The Murder of Constance Marie "Connie" Paris, March 1968
Constance Paris, who also went by the nickname Connie, was an 18-year-old senior at Englewood High School in Englewood, Arapahoe County, CO. She lived with her parents, James and Marylou Paris, and her two younger brothers, Chris, 15, and Jeff, 11. Her father, James, was a postal worker. The Paris family lived at 3965 S Lincoln St.
Disappearance
Connie was last seen by her family at about 5:30pm on Tuesday, March 26, 1968 when she left home to work on a research paper for school at the downtown Denver Public Library, as its resources were more abundant than those at the Englewood Public Library. It was reported that Connie went to the DPL's Central Library at W 14th Ave and Broadway.
Connie finished working and packed up to leave at about 9:00pm, then rode on her usual 9:30pm bus home. She was seen getting off the bus — operated by Denver Tramway — by both its driver and three other passengers. She got off at her usual stop at the corner of S Broadway and E Girard Ave, about six blocks from her home at 3965 S Lincoln St in Englewood. The driver and passengers told police that no one else got off at that stop.
Connie's family said that while she would sometimes walk the remaining distance from the bus stop to her home, more often than not she would call her father to come pick her up. Connie did not call home that night, and it is assumed she instead began to walk home. The location of the bus stop was only 1.5 blocks from the headquarters of the Englewood Police Department (EPD).
This is the last time Connie was seen alive. She was reported missing by her parents early Wednesday morning after not returning the night before. She was described as "a studious type with no history of being a runaway or causing parental concern," and reportedly "had 'no problems' of any type."
Connie was an 18-year-old white female with blonde hair, brown eyes, and a fair complexion. She was about 5'5 or 5'6 and 115 lbs, and "of slender build." She was described as being very attractive. Her upper left front tooth was false. She had a scar on her left knee as well as one on the center of her forehead at the hairline. Both of her thumbs were reportedly "short and stubby," and she had a burn scar on her left wrist. She was born on March 17, 1950.
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| Photo from FindAGrave. |
Search
Searches for Connie began the same day that she was reported missing, Wednesday, March 27, 1968. That day Detectives Ron Frazier and Phil Carpenter, who had been assigned to the case, found clothing and a school notebook scattered along Little Dry Creek in Englewood; all items were identified as Connie's by her parents.
The recovered items were: a white turtleneck sweater, a blue cardigan sweater, blue shorts, one brown high-topped moccasin, a bra, a pair of underwear, and a school notebook with Connie's name on it. The items were discovered along Little Dry Creek between S Lincoln St and S Broadway, about four blocks from her home and two blocks from her bus stop.
The clothing was undamaged, and there were no bloodstains on any of the items. Both the outer sweater and the turtleneck sweater were inside-out when found, "as if they had been pulled off." According to one newspaper article, some of the clothing was, "carefully hidden under rocks." At this point in time, EPD investigators began to believe Connie was a victim of foul play.
Detectives also found a patch of hair in weeds along the bank of Little Dry Creek that same morning; it was found along with the clothing, notebook, and shoe, but its recovery was not immediately reported by the press like the other items were, as tests needed to be run to confirm the match.
By Saturday, March 31, 1968, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) determined that the patch of hair matched hair taken from two of Connie's hairbrushes. It was reported that the hair was not pulled out by the roots, "but further investigation and laboratory analysis is needed."
Searchers combed the fields of the Little Dry Creek area extensively, and waded through the shallow stream. On the second day of searching, Thursday, March 28th, Connie's empty billfold, second moccasin, and a hairbrush were found about 150 yards from the previously discovered items.
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| The locations of Connie's clothing and personal items relative to where she exited the bus. The distance between the clothing & notebook and shoe, billfold, & hairbrush was about 150 yards, both along the Little Dry Creek path. Created by me using Google Maps, screenshotted from Google Earth. |
The search for Connie was then widened that same day to include both sides of the South Platte River. About 100 searchers were led by Englewood PD officers and firemen, combing "open fields along both sides of the South Platte River from W Evans Ave to W Belleview Ave." Englewood PD also asked property owners and householders in the area, especially "those owning large brush-covered fields," to also search their land.
A press conference was held in the Englewood Police Station by Chief Jack Clasby on Friday, March 29, 1968. There, Connie's father, James Paris, appealed for help from the public. A reward of $500 — $4,702.06 today — was also offered. The reward fund was initiated by Englewood postal employees on James Paris's behalf, as he had been a letter carrier for two years at that point.
Chief Clasby announced the earlier discovery of the hair on Saturday, March 30th. He also told the press that officers, "were checking every known boyfriend of the missing girl. 'We have no reason to believe that any of her boyfriends are missing, but we have detectives assigned to the boyfriend angle.'" About 250 law enforcement (LE) officers and volunteers, as well as three Colorado State Patrol helicopters, continued the search for Connie that day.
