Stephanie Bauman: 15-year-old girl stripped, dies of exposure
15-year-old girl stripped, dies of exposure
Denver Post, The: Blogs (CO) - Sunday, September 26, 2010
Victim's name: Stephanie Bauman, 15
Location body found: County Road 173 near U.S. 36
Investigative agency: Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office
Date killed: Oct. 28, 1980
Cause of Death: Hypothermia
Suspect: None identified
The last hours of 15-year-old runaway Stephanie Ann Bauman's life were hellish.
Stephanie Bauman, courtesy Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office
Someone or a group of people apparently forced her to disrobe in sub-freezing temperatures on Oct. 28, 1980 near a windmill in rural Arapahoe County. She may have been beaten and sexually assaulted.
At some point, she ran barefoot and nude down a trail and on a dirt road for four miles in a desperate attempt to escape her tormentor.
There was evidence she was followed by a car filled with as many as five people who harassed her and prevented her from seeking help. Exhausted, she fell in a ditch and froze to death after wandering in circles.
"She must have been terrified," said her sister Cindy Bovell, 49, of Woodbridge, Va. "She probably felt there was no one there in the world for her. It breaks your heart."
Bauman lived a sad life, her father Robert Bauman, 73, of Missouri said.
"She had a hard life as a youngster," Bauman said.
When she was young, her parents were divorced and she alternated between living with her mother in St. Louis and her father in Littleton.
While in Colorado, Bauman did the best he could to provide for his three children, a boy and two daughters. He would take them to the grocery store or out camping. He built a play house for them in his back yard, Bovell said.
Although Stephanie did well in school, Bauman was worried that she was using drugs. She ran away from home a few times saying she was going to her mother's house.
Finally, Bauman said he placed her in a group home for troubled teen-agers.
Arapahoe County Sheriff's investigators say the group home had strict rules and Stephanie and a friend ran away.
For about two weeks Stephanie moved from home to home of friends.
Shortly before her body was found, she had tried to arrange to return home. She never made it.
Some people speculated that Stephanie had met a pimp and that he demanded something she wasn't willing to do, Bovell said.
Two witnesses would tell police that early in the morning on Oct. 28, they saw a late model silver Lincoln sedan with four women inside. The two in the front seat appeared to be dressed and acting like prostitutes, according to a Denver Post article written at the time. It was a conspicuous sight on dirt roads about 5 miles south of Byers at that hour in the morning, Bovell said.
Many hours later, one of the same witnesses saw the silver Lincoln, but this time there were only three women inside the car.
Early the next morning, a passing motorist on County Road 173 near U.S. 36 did a double take before stopping his car and confirming a gruesome sight, Arapahoe County authorities say.
Laying in a ditch on the side of the road was the nude, bruised body of a girl or a young woman. The cause of death was hypothermia.
But with no identification, authorities couldn't figure out who she was. A Denver Post employee, Bonnie Timmons, drew an illustration of what the young person would look like using an autopsy photograph of her face.
Illustration by Bonnie Timmons
Former Denver Post reporter Dana Parsons gave a detailed account of the last hours of the young girl's life, according to fact provided by former sheriff's Sgt. Ron Martin.
According to Martin's account, reported by Parsons, the girl's nightmare began near a rickety windmill and water trough filled with frozen water, just off County Road 161. Investigators found a pile of girl's clothes along with a man's camel-colored, size-42 coat. There were blue jeans, a light blue sweater, running shoes, one white sock with green and yellow striping and women's underwear.
Parsons gave the following account of her steps after she left the windmill:
"From there the girl walked briskly or ran down a dirt path to County Road 161. She walked on the left side of the road, which had a shallow ditch beside it. Martin estimated it was about 4 a.m.
"She headed south and at one point footprints indicate she walked down into the ditch, then back out, slipping in the dirt as she did. At another point, she apparently walked into the middle of the dirt road.
