranged between 17 and 35, and all of the victims had been strangled. So because of these similarities dating back to 1978, they formed a task force. The task force was made up of 25 officers from 12 different agencies in the Denver metro area to include the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. Investigators focused on Groves, who had been convicted of second degree murder in 1982 and was paroled on February 13, 1987. The task force noted that the string of killings stopped

when Groves was in prison between 1982 and 1987, and then began again after his release. Just a few weeks after Groves was released from prison in 1987, he was stopped by police after several sex workers stated that he was picking them up, and once he got them in the car, he was assaulting them. When confronted, he denied it and said he was just out driving around.

So as you just heard, with the main suspect Joe being ruled out in Rhonda's case, police started to look at Vincent Groves a bit closer. By this time, everyone knew he was a really bad guy. But was there enough evidence to link him to Rhonda's case? Police had first tried to do that years ago via carpet fibers.

During Rhonda's autopsy, a small cluster of unknown red fibers were recovered on the back of her left hand. And in September of 1988, those fibers were compared to carpet fibers from Vincent Groves's vehicle, but they were found to be dissimilar. Unfortunately, these findings couldn't rule Groves in or out as a suspect. A dissimilar finding only shows the fiber didn't come from the specific items tested, and it leaves the possibility open for other vehicles, residences, or other locations linked to Groves. And it also says nothing about other suspects. So the fiber result left the question of Groves's involvement unresolved.

With carpet fibers, you know, that's a forensic discipline that has kind of dwindled and kind of gone away here in the last decade, or maybe even longer than that. But it was the technology that was available to them at the time in the late 80s. Fiber analysis and hair comparisons. So, you know, we can develop DNA now from hairs, but at that time, it was just looking under a microscope at one hair from maybe a crime scene or the fiber from the crime scene, and then this exemplar or known fiber from either a vehicle or carpet from a home or another person's hair.

And it was really just a comparison science. And, you know, examiners at the time had extensive training on that. But at the end of the day, it came down to their opinion on whether or not those two things matched. Whereas with DNA and fingerprints, we have advanced statistical software that can individualize it down to say, yes, it's coming from this person, and here is the weight of that evidence behind it, not someone's just opinion that, oh, I think this matches this.

The foreign male DNA profile from Rhonda's case was then entered into the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, in October 2025.

So from initially looking at the evidence, examining it, to having the CODIS match being confirmed, I would say that was probably about a three-month process from working the evidence to getting that CODIS confirmation. So the CODIS database was passed by federal legislature in the early 1990s. But it did take a few years, you know, for implementation and it to come into practice. And so then it also took time for the individual states to come up with their own legislation on individuals who were going to be having their DNA in this database. So, starting in about 1996,

convicted offenders were having their DNA profiles uploaded to the CODIS database. Over the years, different states have proposed differing levels of legislation, which have then required more individuals to be uploaded into this database. I would say now that all 50 states plus the federal jurisdictions, any individual convicted of any felony crime, their DNA is now going into this database. Approximately half of the states have arrestee DNA collection laws. So if an individual is arrested on a felony, their DNA is collected,

and it is also uploaded to this criminal database. On the flip side, you know, crime labs are developing DNA profiles from, you know, crime scene evidence they're uploading. And that's where the linkage is happening between cases matching to each other or cases matching to the known DNA profiles from convicted offenders and arrestees. In this case, the only evidence we have linking Rhonda to the other cases is the one brown paper bag. So in this case, the brown paper bags were really the only item of evidence left

that had some sort of contact with Rhonda's body. Michelle has talked about Rhonda was found nude on the side of this embankment. So we didn't have any of her clothes to test or other personal belongings that she might have had with her, where someone could have left behind their DNA. So the only thing we had left was this brown paper bag that had been making contact with her body. At the time, the bag was put over her hand and sealed with this black electrical tape. It preserved those red carpet fibers that were used in comparison in 1988 to the carpet fibers from Vincent Groves. And so at the time, those paper bags were used to preserve

any sort of physical evidence on someone's hands or if the victim had fought back, and there might be blood or other skin tissue underneath the fingernails of the victim if they had fought back. So that's why they were using brown paper bags at that time, to preserve that physical evidence. Thankfully for us, even though DNA wasn't a known science at that time, those brown paper bags did preserve transfer DNA, which was present on Rhonda's hands and on her wrists.

The unknown male profile from the paper bag on Rhonda's right hand produced CODIS candidate matches or hits to evidence profiles from the 1979 homicides of three Denver women, Emma Jennifer, Joyce Ramey, and Peggy Cluff. And those profiles had previously been attributed to Vincent Groves through DNA testing by the Denver Police Department in 2012. Investigators now knew that Rhonda was killed by Vincent Groves, who already had been linked to multiple murder victims. And more, if we've talked about DNA a lot over the years, we've talked about CODIS a lot. But we've also seen where, you know, police have had great evidence

in the form of, let's say, DNA, but they just have never been able to find a match. Right? There are those times where the DNA is there, but if you don't have anything to match it to, what do you really have? And I think all you can really do is do the best work you can, preserve the evidence the best way that you can so that later on, you know, as advances happen in science and crime fighting tools, you can go back and have a major breakthrough like this one. And it seems like the, you know, it's like pulling a string on a ball of yarn. Once you pull it, it just starts to unwind.

