GUILTY CO - Kathryn Grazioli, 87, slain, burned, Colorado Springs, 30 Nov 2011

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Colorado Springs Police officers said they've identified a body found near Lower Gold Camp Road on Wednesday.

Officials said the victim is 87-year-old Kathryn "Kit" Grazioli of Colorado Springs.

Grazioli's body was found around 2 a.m. on Captain Jack's Trail Head.

The El Paso County Coroner's Office said the manner of death has been ruled homicide, but the final cause of death will not be released until the autospy investigation is completed.

Officials arrested 21-year-old Marcus Smith of Colorado Springs for the murder in the first degree.

They arrested him around noon on Friday.

No additional suspects have been identified and are not being sought.

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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Colorado Springs Police detectives are looking through a house in an investigation that may be connected to a body found on a trail near Gold Camp Road early Wednesday morning.

Officers said they are investigating a home in the 1100 block of Samuel Point. They haven't confirmed the search is related to the body found on Captain Jack's Trail around 2 a.m. Wednesday, but The Gazette said officers are looking into the disappearance of an elderly woman at that address in the southwest part of Colorado Springs.

The body found was burned so badly, they were unable to initially determine the gender or age of the remains.

Investigators arrived at the home around noon Wednesday and have since put up crime tape around it and three neighboring homes.

Firefighters found the body after responding to a fire off Gold Camp Road.

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Defense attorney Josh Tolini told 4th Judicial District Judge Barbara Hughes during a hearing Wednesday that Marcus Smith has threatened to hurt and even kill him, and that Smith refuses to speak with Tolini.

Smith, of Colorado Springs, is accused of killing 87-year-old Katherine "Kit" Grazioli in Colorado Springs in November 2011... Smith was present in court wearing a spit guard for roughly the first 30 minutes of his hearing before Hughes removed him, as she has many times in the past...

Tolini told Hughes at the end of the hearing that Smith has serious mental health concerns that warrant a not guilty by means of insanity plea, but that Smith won't let his attorneys - his third pair of lawyers - enter the plea on his behalf. He threatens Tolini when the attorney tries to talk to him, Tolini said, and although he is more willing to speak with Hyatt, he makes inappropriate sexual comments to her.

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In the darkness off a mountain road west of Colorado Springs, what appeared to be a bonfire took on a ghastly new dimension.

Sent to extinguish an unattended blaze, Colorado Springs firefighter Steven Thime quickly recognized the features of a human foot... The haunting scene was detailed in court Friday at the murder trial of Marcus Smith...

Smith, who was on probation for burglary at the time of the crime, was found with Grazioli's credit cards and ID in his pockets. He had her blood on his shoe and left fingerprints on the window of her home and on her stolen car, which he allegedly used to take her body to the Cap'n Jacks trailhead.

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Investigators had high-tech help in the hunt for a stolen car belonging to an 87-year-old slaying victim: a powerful surveillance tool that Colorado Springs police use behind the scenes and rarely discuss in public...

The discovery of Grazioli's car was described as defense attorneys continued grappling with the fallout from their client's behavior in court, which included an episode in which a muttering Smith held up his arms and displayed his handcuffs to the jury...

He was kicked out of his trial on Friday, the first day of testimony, after a series of disruptions that included death threats against prosecutors.

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Marcus Allen Smith never stopped ranting - not even as a judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole.

An El Paso County jury on Tuesday convicted Smith of first-degree murder in the November 2011 killing of Kathryn "Kit" Grazioli, an 87-year-old church deacon who was strangled in her home by an intruder who set her body ablaze.

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