Two women were killed 16 years apart. DNA now identifies suspect, Nevada cops say

Two decades-old cold cases, one out of Colorado and another out of Nevada, were closed after exhuming a suspect’s body, officials say.

DNA analysis showed Thomas Martin Elliott, who died by suicide in October 1991, was a suspect in both Teree Becker’s killing in Westminster, Colorado, in 1975 and Sherrie Bridgewater’s killing in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1991, according to Jan. 31 news releases from Westminster and Las Vegas Metropolitan police.

“Solving cold cases are very important to me, because not only were we able to solve a cold case, we were on the backside able to provide two different families in this case closure,” Lt. Jason Johansson with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said at a news conference.

Becker – a ‘free spirit’

Becker hailed from Casper, Wyoming, Westminster police said.

After graduating high school, she worked for a local newspaper, the Golden Bell Press, and eventually moved to the Denver area, according to police.

Becker’s family remembered her as a “free spirit,” who “lived life on the edge,” police said.

“They said she never met a stranger and would hold a conversation with anyone,” according to police.

On Dec. 4, 1975, Becker hitchhiked to see her boyfriend at Adams County Jail in Brighton, Colorado, police said.

This was the last time she was ever seen, according to police.

Two days later, police said a couple riding motorcycles through a field in Westminster, about 10 miles northwest of Denver, stumbled upon Becker’s body.

An autopsy showed she had been raped and strangled to death, according to police.

Though the case was investigated over the years, it went cold, police said.

In 2003, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation got a DNA sample from an unknown man and submitted it to the Combined DNA Index System, the FBI’s criminal justice database, police said.

There were no hits in the system until a decade later, when the DNA profile matched that of a suspect’s out of a cold case killing in Las Vegas, police said.

Sherrie Bridgewater’s case

Bridgewater was found dead in her apartment May 12, 1991, Las Vegas police said.

She too had been sexually assaulted and strangled, police said.

The case went cold, police said.

After getting a DNA profile from evidence, police said detectives submitted it to CODIS in 2013.

This sample matched the DNA sample from the suspect in Becker’s case, according to police.

Genetic genealogy leads to ID

Five years later, Westminster police said they and Las Vegas police turned their investigative efforts to genetic genealogy.

Genetic genealogy uses DNA testing coupled with “traditional genealogical methods” to create “family history profiles,” according to the Library of Congress. With genealogical DNA testing, researchers can determine if and how people are biologically related.

Elliott was identified as a suspect, police said.

To confirm Elliott was the suspect in the cold case killings, though, police said detectives had to exhume Elliott’s body, which was buried in a Nevada cemetery.

After his bones were collected and sent in for DNA analysis, Elliott was positively identified in December as the suspect in both cold case killings, police said.

Elliott’s troubled past

“Thomas Elliott spent a large portion of his life in and out of the prison system,” police said.

Elliott spent six years in prison connected to a Lakewood burglary “shortly before he murdered Teree,” police said.

During his prison time, Elliott moved about the Department of Corrections system, according to police.

He was released in 1981 from a prison in Las Vegas and was sentenced to prison again connected to a “crime against a child,” police said.

After serving his 10-year sentence, Elliott was again released in 1991 and went on to kill Bridgewater before dying by suicide in October 1991, police said.

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