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| Connie's whereabouts and relevant locations: the Denver Public Library's Central branch (light blue icon), her bus stop at S Broadway and E Girard Ave (yellow), the location of her clothing along Little Dry Creek between S Lincoln St and S Broadway (red), her intended location at 3965 S Lincoln St (her home, dark blue), and the location of her body about 50 ft off of the roadway in Bear Creek Park (orange). Locations pinpointed and graphic created by me using Google Maps, then screenshotted using an aerial view from 1984 available on Google Earth. |
Discovery and Findings
On Sunday, March 31st, 1968, two postal employees who had joined the search for Connie — forty-year-old Robert Gilmore and 42-year-old George Gilbert — were driving east "on the old Hampden Rd," west of Englewood and just inside Denver lines. They were searching the area after officers received a tip regarding a "suspicious car" that had been seen in the area on Tuesday night, when Connie was last seen alive.
It was at this point in time that the two postal workers noticed a mound of fresh dirt and "what appeared to be a piece of sponge rubber" about 50 ft from the roadway. This is when they found a body, which they immediately knew must be Connie.
The area was in a trash-strewn dumping ground just north of Ft Logan National Cemetery. The body was found at 11:15am on Sunday, March 31st in a weed-covered gully at the edge of — yet within — Bear Creek Park, a small Denver park along W Kenyon Ave and between Sheridan and Lowell Blvd.s.
The body was found partially covered by dirt and either two sheets of metal or a flattened water tank. A 21-year-old man named Gary Disheroon told police on Sunday that he and a friend had dumped trash in the area at about 3:30pm the previous day; at that point in time they saw no sign of Connie or the metal that covered her. Because of this, police theorized that the body was brought to the area late Saturday, March 30th. Tire tracks were reportedly found at the scene, though one article implied that they were from Gary Disheroon's truck.
An autopsy was performed on the afternoon of Monday, April 1, 1968. There were several marks on her throat, as well as scratches and bruises on her legs. According to one source, Connie may have also had a large cut on her right temple. There was also evidence of burning present on the body.
It is believed that Connie was attacked on the Little Dry Creek path just east of the 3500 Block S. Broadway, where her clothes and notebook were found. Investigators theorized that Connie resisted her assailant as she was beaten, and was able to escape her attacker at some point; it is believed the scratches and bruises on her legs originated from Connie running through the brush along Little Dry Creek, then possibly, "[falling] at the bottom of a small embankment and [being] recaptured by her tormentor there." Some of the wounds were also believed to have occurred postmortem, when her body was dumped in Bear Creek Park.
According to a few sources, there were indications that Connie "had been tortured, possibly with a cigarette lighter, before her death": there were several — possibly circular — burn marks on her pelvis.
It was determined that Connie had been strangled to death; it is unclear to me from the sources if this was done manually or with a ligature. Pathologists placed the time of death as the same night that she disappeared.
Contemporary news reports stated that Connie had not been raped. However, later newspaper articles from the 1970s stated that she had been either raped or sexually assaulted before she was killed. One modern source of arguable credibility — linked below — states that semen was found on Connie's abdomen.
[Note: While the alleged burning around the pelvis area is arguably a form of sexual assault (SA), the articles that claim SA occurred seem to be referring to something else, and often use it interchangeably with the term rape. Because of this, it seems that there may have been other indications of SA other than "just" the burns; despite the debated credibility of the source of this information, it is possible that semen was in fact found on Connie's body. Either way, I have still tagged this post with "SA or rape" because of the seemingly sexual nature of the burns Connie may have received, in addition to the fact that she was nude when found.]
Marvin Smith
Late in the evening of Tuesday, April 2, 1968, a 25-year-old man named Marvin Smith voluntarily went to Englewood PD headquarters. "Chief Clasby did not reveal [the reason for] Smith's appearance there or whether any information had been obtained during questioning. 'All I can say at the present time is Smith was known to be in the area where [Connie Paris] was last seen alive,' Clasby said."
Very early the next morning, Wednesday, April 3rd, EPD arrested Smith as a suspect in Connie's murder. Smith, who lived at 3450 S Patton Way in Denver at the time, was a patrolman for Rocky Mountain Security Police, a private investigative company. He was held in Englewood Jail.
According to Chief Clasby, Smith was held, "because he was circumstantially placed in the area where the girl was last seen after she got off a bus. He is the last person known to us to have seen the girl alive." He reportedly also gave "conflicting and unsatisfactory stories" to investigators regarding his activities on the night of Connie's death.
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| The location where Connie's body was found was about 0.57 mi as the crow flies from Marvin Smith's 1968 address. Created by me using Google Maps, viewed and measured using Google Earth. |
Smith was released from EPD custody on Saturday, April 6, 1968 after voluntarily submitting to, then passing, two polygraph tests. He also permitted "skilled examiners" to use sodium amitol, aka "truth serum"; he passed that test as well.
Furthermore, as then-Arapahoe County District Attorney Martin P Miller said, "[Smith] and his attorney have been most cooperative."
