El Paso County Sheriff
Two years after Joel Hollendorfer allegedly strangled aspiring mannequin and escort Kara Nichols in Colorado, he confessed the crime to his spouse and instructed her he buried the physique on his dad and mom’ farm, newly launched court docket paperwork say.
Kristina Hollendorfer saved that secret for eight years—till investigators dusted off the cold-case file, tracked her right down to Virginia, and knocked on her door.
Now often known as Kristina Palmer, she instructed detectives in regards to the evening in 2014 when her then-husband requested her to go for a trip in his new truck and unburdened himself.
“She associated Joel instructed her he employed an escort and through intercourse in her automobile he by accident strangled her till she died,” police mentioned in an affidavit for an arrest warrant for Hollendorfer.
“Joel then transported her to his dad and mom’ property the place he buried her in an outdated horse grave with plastic baggage and lime. Kristina had no data of Joel ever transferring the physique.”
She additionally instructed detectives that Hollendorfer mentioned he had instructed his dad and mom what he did and that he believed it had pushed his father to his grave.
Armed with Kristina’s assertion, police obtained a search warrant for the Hollendorfer property in Colorado Springs and zeroed in on a spot the place his mom mentioned her favourite horse, Milo, was buried.
Three toes down, they discovered a rubbish bag, a human hand, and extra stays. Hollendorfer, 46, was arrested days in a while fees of second-degree homicide and tampering with bodily proof—ending a decade-old thriller.
The affidavit lays out how shut police got here to fixing that thriller years earlier—if solely that they had dug more durable.
After Nichols’ father reported the 19-year-old lacking in October 2012, police realized she had been working as an escort and had positioned an advert for a “horny new blonde on the town” on a labeled advert web site.
In 2013, investigators obtained information for the cellphone quantity that Nichols had listed and located a sequence of eight contacts with one quantity simply earlier than she went lacking.
Police referred to as and left a message, and Joel Hollendorfer referred to as again. His story was that he had been in search of an escort that evening—he instructed police he was into medicine and intercourse staff again then—and spoke with Nichols however didn't meet her.
Proof advised in any other case. Detectives used cell phone pings to determine the place Nichols had been the evening she talked to Hollendorfer, and the path led near his household’s property.
By now it was October 2014, and cadaver canine had been dropped at the property and floor penetrating radar was used to find out spots that had been disturbed. In line with the affidavit, Hollendorfer’s mom, Betty, walked across the property with investigators and identified the locations the place she mentioned horses had been buried over three many years.
For causes that aren't defined within the affidavit, none of it was excavated.
As an alternative, police went to a close-by property that Betty mentioned her son had entry to, the place the cadaver canine zeroed in on what regarded like the positioning of a shallow grave. “Nonetheless, there have been no human stays recovered,” the doc says.
It’s not clear if police consider Nichols was initially buried in that spot and later moved to the horse grave.
There was somebody who might have instructed them—Kristina—however in response to the affidavit, she by no means returned detectives’ calls.
Nichols’ household has lengthy maintained that the El Paso County Sheriff’s Division botched the preliminary investigation; the sheriff was run out of workplace amid allegations of misconduct in 2014.
“When my daughter went lacking, the division was in what seems to be full disarray,” Julia Nichols instructed The Denver Channel in 2016. “It leads us to assume little or no was performed in her case, regardless that they gave lip service to working exhausting to resolve my daughter’s disappearance.”