And I think that's maybe what happened here in this case. It just started connecting from one victim to another to another. But also, how amazing is it that, you know, the police work in Colorado, right? Connecting all these cases.

With Rhonda Fisher, the police did a great job in preserving evidence. They must have done an equally excellent job in these three homicides. Because they were able to get, you know, DNA profiles eventually from those as well. And all of it linked back to Vincent Groves. Shane explained to us just how he was able to find and develop the DNA profile that finally linked Vincent Groves to Rhonda's murder.

So in this case, with no DNA being developed from under the fingernails, it could be that, you know, Rhonda was incapacitated and didn't have an opportunity to fight back. She also had ligature marks on her wrists and bruising on her wrists. So most likely she had been bound. And even if she was conscious, she was physically restrained and wouldn't have been able to, to physically fight back with her hands or had the ability to scratch the person who was attacking her. And so that's one of the reasons that we can speculate that no DNA was developed from underneath her fingernails.

Touch DNA or transfer DNA wasn't known at the time in 1987, when these brown paper bags were placed over her hands. But thankfully, with today's technology and being able to develop DNA profiles from very small amounts of cellular material. The individual, who we believe to be Vincent Groves, had manipulated Rhonda's hands and her wrists during his time with her. And like Michelle said, Rhonda had been probably pulled from a vehicle by her wrists and either shoved or pulled down that embankment where she was recovered on the side of the road.

And at the time, during that transfer of her body and manipulation of her wrists, Vincent would have transferred his skin cells to the outside of Rhonda's skin. And then when the brown paper bags were put over the top of Rhonda's hands, her skin cells and Vincent's skin cells were transferred to the inside of that brown paper bag. And it would have been helpful. And I think one of the reasons that I can, I'm speculating that we've had success in this case is cinching those paper bags around her wrists with the black electrical tape prolonged the exposure between the paper bag and her wrists,

allowing that transfer of her skin cells and Vincent's skin cells to occur. And so even after, you know, 40 years, now I'm able to swab the inside of those brown paper bags, pick up those skin cells that had been deposited at the time. And that's how we were able to develop Vincent's DNA profile. Rhonda was last seen by the suspect Joe at about 7:00 PM the night before she was recovered. And the citizen who noticed her body along Prairie Park Road, I believe, was around 9:00 AM the next morning. And the coroner had speculated time of death was, I think, three to five hours prior to that.

The longer that DNA is exposed to the environment and the elements, more likely it's going to degrade and be gone. Physical moisture, such as rain or snow, can wash away any DNA that's left behind. High heat and humidity can also destroy that DNA as well as UV light from the sun. So in this case, with it being a few hours that, that she was left on that embankment, really wasn't a lot of environmental factors at play. It wasn't actively snowing, even though it had snowed previously. There was some snow on the ground, but I would also say that the cold temperatures

probably helped preserve DNA that was present on her body. So obviously, you know, DNA technology is always emerging with new techniques. And, you know, every couple of years, you know, you see new cold cases are solved with evidence that hadn't been examined. And this is a wonderful example of that. And I, I hope that this can be an example to other law enforcement agencies in the country that, you know, these brown paper bags or other evidence that may have been previously looked over because of the perceived lower value of it. And, and I hope that this would be an example of going back and, and evaluating those things.

Also, you know, it's, it's not a glamorous thing, but this is a resource issue as well. Some law enforcement agencies in the country just don't have the time or resources because they're actively working on, on new cases that are, that are going on and going through the judicial system. So that's to say, that's never an excuse not to work these old cases, but that is definitely a limitation for, for some law enforcement agencies in the United States. Thankfully, you know, between our case and those other cases that have been linked to Vincent, those do exist in the CODIS database and they will forever. And so even though his personal convicted offender profile never made it in there,

he's technically, you know, in the database via these casework samples that have been uploaded. So if other labs in Colorado or across the country, if, you know, Vincent was killing elsewhere and we just didn't know it, and they are uploading profiles, we will be able to make those connections via this database and give investigative leads to those agencies. There's also multiple presumed victims in this case where their, their bodies and their remains have never been found. And that is another benefit of the CODIS database. So there could be victims identified in the future if, that those bodies are recovered.

And those could be other additional linkages to Vincent, once those bodies are recovered as well. And that's another benefit of the CODIS DNA database.

I think it's important to mention that in this case, the preservation of evidence was key. And then the innovative DNA analysis. Also, the dedication of time and resources to cold cases in an effort to provide answers to families and bringing renewed attention to cases that maybe received limited resources when first reported. But then we were also able to apply newer technologies that we didn't have decades ago.

