Chase Murder Case Closed 12 Years Later

In June a Boulder jury found Diego Olmos Alcalde guilty of first-degree murder, felony murder, first-degree sexual assault and second-degree kidnapping of CU-Boulder senior Susannah Chase on Dec. 21, 1997. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Chase was walking home from downtown alone when she was beaten across the street from her Spruce Street house, dragged to a car, raped and left in an alley to die. Her murder rocked the community and led to a number of campus safety initiatives symbolized by the logo on the right, including the addition of dozens of emergency phones and expansion of the NightRide/NightWalk organization that pairs students with volunteers to accompany them home after dark.

For years police were unable to link a suspect to Chase’s murder, but DNA recovered from her body was preserved as evidence and finally matched with Alcade’s DNA.