Vicki Clements was born in 1960 and graduated from Denver’s Temple Baptist Academy in 1978. She married Paul Carpenter in 1979, and the couple had a son, Justin, in December 1981. Vicki worked for King Soopers as a secretary at their store on Montview Boulevard in Aurora.
Her marriage to Paul did not last, and the couple separated in August 1984. Vickie and her son moved in with her mother, Lynette Clements.
According to her Find A Grave online memorial, Vicki was “a popular, outgoing individual” who “enjoyed country-western dancing.” Her younger sister Michelle has described Vicki as “beautiful, popular, energetic.
Murder of Vicki Carpenter
On February 18, 1985, Vicki Carpenter, 24, visited Knicks Restaurant and Saloon, 7800 East Hampden Avenue, Denver, Colorado, for the first time to participate in a swimsuit competition. She left around midnight to go home. However, she never arrived. Lynette reported her daughter missing to the police the following day.
Lynette telephoned Paul Carpenter, 26, to tell him Vicki never made it home. Paul drove around the area of the nightclub. A few hours after his wife vanished, Paul found Vicki’s red 1967 Buick Regal in the Lodge Apartments parking lot at 8400 East Hampden Avenue, a half-mile from Knick’s. Paul noticed the car had a flat tire.
When the police inspected Vicki’s car, they noticed that the tire had not gone flat; someone slashed it. Witnesses at Knicks told the police they saw Vicki alone get into her white and maroon 1967 Buick.
Another witness told authorities that she saw Vicki at a 7-Eleven on East Girard Avenue after she left Knick’s. She said Vicki was with another woman with long dark hair. Police never found that woman.
Nearly two months later, on April 2, 1985, Bob Robertson, 18, and Scott Buyer, 14, were fishing in the spillway at Cherry Creek Reservoir at 1 p.m. when Scott hooked something large.
“We saw this thing floating around, and it looked pretty freaky,” Scott told a reporter in 1985. “It looked so realistic, just like a horror movie.”
Ben said, “He tried pulling it in, but it was too heavy.”
The Associated Press reported that Ben “waded out about 20 yards to secure a line to the boy and then pulled it ashore.” About five yards from shore, he noticed that a swing-set chain had been wrapped around the ankles and neck of a human body.
In a 2015 article on Vicki’s murder for the Denver Post, Kirk Mitchell writes, “Scott touched the arm to see if it was real and flesh came off.”
Dental records and fingerprints identified the badly bloated and partially clad body as Vicki Carpenter. Mitchell states that Vicki was “a former neighbor and babysitter for Scott and his sister.”
Dental records and fingerprints identified the badly decomposed body as Vicki Carpenter. Police believe her killer(s) strangled her because there was no trauma to the body, meaning she had not been shot or stabbed.
Police presented two possible theories soon after they recovered Vicki’s body. The first one involved someone seeing her at the swimsuit competition and following her after she left. Another theory mentioned an ex-boyfriend. However, no evidence pointed to either theory.
Eighteen days after the boys found Vicki’s body in the reservoir, another body was found north of Denver, and that case was eerily similar to Vicki’s.
Denise Davenport Murder
Five days after Vicki disappeared, another young woman also vanished. On February 24, 1985, Denise Davenport, 20, left her job at the Greeley Mall around 5:15 p.m. She had borrowed her boyfriend’s sports car and planned to go to the car wash. That night, Denise was to be inducted as an officer in her sorority at the University of Northern Colorado.
Denise never arrived at the induction ceremony, and her friends became concerned when she failed to attend classes the following day.
On February 25, authorities found the boyfriend’s abandoned car on 9th Avenue near Frazier Hall, with the doors unlocked, the radio on, and the driver’s seat pushed back, which led her boyfriend, Doug Kandel, 25, to believe another person had driven his car. Doug said Denise would not have left the vehicle unlocked and the radio on.
Police found dirt on the driver’s seat and undercarriage of the car but said it was of little worth to the investigation because it was consistent with soil in the Greeley area.
A witness came forward and said she saw a car at an intersection with its hazard lights flashing on the night Denise disappeared. She noticed a young woman walking with two men toward a pawn shop nearby. Investigators followed up on the lead but hit a dead end.
On Saturday, April 20, 1985, two men kayaking on the South Platte River found the nude body of a young woman floating in the river between 18th Street and Highway 34. Weld County Coroner Paul Stoddard identified the body through dental records as Denise Davenport.
The body was severely decomposed. Therefore, Stoddard was unable to determine the cause of death. However, he stated months later that it was “not a natural death” because she did not die from a stabbing, gunshot wound, or drug overdose.
Read my full article on the murder of Denise Davenport
Similarities Between the Murders
Capt. Don Klein of the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department noticed similarities between Vicki’s and Denise’s murders.
Klein said in 1985: “They’re both attractive young women. They both disappeared within a week of each other. They were both nude or partially clad, both victims’ automobiles were found short distances from where they were dumped in the water.”
Both bodies were found in April 1985, and each one did not suffer trauma such as gunshots or stab wounds. Authorities in both investigations believed the killers strangled their victims. Both murders remain unsolved nearly 39 years later.
Recent articles do not mention the two cases being connected, yet it seems likely. However, another man connected to Denise later murdered a gay man and might have killed Denise, too.
Other Similar Cases
Between 1975 and 1988, several women disappeared or were found murdered in the Denver area. A few are listed below. Not all of these may be related to Vicki’s case, and I also know how big the Denver area is, but some of them could still be connected.
Missing
The family of Rebecca Ann Kellison, 21, last saw her on June 24, 1976. Rebecca had joined her sister and brother-in-law at a few nightclubs the night before and spent the night at their home near East Colfax Avenue and Madison Street in Denver.