"Along the way, she should have been able to see the lights from at least three farmhouses that were less than a mile away. Why didn't she seek refuge? If someone was with her, did the person or persons prevent her? Or, did she want to stay on the road, perhaps knowing where she was going?
"At no point along her 4-mile route did investigators find any footprints other than those of the woman.
"She walked along 161 for about three-tenths of a mile, when she came to its intersection with Colorado 30, the extension of Quincy Avenue. She followed that highway for about 2.8 miles, when it ended and turned into County Road 173.
"But along Colorado 30, something telling might have happened. At one point, car tire tracks made it clear that a car drove part way into the ditch, then back out again. At the same point, footprints indicate the woman was standing with her back practically up against a wire fence, about 20 feet off the road, clearly suggesting she was getting out of the way of the car.
"Again, the questions. Was the car driven by someone harassing the woman? Or, was it a passing motorist who lost control temporarily? If so, and assuming the driver saw the woman, why wasn't help summoned?
"Another troubling aspect of the case arose at that point. From then on, investigators can't identify any more tire marks alone the route the woman walked. That doesn't prove the car didn't continue following her, Martin said, if that's what it had been doing. It simply is a matter of the physical evidence disappearing there.
"Martin reasons: If the car did abandon her, why wouldn't she retrace her steps and go back after her clothing. Why keep walking in the pitch-black night at a time when she must have been freezing.
"In any event, the woman continued walking. She reached the end of Colorado 30 and turned north. She was about to walk the final mile of her life.
"She walked about a half mile, where her footprints indicate she was walking in the middle of the dirt road. She stayed there until she collapsed a few hundred yards farther on.
"Indications are she slumped off to the side of the road, rolled over into the shallow ditch and died. Martin estimates she died around 6 a.m. based mainly on the fact that the road becomes more heavily traveled about 6:30 a.m. and, had she still been walking, he thinks someone would have seen her."
The witness who saw the three women parked southbound on County Road 173 at 9 a.m., would tell authorities the women appeared to be upset. They were about 4 1/2 miles north of where Stephanie's body was found, according to Parsons' article.
The witness stopped with the intention of asking the women if they needed help but the Lincoln did a difficult U-turn on the narrow road, pulled onto Highway 36 and headed west.
But according to Martin, the young woman's clothes didn't appear to be those of a prostitute. Authorities put the witness under hypnosis but he could not recall the license plate number of the silver car.
When Parsons' article and Timmons' illustration of the dead girl or woman appeared in the Denver Post on Nov. 9, 1980, Jean Bauman, Robert Bauman's second wife, was in her kitchen talking with her aunt about the horrifying story of the unidentified woman who had been stripped and froze to death.
Jean Bauman suddenly got a horrible thought and looked at the illustration. It was a close resemblance to Stephanie.
Robert Bauman said he was taken to the county coroner's office. There on a table was her daughter. Her body was completely covered except for her head.
"I identified her body," he said.
Bovell said her death has tortured him for 30 years. It devastated the family, she said.
"Whoever did this was just evil," she said. "Some people think it was a pimp. That she said no to the wrong person. Someone is getting away with murder."
When she went to her sister's funeral and the casket was closed, it finally sunk in to Bovell the horror of what had happened.
"I'm sure it was torment. That's the worst part. It took me 15 years to stop being angry," Bovell said.
Still, she would like to talk to whoever caused her sister's death. Maybe someone who knows what happened will some day feel compassion and tell what they know, she said.
"At least we got to bury her. A lot of people who lose children don't know where there children are," said Bovell, who is four years older than her sister.
According to Jefferson County investigators, DNA was taken from the crime scene and could some day help identify the killer or killers.
Contact information: Anyone with information about the can can call the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office can be reached 303-795-4711, or
Coldcase@co.arapahoe.co.us. Denver Post reporter Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or
kmitchell@denverpost.com
Denver Post, The: Blogs (CO) - Sunday, September 26, 2010
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