The grisly murder of an Aurora family in 1984 was part of the inspiration for a recently released novel by Matthew Sullivan. In researching the book, Sullivan reached out to Detective Steve Conner of the Aurora Police Department. Conner, a 37-year veteran of the department, is the only officer working cold cases like the one Sullivan based his story on.
Conner says the department currently has more than 100 cold cases on file; he's actively investigating more than 30 of them, and recently filed charges in a 1995 homicide.
About a year ago, Aurora police issued a composite photo of what the suspect from the 1984 murder case may have looked like, both back then as well as today. Conner told Colorado Matters host Ryan Warner that the photo generated a number of phone calls, and he asked about a half-dozen people for DNA samples to eliminate them as suspects, but there hasn't been a breakthrough in the case.
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