COLD CASE: MURDER OF DENVER'S JUKE BOX KING

Paul J. Hilst, owned juke boxes, invested in seedy nightclubs and died with a bashed-in skull and crushed chest.

Police found Hilst's body inside his home at 256 Bannock Street in Denver on Nov. 20, 1973 - and the homicide investigation went cold. He was 65.

Hilst's "coin machines were widely distributed, and he was a familiar though mysterious figure in the excise and licensing office," the Rocky Mountain News said.

The owner of Columbine Music Co. was something of a recluse - living alone and having few friends. He "moved in and out of bar circles with dexterity, buying property and leasing establishments, making loans guaranteed by revenue from his coin machines, and selling bars and later reclaiming them through foreclosure actions against the buyers," the News said.

Vending machines - a cash business - were controlled by organized crime families nationwide during the 20th Century. Testimony in a 1982 court case revealed Denver's Smaldone crime family had loaned money to the owner of a vending machine company called LPS Associates Inc. His name was James Charles Dress of 7456 South Pierce Court in Littleton, according to the News.

It's not known if Hilst and the Smaldone family worked together, too. Of course, his murder could have been tied his other business interests - or his very private life.

"Police broke into the locked house and found the man’s beaten body, his wallet, reams of papers and two bags of coins," the News said. "There were no signs of forcible entry, suggesting Hilst may have known the man who killed him."

Police "began contacting Hilst's known associates, many of them barflies, club owners, proprietors of several clubs know as homosexual hangouts, and perhaps Art Stratton —the former Denver Building Department examining board member who was fined $12,000 for embezzlement," the News said. "Hilst was a witness against Stratton."

[Photo: Denver Police Department]