CO CO - Audrey Elizabeth Hurtado, 17, Buena Vista, 27 July 1977

On Thursday, police in Buena Vista say they will reveal more on the murder with ties to Trinidad in 1977. CBS4 has learned it involved a 17-year-old girl.

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The last time anyone recalled seeing Audrey Elizabeth Hurtado was in Buena Vista on the evening of Thursday, July 27, 1977.

Witnesses said she was walking with a young man described as 5-feet, 8-inches tall with a medium build and wearing a light brown afro-style haircut.

He appeared to be in his early 20s.

Hurtado had met the young man at a Buena Vista park that evening.

The 17-year-old girl lived in Cokedale, just west of Trinidad and 183 miles southeast of Buena Vista.

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Deputy District Attorney Doug Anderson said the prime suspect was this unidentified man seen with Hurtado on Thursday evening.

She was seen with him in the afternoon and then in the evening someone saw her taking a walk with the young man.

“It may be nothing; it may be something,” Anderson was quoted as saying in an Associated Press article that appeared in The Denver Post on Aug. 1, 1977.

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Buena Vista police and Colorado Bureau of Investigation crime analysts have solved a 39-year-old murder mystery by identifying who fatally stabbed a 17-year-old girl.

The killer was a 15-year-old California boy identified only by his initials, C.K., because he was a juvenile in 1977 when he allegedly murdered Audrey Marie Elizabeth Hurtado of Trinidad, authorities announced during a news conference in Buena Vista.

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A week before the stabbing, C.K. stole a knife from a local gift and sporting store. When his family saw him with the stolen knife they made him return it to the store before the murder happened.

But on the day of the murder, someone stole another similar knife from the same store. Investigators would determine that the same style knife was used in Hurtado’s stabbing.

Investigators questioned C.K., but there was insufficient evidence to justify an arrest. Four years later, in 1981, C.K. was killed in a motorcycle accident.

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DNA samples were taken from family members of C.K. and two were compared to the evidence.

“The results indicated there was a match identifying C.K. as the murderer,” authorities said.

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"I pull that case out every year. For the family to finally have closure, to know who did, that brings some relief," Buena Vista police chief Jimmy Tidwell said. "Now the family can know that the person who killed her is no longer alive."

Campton said he was relieved that the murder was finally solved, especially when he found out it was the primary suspect identified by BVPD.

"We were on the right track. We just weren't able to wrap it up at the time," Campton said about the initial investigation. "It was a tremendous impact to the entire community. Everybody had a suspect for us. Everybody wanted to help and did all that they could to assist us in any way that they could. We all took it pretty personal."

While the case wasn't solved until after the culprit's death, family members Phil Martin and John Hurtado said they still feel justice had been served.

"It's ultimately justice, period," Hurtado said. "God took care of it in his own way."

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A composite sketch from the Aug. 4, 1977, issue of The Times was the same suspect later identified as C.K., Campton said.

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