Between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m., Rebecca left a note for her sister saying she was returning to her home in Aurora. She did not have her car with her, so she might have hitchhiked. Rebecca never arrived home and no one has seen her since.
On March 31, 1983, Pamela Neal, 22, left her job in Englewood on her lunch break at 1:30 p.m. and walked two blocks east to another bank to cash a check. She withdrew several hundred dollars and stuffed the money into her coat pocket. Afterward, she stopped at a Safeway grocery store to buy a lottery ticket, a pack of Winston cigarettes, and a delicatessen lunch.
Pamela then walked to her third-floor apartment at 9 Hampden Avenue, across the street from her employer, to eat lunch before returning to work. She did not own a car. When Pamela did not return to work, her co-worker and roommate, Darlene Heintz, called the apartment at 2:30 p.m. When there was no answer, Darlene walked to the apartment. Darlene later told the police that she saw Pamela walking towards their apartment. One other witness also saw Pamela.
When Darlene arrived, the entrance door was ajar. She called her boss, who then called the police. Investigators never found Pamela or any evidence of her fate.
Click here to read my full article on Pamela Neal.
Homicides
On August 24, 1975, Rebecca Bell, 19, went to spend the night at a family member’s home. It’s unclear if she made it to their house, but the following day, someone filed a missing persons report with the Denver Police Department. Two days later, construction workers found Rebecca’s body in the South Platte River near the 15th Street Bridge. An autopsy determined the cause of death was drowning. Police investigated the case as a homicide partly due to injuries found on her body. Detectives also deemed the circumstances surrounding her death as “suspicious,” but they did not elaborate on the cold case website.
On March 27, 1979, police found the body of Bonita Raye Morgan, 18, behind the Dewitt Hotel in the alley of the 1500 block at Glenarm and Tremont Streets. The killer had strangled her to death.
On September 1, 1979, a family picking cattails found the body of Linda Ruth Hutchings, 17, down an embankment near Indiana and West 82nd Avenue. Linda was reported missing to the Arvada Police Department on August 15, 1979. She was last seen at a friend’s apartment in Lakewood and left a note in the early morning of August 15 indicating she was headed home. Friends believed she had intended to hitchhike.
On December 14, 1980, Denver police recovered the body of Julie Marchese, 18, found floating in the drainage ditch near the Pepsi-Cola Company, 38th Avenue and Arkins Court. Few details are available in her case.
On December 28, 1984, human remains were found in the South Platte River near the 5800 block of York Street and later identified as Lillian Olguin, 27.
One day after Lillian’s body was found, the remains of Helen Fukui, 52, were discovered on December 29, 1984, in Clear Creek near the 2300 block of Highway 224, about three miles north of where Lillian’s remains were found. In both Lillian’s and Helen’s homicides, the cause of death could not be determined, and no further information could be found.
After police recovered Denise Davenport’s body, they initially thought Lillian’s and Helen’s cases might have been connected to hers and Vicki’s.
On July 5, 1987, Karolyn Walker’s body was found in a ditch near the 21100 block of East Colfax Avenue. Her cause of death was strangulation and a blow to the head with a blunt instrument. Her killer had also severely beaten her. Reports vary on the events leading up to her death. CBI says Karolyn had been with her boyfriend, Gregory Moon, at his 1600 block of Moline Street residence. Another states she was working her job at Domino’s. Yet another report says she and Moon went to a Glendale bar. All sources state that Karolyn borrowed Moon’s car that night. On July 7, 1987, Moon found his vehicle parked in the lot of an apartment building at 13th and Colorado Boulevard, five miles from his home.
On or about April 29, 1988, Shannon MacLean, 19, and a friend were hitchhiking on Broadway in Denver. They received a ride from a white chubby male in his early 30s, 5’10 “, with brown hair, a mustache, and yellowing teeth, driving a brown station wagon with the word “Laguna” on the dash and a “Fish Naked” bumper sticker. The man dropped off Shannon’s friend; that was the last time the friend saw Shannon alive. Shannon’s body was found three months later near Highway 285 and Surrey Road in Jefferson County. Her body had no visible signs of trauma, which suggests her killed strangled her.
All of these cases remain unsolved.
Recent
Mitchell interviewed cold case homicide investigator Bruce Isaacson of the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department. Isaacson believes the first theory presented in 1985 regarding Vicki’s murder – that someone saw her at the swimsuit competition and followed her.
Isaacson theorized that Vicki noticed something wrong with her car and pulled over. Her killer either played the Good Samaritan and offered assistance and a ride, threatened her with a knife or gun, or simply abducted her. Isaacson also believes the killer stalked her but did not elaborate. However, the problem with this theory is that Isaacson did not mention Denise Davenport’s murder, and it seems very likely the two were related due to all the similarities. Denise’s killer could have been at Knick’s.
After Paul Carpenter found his wife’s car, he became a person of interest, but that is no longer the case.
If you have any information regarding the murder of Vicki Carpenter, please contact the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department at at 303-795-4711.
Primary Sources
Associated Press. “Teen Anglers Snag Body Wrapped In Chains.” The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, CO), April 3, 1985.
Clarke, Luke. “Woman’s Death May Be Linked To Others.” The Daily Sentinel, April 23, 1985.
Mitchell, Kirk. “Body Of Swimsuit Model Found In Cherry Creek Reservoir Spillway.” Denver Post, February 19, 2015.
Shapiro, Gary. “Unsolved: Young Mom’s Body Dumped In Reservoir.” 9News, May 9, 2018. https://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/unsolved-young-moms-body-dumped-in-reservoir/73-550375896 (retrieved February 14, 2024)