All of this scientific research and evidence proved to detectives that their hunch was correct. And Rhonda's killer was Vincent Groves, but it also proved that he was a serial killer. So the good news was that police figured out who had killed Rhonda. And it turned out to be one of the people they suspected early on. But the bad news was that Groves had been dead for years.

By the fall of 1996, his health was failing. He was interviewed again by police from another metro area agency. And they told him he could clear his conscience and give families some answers. But unfortunately, he refused. So whatever information he might have had, he clearly planned to take it to his grave. There's possibly as many as 20 victims attributed to Vincent Groves. The true number of Groves's victims is still unknown. It may be higher than the confirmed 12 homicides and two sexual assaults. But the Douglas County Sheriff's Office doesn't have other cases tied to Groves.

But there may be other unresolved cases across the state of Colorado. Unfortunately, Groves never admitted to additional murders, even on his deathbed. Rhonda's case is in VICAP. The other cases for other agencies, I believe, some of them are, I'm not sure if all of them are. Groves has been tied or linked fairly definitively to 12 homicides and two sexual assaults. Many of those cases are confirmed by DNA. And then other cases, Groves was living with the victim or was last seen with the victim.

That's like a real gut punch to finally have these puzzle pieces all come together. You know who did this, but then it's a slap in the face when you find out this person's been dead for years and they can't be held accountable. I'm sure Rhonda's friends and family were happy to know the name of the person that did this, but if the fact he had already died and could never be punished for what he did, that's gotta be a big letdown.

Yeah. And unfortunately you do see that in quite a few cold cases, right? When they are eventually solved, because so many years have gone by, there are times when the perpetrator is, you know, deceased. So it is bittersweet. Yes, the case is solved, but the person, you know, they cannot be held accountable for it. So on the one hand, it's great. On the other hand, it leaves a little bit to be desired, I would think.

Shane talked about how frustrating it was that Groves DNA hadn't made its way into CODIS earlier.

Unfortunately, like Michelle was saying, Vincent died in 1996 and that was the very first year that CODIS really started uploading profiles. So he passed before he had the opportunity to have his profile uploaded into the database. If he would have survived a few more years as a convicted offender of multiple homicide cases, he would have had his DNA profile uploaded. But because of his death before the database really got going, he was never uploaded. And thankfully, other metropolitan labs within Denver have uploaded cases that are linked

to him. And that is how we ultimately were able to make the connection for the murder of Rhonda.

And I think Shane was probably frustrated that he couldn't find a link earlier because every year that passes by without answers, you know, that's a case on the books, a family that doesn't have answers. And, you know, he did his best work along with the rest of the team to carefully work on this stuff to make sure there were no mistakes. And unfortunately, that took time, but the end result was, you know, hopefully worth the wait.

And for all that we've talked about, you know, how good some of the police work was in these cases, there can still be instances where things fall to the cracks, sometimes through no one's fault. Changes in procedures, what prompts someone's DNA to be put into CODIS? Okay. It wasn't a certain way before this time. Later on, they changed it. Things like that can be the difference between solving a case early on or earlier, or the case being

solved many, many years later. But, you know, one thing that you could hear from that audio was just how bad this Groves guy was. And based on everything that we've heard, it's very likely that he had a lot more victims. I want to take a minute to just give a big thanks to Michelle Kennedy and Shane Williams for sharing their inside knowledge and expertise in Rhonda's case and for helping us lay the groundwork to talk more about the crimes of serial killer Vincent Groves. We'll talk about him and get into a lot of the details

of the awful crimes he committed in the next episode of Criminology. So as we wrap this one up, Morf, this is a fascinating case on a number of different levels. You know, you feel terrible for what happened to Rhonda Fisher. No one should ever have to go through that. No one's life should end that way. To me, there's, there's no doubt. There was a lot of very dedicated work, you know, on the part of the police investigators put into

not only Rhonda's case, but also some of the other cases of victims that we're going to get into more detail about in next week's episode. And I can't say enough about, you know, Michelle and Shane and what they shared with us, getting that kind of insider information, getting it straight from the people who were there. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, their knowledge and the case and the science and everything behind it is amazing. So, you know, it's always good when you have people like that and help us, you know, dive into that stuff. And, you know, it was good work by them, but even all the way back to the beginning, it was good work by the original investigators back in 1987 to properly collect everything, preserve it and just wait patiently as time went by and things evolved where the case could one day be solved. So, you know, great job all the way around, I think.

Yeah, definitely. No doubt. But that's it for another episode of Criminology. But like I said, tune in next week. We're going to dive in to this very bad guy Vincent Groves. But as always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a review, leave us a rating. Also, keep telling your friends. Word about the podcast really goes a long way.

If you want to find us on social media, we're on every major platform. Just search for Criminology Podcast on your favorites. And for news about the show, old episodes and more, head over to our website, criminologypodcast.com. And finally, if you want to join a discussion about the show and the cases we discuss, head over to Facebook and search for the Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans Group.

So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but we'll be back with all of you next week with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike.

And Morf.

We'll talk to you next week.

Take care, everyone.