One year later, Smith filed an arrest damage suit against Englewood Police Chief Jack Clasby, two EPD detectives assigned to the case — including Ronald Frazier, one of the investigators who discovered the first set of Connie's belongings — and a Denver detective, who aided the original investigation. The suit asked for $47,000 — $422,083.95 today — for "false arrest, imprisonment, humiliation, and embarrassment," as well as for "negligently releasing details and conditions of his arrest to the news media."
The first trial ended in a mistrial. The second, which ended by December 19, 1972, led to a verdict in favor of the police officers that Smith had sued. The judge found that, "police had probable cause to arrest Smith in spite of his later being cleared."
According to a 2013 article from The Denver Post, as well as two later 9News articles that seem to cite the former, in 2011 Marvin Smith was completely cleared as a suspect, as his DNA did not match that at the scene.
Further Developments
Because her father was a veteran of WWII, having served in the US Navy, Connie was buried in Fort Logan National Cemetery, which is just south of where her body had been found. Over 750 mourners attended the funeral, which seems to have occurred on Thursday, April 4, 1968. Then-suspect Marvin Smith was still in police custody at the time. Seven of Connie's classmates served as pallbearers: Lester Hemphill, Don Hodgkin, Rick Wollenhaupt, Robert Fortin, Jim Maulis, Mike Perry, and Tim Stanberry.
According to Chief Clasby, after Smith's release on Saturday, April 6th, the investigation was still, "intensive." Another reward was posted on April 17th, this time for $1,000 — $9,376.77 today — for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Connie's murderer, again offered by postal workers. Robert Gilmore and George Gilbert, the two men who had found the body, waived any claim to the previous $500 reward.
On February 26, 1970, exactly one year and eleven months after Connie's death, another young girl went missing in Arapahoe County: Marilee Burt, who, like Connie, was a blonde, white high schooler, was abducted while walking to her home. She was later found in a creek, having been strangled to death.
The press reported a possible connection between the murders of Connie and Marilee. Arapahoe County Sheriff Roy Vogt said of the two, "Any time we have any unsolved crime and a new one, we look for connections. The condition of the body was similar in both cases and there appear to be some similarities in methods of operation."
As of 2025, it seems that investigators no longer believe that the murders of Connie Paris and Marilee Burt — whom I also plan on covering on this blog — could be related. According to a 2002 article from The Rocky Mountain News, the DNA samples from the two crime scenes did not match.
In 2013 it was revealed that a car was seen near the bus stop on the night of Connie's abduction, though this sighting had reportedly been initially discounted, as the witness was Marvin Smith, the security guard who was arrested then cleared. The car was a 1957 Ford sedan that was turquoise in color.
One online user has speculated that Connie, as well as Marilee Burt, were victims of convicted serial killer Kenyon Tolerton, who murdered a young woman and teenage girl in Arapahoe County in 1980 and 1994, respectively. A Facebook user has also commented the following:
"always wondered about this murder i was in jr high school when this happened i remember seeing them going through a field by our jr high school but the rumor had it that it was an englewood cop that did it and then after that it all went hush hush never heard again"
As always, the validity of these claims is unknown, and should be taken with a grain of salt.
The murder of Connie Paris is still an open investigation. Anyone with information in the case is urged to contact the Englewood Police Department at (303) 761-7410. The agency case number is 68-2575. Any little piece of information counts.
Sources
Families of Homicide Victims & Missing Persons
The Rocky Mountain News 3/28/68, 3/29/68, 3/30/68, 3/31/68, 4/1/68
The Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph 4/1/68 pt.s 1 & 2
The Rocky Mountain News 4/2/68, 4/3/68, 4/5/68, 4/7/68
The Daily Sentinel 4/17/68
The Rocky Mountain News 4/18/68, 4/6/69, 4/19/69
The Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph 4/20/69
The Greeley Daily Tribune 2/28/70
The Rocky Mountain News 3/1/70
The Golden Transcript 3/1/71 *
The Rocky Mountain News 3/1/71 *, 3/9/71, 12/19/72
The Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 2002 ***
Mentions/References
2013 Denver Post Facebook post regarding the above article, with comments
Denver Post Blog article [Google Doc]
Status: Pending podcast, 2021, Spotify, 33min
Crimelines podcast on Connie Paris & Marilee Burt, 2022, Spotify, 18min
Blog post by Christina Moe
2021 Colorado Community Media mention
* Note: The primary subject of these newspaper articles, the murder of Delores Jayne Martinez, was solved very soon after these articles were published. Carlos E Sanchez, 24, was arrested on March 1, 1971; as one later article put it, "The offense was traced to Sanchez mainly through soil tests, blood samples, and samples of hair found on the dead girl's body," as well as fiber samples that matched Sanchez's clothing; Sanchez consented to all of the searches and seizures. He was found guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree rape after an eight day trial in November of that year; he was sentenced to life in prison. In January 1974 he appealed the decision, but was dismissed and his conviction was upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court.
*** Also available in Files section of this blog.
Note: More clippings from The Daily Sentinel are also available on Newspapers.com, however those are from the Associated Press and are generally shorter, less detailed versions of similar articles from The Rocky Mountain News.
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