Park County: Clear Creek County Man Arrested Cold Case Homicides from 1982

Clear Creek County Man Arrested Cold Case Homicides from 1982

Park County Sheriff Tom McGraw announced an arrest in two cold case homicides dating back to 1982 at a news conference held at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) headquarters on Wednesday, March 3, 2021.

Alan Lee Phillips (02/06/1951) of Dumont, Colorado has been arrested in the murders of Barbara Jo Oberholtzer (DOB: 12/25/1952) and Annette Kay Schnee (DOB: 01/16/1950) in January 1982.

Both Oberholtzer and Schnee were last seen hitchhiking outside of the town of Breckenridge on January 6, 1982. The women were not together. Ms. Olberholtzer’s body was found on the summit of Hoosier Pass the day after her disappearance. Ms. Schnee’s body was located six months after her disappearance in a rural area in Park County in July 1982. Both women had been shot.

“I am honored to make this important announcement after nearly 40 years have passed since these murders took place,” said Park County Sheriff Tom McGrath. “This arrest is the culmination of technology, extraordinary police work, and an unwavering commitment to justice for Bobbie Jo, Annette and their families.”

In 2020, in partnership with local, state and federal law enforcement, Metro CrimeStoppers and United Data Connect, new information was developed with genetic genealogy to identify a potential suspect in the case. Following comprehensive investigative work, arrest warrants for Alan Lee Phillips (DOB: 2/6/1951) were obtained in February 2021.

Phillips was taken into custody in Clear Creek County on February 24, 2021, without incident. He’s being held at the Park County Jail at this time.

Phillips faces the following charges:

First Degree Kidnapping (2 counts)

First Degree Assault (2 counts)

First Degree Homicide (2 counts)

Criminal charges are merely a formal accusation that an individual has committed a crime.
A defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty

parkco.us/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=669

More to the story, covered nationally in the Washington Post as well.

Sheriff on United flight spots SOS on Guanella Pass in 1982, decades later the rescued man's charged in a double murder
Alan Phillips was saved from the top of Guanella Pass in January 1982. On the same night, two women disappeared and were later found dead.
Author: Matt Jablow, 9News | Published: 6:19 PM MDT May 23, 2021

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Two young women disappeared from the Breckenridge area on the evening of Jan. 6, 1982. Both were last seen hitchhiking and their bodies were eventually found months apart.

On that very same night, a rescuer saved a man at the top of Guanella Pass who had been caught in a snowstorm. The two events remained seemingly unconnected for decades.

That is, until earlier this year.

Dave Montoya still remembers the day vividly. He was a fire chief in Clear Creek County in 1982.

Just before midnight, on Jan. 6, of that year, a dispatch operator called for a rescue. A man driving a pickup truck was stuck on Guanella Pass, where it was snowing heavily and the temperature was believed to be well below zero.

Montoya said he was told that the desperate truck driver had flashed an SOS signal with his headlights. Incredibly, just as he did that, the Jefferson County Sheriff at the time was on his way to California, on a United Airlines flight that just happened to be going over Guanella Pass.

The sheriff recognized the SOS and told the flight crew, who radioed down to get help.

A plane spotted his ‘SOS’ and saved him in 1982. It was the same night he killed two women, police now say.
By Jaclyn Peiser, Washington Post | May 25, 2021 at 3:29 a.m. MDT

As Harold E. Bray peered out an airplane window over the Colorado mountains one night in January 1982, he noticed flashes of light on a darkened pass below: three short, three long, then three short again.

It was an “SOS,” Bray, a local sheriff, realized. He quickly alerted the captain.

When rescuers on the ground made their way up to the 10,000-foot mountain pass in subzero temperatures, they found Alan Lee Phillips, 30, stuck in a snowdrift. His astounding rescue tale made national headlines.

But now, almost four decades later, it appears Phillips wasn’t an innocent motorist trying to make his way home in bad weather. In fact, police say, hours earlier he’d killed two young women who were hitchhiking nearby.

Genetic genealogy using DNA found at the crime scenes led authorities in Park County, Colo., earlier this month to arrest Phillips, who is now 70. He was charged with the murder of the two women, along with kidnapping and assault.