unsolvedmysteriesfan
02-03-2008, 06:39 PM
Genetic fingerprint leads to suspect in 1976 slaying
By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Saturday, February 2, 2008
After 31 years of questions about who raped and stabbed his sister, Dave Andrews found it difficult Friday to comprehend the news that a DNA test had finally led to an arrest.
"I'm up and down," he said, several hours after agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and deputies from the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office delivered the shocking news. "I'm happy and all nervous.
"It's been a long time. I thought this guy was dead. I didn't think he'd ever be caught," Andrews said.
Friday morning, authorities arrested Ricky Lee Harnish, 52.
Harnish faces murder and kidnapping charges in the December 1976 murder of 16-year-old Holly Marie Andrews, a majorette at Columbine High School who left her mother's house the day after Christmas and vanished.
CBI agents and Clear Creek deputies picked up Harnish at an Aurora halfway house, where he was working off a sentence in a 2005 drug case. That felony conviction forced him to submit to a DNA test, and it was recently matched to a genetic fingerprint left on Holly Andrews' body.
Holly Andrews, who struggled as a teen-ager with drugs and other problems, had completed an eight-week stay at the Fort Logan Mental Health Center and returned home shortly before Christmas 1976. Her parents had divorced several years earlier, and though she lived with her father, she also spent time at her mother's Littleton home.
On Dec. 26, 1976, she left her mother's home in the 5200 block of South Grant Street to visit a friend. She didn't return home, and at first her family thought she might have run away.
But the next day, two cross-country skiers found her battered body along a gravel road near Bakerville, five miles west of Georgetown in Clear Creek County.
She was naked except for a pair of blue knee socks. Her killer stabbed her in the back six times and slashed her chest.
For years, the case remained unsolved. Then, in 1983, Henry Lee Lucas confessed to killing Holly - and hundreds of others.
Holly's mother, Leona Madson, died in 1997 believing that Lucas was the killer. However, authorities later came to doubt many of Lucas' confessions, and when he died in 2001, nobody was sure how many murders he and his partner, Ottis Toole, were actually responsible for.
The case remained ice cold until the recent DNA match.
Records indicate that in 1976, Harnish's parents lived less than 11/2 miles from the home where Holly Andrews' mother lived.
Harnish was booked into the Clear Creek County jail, where he was being held without bail pending the formal filing of charges.
After the arrest, officers went to the home of Dave Andrews and his wife, Linda.
He had already gone to work, but she reached him on the phone and he later met with the officers at CBI's Lakewood headquarters.
"When the detective said he wanted to talk to me about my sister, I knew they had somebody," Andrews said.
Several hours later, he was still trying to absorb it all.
"This is how I feel," he said. "I've seen my sister come up numerous times on Unsolved Mysteries related to Henry Lucas, who was cleared when he died, and now I can't wait to see Unsolved Mysteries 'solved.' "
Holly was 11 months younger than her brother, who said that over the years he was haunted by the unanswered question. Now he is anxious for the case to work it's way through the system.
"I love my sister," Andrews said. "Justice is going to be served."
By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Saturday, February 2, 2008
After 31 years of questions about who raped and stabbed his sister, Dave Andrews found it difficult Friday to comprehend the news that a DNA test had finally led to an arrest.
"I'm up and down," he said, several hours after agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and deputies from the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office delivered the shocking news. "I'm happy and all nervous.
"It's been a long time. I thought this guy was dead. I didn't think he'd ever be caught," Andrews said.
Friday morning, authorities arrested Ricky Lee Harnish, 52.
Harnish faces murder and kidnapping charges in the December 1976 murder of 16-year-old Holly Marie Andrews, a majorette at Columbine High School who left her mother's house the day after Christmas and vanished.
CBI agents and Clear Creek deputies picked up Harnish at an Aurora halfway house, where he was working off a sentence in a 2005 drug case. That felony conviction forced him to submit to a DNA test, and it was recently matched to a genetic fingerprint left on Holly Andrews' body.
Holly Andrews, who struggled as a teen-ager with drugs and other problems, had completed an eight-week stay at the Fort Logan Mental Health Center and returned home shortly before Christmas 1976. Her parents had divorced several years earlier, and though she lived with her father, she also spent time at her mother's Littleton home.
On Dec. 26, 1976, she left her mother's home in the 5200 block of South Grant Street to visit a friend. She didn't return home, and at first her family thought she might have run away.
But the next day, two cross-country skiers found her battered body along a gravel road near Bakerville, five miles west of Georgetown in Clear Creek County.
She was naked except for a pair of blue knee socks. Her killer stabbed her in the back six times and slashed her chest.
For years, the case remained unsolved. Then, in 1983, Henry Lee Lucas confessed to killing Holly - and hundreds of others.
Holly's mother, Leona Madson, died in 1997 believing that Lucas was the killer. However, authorities later came to doubt many of Lucas' confessions, and when he died in 2001, nobody was sure how many murders he and his partner, Ottis Toole, were actually responsible for.
The case remained ice cold until the recent DNA match.
Records indicate that in 1976, Harnish's parents lived less than 11/2 miles from the home where Holly Andrews' mother lived.
Harnish was booked into the Clear Creek County jail, where he was being held without bail pending the formal filing of charges.
After the arrest, officers went to the home of Dave Andrews and his wife, Linda.
He had already gone to work, but she reached him on the phone and he later met with the officers at CBI's Lakewood headquarters.
"When the detective said he wanted to talk to me about my sister, I knew they had somebody," Andrews said.
Several hours later, he was still trying to absorb it all.
"This is how I feel," he said. "I've seen my sister come up numerous times on Unsolved Mysteries related to Henry Lucas, who was cleared when he died, and now I can't wait to see Unsolved Mysteries 'solved.' "
Holly was 11 months younger than her brother, who said that over the years he was haunted by the unanswered question. Now he is anxious for the case to work it's way through the system.
"I love my sister," Andrews said. "Justice is going to be served."