Post by Scumhunter on Sept 8, 2018 1:40:32 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: Denver Post via Families of Victims of Homicide and Missing Persons)
From The Denver Post website:
Robert “Curly” Culberth was an Army veteran who served overseas during World War II.
After serving his country Curly and his 51-year-old wife Darlene dedicated much of their lives to serving the needs of the Veterans of Foreign Wars club.
Curly, 70, had served in regional and national positions and he and his wife had often volunteered at VFW clubs wherever they lived. When they lived in Chaffee County, they had volunteered at the Buena Vista VFW.
After working as a mechanic most of his adult life in the mountains, Curly retired in 1989 and the couple moved back to the Eastern Plains where they both grew up.
On Aug. 1, 1991, the couple was where they often had been, at the Lamar VFW club.
They had volunteered to work there like countless other times.
This time it was because the manager resigned about a month earlier. The Culberths were filling in until a new manager was assigned.
The couple arrived shortly after 1 p.m. that Thursday afternoon.
At 1:41 p.m., the alarm system at the VFW was disabled.
The computer in the cash register indicated the cash register was opened six minutes later at 1:47 p.m.
The club was scheduled to open at 2 p.m.
At 2:10 p.m., a woman pushed the buzzer at the front door and waited a few minutes for either Curly or Darlene to open.
When the reliable couple didn’t open the door, the woman became curious.
She walked to another door and looked through a window in the door.
The woman saw Darlene’s body slumped behind the club’s bar. She was crouched down with a bullet in her head and abdomen.
Murders rarely happen in or around Lamar. When people are murdered in the Southeastern Plains town, they are solved. Not much happens in the small community without someone knowing what happened and coming forward.
All have been solved except this case, which may be the most infamous crime to happen there. Most other murders in town were domestic-related.
“Everybody is in shock,” former VFW trustee Joe Mountain told Denver Post reporter Ed Will. “If the people were bad people, it wouldn’t be so bad, but they were wonderful people, and they were always helping others. They would help anyone.”
The Culberths have been dead for 24 years. Although one person was arrested briefly, before being released, no one has been charged with killing the couple.
At first, it didn’t seem like it would take very like to solve the case.
Mountain explained to Ed Will why a short investigation was expected.
“I am certain they knew who did it,” said Mountain, a conclusion he reached based on the circumstances.
It made no sense that the couple was killed in the apparent robbery otherwise.
The Culberths likely heard the buzzer. One of them went to the door, looked through the window and recognized who was at the door, and let them inside, Prowers County Coroner Joe Giadone said at the time.
Whoever it was pulled out a gun and ordered the Culberths to open the cash register.
Investigators estimated at the time that between $700 and $1,100 was taken.
The first break came later that month in July, when the suspect’s then-roommate Sean Lirley told sheriff’s deputies that a 380-caliber semiautomatic pistol – the kind used in the killings – had been stolen from his apartment.
Lirley provided them with spent cartridges, which showed the gun to be the murder weapon.
Lirley’s roomate Robert Filbeck was questioned at that time and told police his 12-gauge shotgun also had been stolen from the apartment, the documents say.
But the following month, after officers searched Filbeck’s 1972 Mercury Cougar and found his shotgun in the trunk, he was arrested for investigation of murder.
Police had also found a bank bag taken some time ago in a burglary at the airport.
An arrest affidavit said that Filbeck faced investigators at least seven times during the probe and he confessed to a series of burglaries and thefts at the airport and to selling cocaine.
Filbeck was never formally charged with murder, and was later released.
blogs.denverpost.com/coldcases/2015/08/01/colorado-6/10169/3/
Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) page on this case: apps.colorado.gov/apps/coldcase/casedetail.html?id=1517
Thoughts?
Admin Note #1: According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) page on this case, anyone with information should contact the Prowers County Sheriff's Office in Lamar, Colorado: www.prowerscounty.net/departments/sheriff/index.php
Admin Note #2: If you have any news-related updates on this case, please contact us here: amwfans.com/thread/1662/website-contact-form