Boulder police announce arrest in 1997 rape and murder

Catherine Tsai, Associated Press

Originally published 04:16 p.m., January 27, 2008
Updated 04:33 p.m., January 27, 2008

Susannah Chase

Diego Olmos-Alcalde

BOULDER — Police announced Sunday the arrest of a suspect in the rape and beating death in December 1997 of University of Colorado senior Susannah Chase.

"The department is ecstatic over this," Police Chief Mark Beckner said.

Boulder police had been widely criticized for failing to solve three murders in the usually peaceful city in the past 25 years, including the murder of child beauty pageant contestant JonBenet Ramsey.

Detective Chuck Heidel, who had worked the case from the start, broke the news to Chase's mother Friday. "She is extremely happy, she and her family," Heidel said.

The suspect was identified as 38-year-old Diego Olmos-Alcalde, who was being held $5 million bail on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping and first-degree sex assault.

"As you might imagine our emotions have run the gamut since we first heard of the DNA match with Susannah's case. We are delighted that a suspect has been identified and apprehended," said a family statement.

Beckner said all the information gathered so far indicates it was a random sexual assault, just a couple of blocks from her home. She was walking home alone in the early morning hours Dec. 21 after an argument with her boyfriend, news reports at the time said.

Police had never given up on the case, talking with more than 100 people possibly involved in the death of the 23-year-old from Stamford, Conn.

In recent years, as forensic science was enhanced, detectives focused on the DNA found in seminal fluid in Chase's body.

DNA from the suspect matched DNA found in Chase's body when it was entered into the national DNA database, apparently recently. Wyoming officials, reached by telephone, were attempting to provide more informaiton about Olmos-Alcalde.

He had spent time in a Wyoming prison for a kidnapping in 2000, Boulder police said. He was released to immigration officials in July of 2007. Olmos-Alcalde, from Chile, failed to report to Wyoming parole officials and on Saturday he was arrested by Boulder and Aurora police on the parole violations.

He was served with the murder warrant after his arrest.

• January 27, 2008

  8:19 p.m.

  BikerChick writes:

  (This comment was removed by the site staff.)

• January 27, 2008

  8:26 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  GWBushwacked writes:

  Yeah, hang him...<sarcasm off>

• January 27, 2008

  9:30 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  northfarmboy writes:

  I'm glad the Boulder police have stood up to the criticisms for not getting convictions in some of the high profile cases in their jurisdictions. Maybe they just couldn't because they didn't have enough evidence and weren't willing to railroad somebody as did the Fort Collins PD in the Tim Master's case. So good work in finding the correct person, if that proves to be true. Crimes hurt people and justice must be done...Yet, we are a society so in love with the notion of the redemptive value of punishment that we are awash in prisons and spend vast amounts of money on the system of crime and punishment. What if we were just as eager to spend money on education and the service that kept people whole?

• January 27, 2008

  10:21 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  eklektika44 writes:

  I am relieved to see Susannah's family will begin to have some closure in this horrible tragedy. I never knew her but I grieved just the same. I was out with friends on the night she was attacked, and we too made our way that night from the west end of Pearl St, where she was last seen, to the east side of downtown, where she was found. I later lived very close to that alley, and I have thought about this case often, hoping for just such a break. To the Chase family, my thoughts are with you.

• January 28, 2008

  6:48 a.m.

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  Houstongolfnut writes:

  Illegal alien?

• January 28, 2008

  7:22 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  T1anda writes:

  Once again, another dead American at the hands of an illegal alien!(according to the article, immigration is involved.) I wonder, if this beautiful young woman had been the daughter of a powerful politician, would Washington wake up then??

  What will it take?????

• January 28, 2008

  3:36 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Brittanicus writes:

  With Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma and shortly Indiana, Kansas and Missouri cracking down on illegal immigration, other states should do the same. Employers who break the law and hire illegal immigrants do not pay workman's compensation, unemployment insurance, state, federal or Social Security and Medicare taxes. Nor do they provide health insurance; instead, this burden is placed on taxpayers, forcing up insurance premiums. This situation puts employers who obey the law and pay all those expenses at a huge disadvantage.
  Illegal employers also encourage identity theft and the use of fraudulent documents. All states will slowly deny social services to non-citizens. If we don't, only two things can happen. Either many poor residents get a smaller piece of the pie, or politicians will raise taxes to cover everyone.
  Do we need higher health-care costs, higher taxes and larger, more crowded classrooms just so some businesses can exploit cheap foreign labor? Do you want your state to become a new border state?
  ONE LAST THOUGHT:
  Vote for any presidential candidate who will propose "THE FAIR TAX". Everybody, and I mean everybody, who lives in America, will pay? The wealthy who skirts the laws to the tune of $12 trillion dollars hidden in foreign refuges, will no longer be able to cheat the middle class.
  VOTE FOR THE "FAIR TAX."