COLD CASE: STUDENT FOUND DEAD IN SOUTH PLATTE RIVER MAY HAVE BEEN VICTIM OF SERIAL KILLER

On Feb. 24, 1985, Denise Davenport, a student and sorority chaplain at the University of Northern Colorado, vanished - a case that rattled the college campus in Greeley.

On April 20, canoeists found her nude body in the South Platte River about two miles east of the city. It had apparently floated down river. Davenport, 20, whose family lived in Littleton, vanished after leaving work at a boutique at the Greeley Mall. She was wearing a bright pink two-piece suit with a white blouse and black pumps, the Weld County Sheriff's Office said. The young woman may have been a victim of a serial killer, a news report said. A suspect, who was sentenced to life in prison in a habitual criminal case, was never charged. He was considered a suspect in other slayings - the deaths of an elderly Windsor couple and a drifter found in Poudre Canyon.
Davenport "told a coworker that she was going to a car wash before picking up her boyfriend and was planning to attend an induction ceremony at her sorority later that night," the Rocky Mountain News said. She had been elected the sorority's chaplain.

"The following afternoon, a student spotted the car, a steel blue Mazda RX-7, parked near the UNC campus about five blocks from Davenport’s home," the News said. "The door on the driver’s side was unlocked, the radio was on, and the seat was soiled with mud and pushed back further than normal."

If you have information, contact the Weld County Sheriff's Office (970) 304-6464 or Crimetips@weld.gov. The exact location of the discovery of her body was in the South Platte between 18th Street and U.S. 34. In an odd twist, the News said: "A witness, under hypnosis, said she had spotted the car Davenport had been in, with its flashers blinking, the night Davenport disappeared. The witness said the car was parked at 26th Street and Seventh Avenue in Greeley. She recalled seeing two men and a woman nearby walking toward a pawn shop door."

[Photo: Weld County Sheriff's Office]