In the investigation, leads faded and after about 18 months, the case went cold. A ski instructor told the newspaper that he began giving his girlfriend a ride to work, when before she'd catch her own. One woman told the Summit County Journal that she began locking her door at night, when before she had not. The murders would have been shocking anywhere, but they especially rocked the small towns in Park and Summit counties.Īuthorities warned women about the risks of hitchhiking. Annette remained missing for the next six months, until a young boy found her body, fully clothed, in a creek further south, near Fairplay.īoth women were believed to be hitchhiking on the day they disappeared. But sometime in the afternoon and evening hours that day, they disappeared.īobbie Jo's friends and family found her body the next afternoon, in a snow drift on Hoosier Pass, south of Breckenridge. They might have seen each other around town but they had no apparent connection. When two young women were found murdered south of Breckenridge, McCormick, like the rest of the rattled resort community, followed the story in the local newspapers.Īs detectives struggled to find the killer - to even find a motive - McCormick remembered thinking: "I'm glad I'm not working that one."īarbara "Bobbie Jo" Oberholtzer, 29, and Annette Schnee, 21, were both working in Breckenridge when they went missing on Jan. McCormick moved to Summit County in 1976 and carved out a steady career of private investigations, mostly focusing on civil litigation cases and pre-trial work for defense attorneys.
Charlie McCormick was done with murder cases.įive years in homicide left the Denver detective burned out, the dozens of killings each year draining his desire for police work.