Suspect Arrested in 40 Year Old Breckenridge, Colorado Cold Case

Thanks to new DNA technology, authorities have made an arrest in connection with the 1982 murders of two Colorado women.

According to Denver7, the case began 39 years ago, when Annette Schnee, 21, and Bobbi Jo Oberholtzer, 29, disappeared while hitchhiking in Breckenridge. Though the women did not know each other, they were both last seen on Jan. 6.

Family members found Oberholtzer’s body in a snowdrift the next day, while a young boy discovered Schnee’s body in a creek later that year. Both had died from gunshot wounds. 

Authorities launched vigorous investigations — and even collected usable crime scene DNA in 1998 — but despite their efforts, the case went cold.

However, a break in the case finally came through United Data Connect, a company that uses genetic genealogy, or the tracing of DNA through a family tree, to solve the seemingly unsolvable.

Using the 1998 crime scene DNA, the data test led authorities to Alan Lee Phillips, a 70-year-old part-time mechanic from Dumont. He is currently in the Park County Jail, facing charges of murder, kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon.

“I pray that the arrest of Alan Phillips for the murder of my wife Bobbi Jo and Annette Schnee will finally, after all these decades, bring closure and peace to this hideous nightmare for myself, along with all the lives he has horribly affected by his actions,” said Jeff Oberholzter, Bobbi Jo’s husband, in a statement released by the Park County Sheriff’s Office. “I cannot thank enough all who never gave up the search for the truth.”

If you have any information about this case or Phillips, please call the designated tip line at (720) 248-8378.

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