Investigators say a rare DNA profile from 38-year-old evidence identified the deceased serial killer as the suspect.
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — Douglas County authorities said Tuesday they solved the 1987 killing of 30-year-old Rhonda Marie Fisher after new DNA testing linked the case to Vincent Darrell Groves, a convicted serial killer who died in prison in 1996. The announcement followed a months-long reexamination of preserved materials from the original scene.
Officials said the finding matters now because it closes one of the county’s longest-running unsolved homicides and adds to the known crimes of a man long suspected in multiple killings across the Denver metro area. Sheriff Darren Weekly said his office reopened the Fisher case early this year for a full review. Forensic scientists later developed a DNA profile from paper bags that had been placed over Fisher’s hands during the 1987 autopsy, then stored for decades. In late October, that profile matched DNA associated with Groves in the national database, allowing detectives to formally attribute the killing to him.
Investigators outlined the timeline: Fisher was last seen the night of March 31, 1987, walking north on South Monaco Parkway toward Leetsdale Drive in Denver. A motorist found her body the next day, April 1, along the 3500 block of South Perry Park Road, south of Sedalia in rural Douglas County. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. “Rhonda was a mother, a daughter and a friend,” Sheriff Darren Weekly said at a news conference. “Her family waited nearly four decades for answers, and now they have them.” Despite several rounds of work over the years—including a 2017 attempt to find DNA—the case had remained cold until the current review located untested trace evidence inside the bags.
Forensic details were central to the break. At the time of the autopsy, standard practice included placing clean paper bags over a victim’s hands to preserve any skin cells or fibers for the coroner. Those bags were archived and only recently submitted for specialized testing, authorities said. Shane Williams, a scientist with the Unified Metropolitan Forensic Crime Laboratory, told reporters that skin cells on Fisher’s hands transferred to the interior of the bags, producing a mixed DNA profile consistent with Fisher and an unknown male. When the partial profile was searched in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System in October, it hit against evidence from three homicides in 1979 attributed to Groves. Detectives also revisited witness interviews and case notes from the 1980s, which they said aligned with Groves’ pattern of targeting vulnerable women between 1978 and 1988.
Groves, who graduated from Wheat Ridge High School, was convicted of murder in 1982 and later linked through DNA to additional killings in Denver. Authorities said he was believed responsible for at least a dozen homicides, along with an attempted murder and a sexual assault, during a period when multiple serial offenders operated in the region. He was arrested in 1988 and died at age 42 while serving time in the Colorado Department of Corrections. Fisher’s case now joins the list of slayings attributed to him, though detectives emphasized that the exact number of Groves’ victims remains unknown. Weekly said his office had also examined another potential suspect over the years but needed laboratory confirmation before publicly naming Groves in the Douglas County case.
The sheriff’s office described the procedural steps taken this year: a cold-case unit assembled a complete inventory of stored evidence; items with preserved surfaces likely to capture trace material were prioritized; and the team commissioned advanced testing of the two paper bags from the autopsy kit. In late October, after the DNA match, investigators briefed prosecutors and notified Fisher’s relatives, including a cousin who remains in contact with the county. With the suspect deceased, no charges will be filed, and the case status is now listed as cleared by exception. Weekly said his agency has solved seven cold cases in seven years and has about 35 unsolved cases still open, some nearing resolution pending additional lab results or records searches.
At Tuesday’s announcement, officials presented images of Fisher and of Groves, and summarized the known movements around Fisher’s final night. They noted that Fisher may have been seeking a ride when she encountered her attacker, a scenario consistent with prior accounts of Groves approaching women along Denver corridors before driving them elsewhere. “Obtaining a DNA profile from paper bags nearly 40 years old is exceptionally rare,” Weekly said, calling the development a reminder of the value of proper evidence storage. Crime analysis supervisor and accredited investigative genetic genealogist Michelle Kennedy said her team would continue to compare characteristics from the Fisher file against other unsolved cases for potential links.
Authorities said the Fisher file will remain preserved, and any new tips will be documented, but no additional briefings are scheduled unless new information surfaces. Detectives plan to apply the same testing strategy to other archived items that may hold trace DNA, a process that could take months depending on laboratory throughput. For now, the Fisher homicide is considered closed, and the sheriff’s office will turn to two pending cold-case reviews that began this fall and are awaiting results from evidence submitted earlier this year.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the sheriff’s office said the identification stands as the latest in a series of cold cases resolved through modern DNA work. The next update from the cold-case unit is expected after year-end laboratory reports are processed.
Author note: Last updated December 3, 2025.