An orange sock is found at the crime scene of two different murders.
Bobbie Jo Oberholzer & Annette Kay Schnee |
Police believed both women were hitchhiking |
CASE DETAILS
On January 7, 1982, a woman’s body was found five miles south of Breckenridge, Colorado. She had been shot twice. The only two clues at the scene were a set of house keys and one orange sock. The keys belonged to the dead woman, but the orange sock did not.
A single orange sock was recovered
Six months later and 13 miles away, another woman’s body was found. She had also been shot to death. Police were stunned when they discover that she was wearing the match for the orange sock.
The murdered women were both locals: 29-year old Bobbie Oberholtzer and 21-year old Annette Kay Schnee. They both disappeared on the same day and both had been shot with a medium caliber revolver. The crime scenes were miles from one another and the bodies were found six months apart. And yet police believed that both women were murdered on the same night and by the same man. The prime suspect became Bobbie’s husband, Jeff Oberholtzer:
“I can only say that I didn’t do anything. As a matter of fact, we had just planned, several days before, that it was time for us to have children. I miss my wife. I did not kill her.”
Bobbie and Jeff were married on July 1, 1977, four-and-a-half years before Bobbie was murdered. Jeff ran an appliance repair business, and Bobbie worked as a receptionist. According to Jeff, the day of Bobbie’s death began as usual, she left home at 7:15 A.M. and hitchhiked to work:
“Everybody hitchhiked. You got to know the people in the town, and they got to know you, and they’d look for you to take you over and back if you needed a ride.”
At 6:20 that evening, Bobbie called to tell Jeff she was having drinks with friends after work:
“She said she was at the village pub. She was with friends and she’d be home soon. So I proceeded to put the supper on, and waited for her to come home. I woke up about midnight, and Bobbie wasn’t home yet. I thought maybe she’s kicking up her heels just a little bit and has forgotten about the time. Only she never came home. And I knew that something was not right.”
The missing sock belonged to Annette
Jeff drove into Breckenridge to look for Bobbie. Her friends told him she had left the bar around 7:30 pm. When Jeff reported to police that Bobbie was missing, they told him it was too early to file a report. Finally, he drove back home to wait for Bobbie.
The next morning, a farmer who lived 30 miles outside Breckenridge found Bobbie’s driver’s license on his property. When Jeff and two friends went to pick it up, they made a disturbing discovery:
“I spotted a blue spot in the snow. Her backpack was blue, so we stopped.”
With the backpack was one of Bobbie’s gloves, spattered with blood, and several bloody tissues. Jeff’s friends helped him organize a search. Two hours later, they found Bobbie’s lifeless body more than fifteen miles from where her backpack was discovered. At the scene, police found three intriguing clues. The only footprints near the body were Bobbie’s. A plastic cord was tied around one of her wrists. And the single orange sock was found nearby.
Bobbie Jo’s blue backpack was found
The same day Bobbie’s body was found, another woman, Annette Schnee, was reported missing. Annette was a co*cktail waitress in Frisco, Colorado, and like Bobbie, often hitchhiked to work. From the start, police believed that the two cases were connected. Former Colorado Bureau of Investigations Agent Jim Hardtke investigated the case:
“When I first asked Jeff if he knew Annette Schnee, he denied it. It was several days later, after seeing her picture in the newspaper, that he came to me and said that he did know Annette and he gave her a business card.”
Jeff claimed he had once picked up Annette when she was hitchhiking and he had given her his business card, but had never seen or heard from her since that day.
On July 3, 1982, six months after she disappeared, Annette’s body was found. Police were stunned when they discovered she was wearing the other orange sock. Jeff’s business card was found inside her wallet. Park County Sheriff Robert Harrison believed the connection was obvious:
“The fact that two victims would both be associated or known by one individual, well, it makes the investigation tend to focus on Jeff Oberholtzer as the primary suspect.”
Authorities pieced together a scenario for the two murders. Annette Schnee was last seen in Breckenridge at 4:00 P.M., involved in a serious conversation with a dark-haired woman. Police believe that around 5:00 pm, Annette left to hitchhike home. The killer picked her up and drove 20 miles south of Breckenridge. He took Annette down a short dead-end road and sexually assaulted her. Richard Eaton is the Summit County Sheriff:
“While she was getting dressed, she apparently found one long sock, put it on, and couldn’t find the second long sock. She then put an orange bootie on her other foot, and her boots on. She apparently escaped, and while running away, was shot in the back.”
Police believed the killer then drove back to Breckenridge and found his second victim: Bobbie Oberholtzer. The killer drove Bobbie ten miles south of Breckenridge, to a scenic overlook, where he apparently attempted to rape her. When Bobbie escaped from the vehicle, the bootie fell out. The killer then chased her down the road and shot her twice as she turned away. According to Jeff Oberholtzer, he believed his wife knew her killer:
“My wife wouldn’t have gotten into a vehicle with just a couple strange guys. She knew that she could call for a ride if she wanted to. I think she knew someone and that they left together with a promise to her of taking her home.”
Two months after his wife was murdered, Jeff Oberholtzer took a polygraph exam and passed. From day one, Jeff insisted that he had a rock-solid alibi. He said that at the time the murders were committed, he was at home visiting with a friend. But Jeff was unable to produce the witness for police. Then, finally, in December of 1990, Jeff’s friend surfaced. Sheriff Eaton interviewed the man:
“He stated that he had been at Jeff’s house that night. However, the times that he gave us did not match up with the times that Jeff had given us.”
Jeff Oberholtzer has always maintained his innocence:
“As far as the finger being pointed at me, I’m still very, very angry about that. If different agencies had pursued different avenues and not concentrated so much on trying to find me guilty, we may have found out who did this to these girls.”
The Summit County Sheriff’s Department has cleared Jeff Oberholtzer as a suspect in the murder of his wife, Bobbie Jo, and Annette Kay Schnee. The investigation remains open.
UPDATE:In March 2021, Clear Creek County authorities tailed a 70-year-old Alan Lee Phillips as he was driving near his home in Dumont and pulled him over. Using a DNA sample from the crime scene to create a family tree, authorities were able to connect Phillips to the two murders. Phillips was arrested, and tips are still encouraged to support the investigation.
Watch this case now on Amazon Prime in season six with Dennis Farina. Also available on YouTube with Dennis Farina. Various seasons available now on Hulu.
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