The Denver Hammer Killer cases seemed like they would never be solved, until police persistence, technology, and DNA all converged. We now know with certainty the name of this monster: Alex Christopher Ewing.
As a member of the true-crime community for well over thirty years, there are a few cases that stick with me. One would be the Denver Hammer Killer. I remember hearing about these murders from various news broadcasts in the 1980s. In the early versions of the Denver Hammer Killer, the different cases were not all linked together. It was a scary time for a young Colorado girl to learn about the craziness happening in the Denver area. This was one of the staple cases that intrigued me about true crime, and I have followed it through the years.
Alex Christopher Ewing: Denver’s Hammer Killer
I will go back and go through the timeline of this murderer’s crimes, his victims, and their locations. I will also briefly touch on the various trials, and I want to talk about the survivors too. These are tough cases with murders, assaults, and adult and child sexual assaults.
I must insert my opinion here for a moment. I believe Alex Ewing is evil with a capital E. My mind just can’t fathom what would make someone commit such horrible crimes. I’m sorry that he hurt so many lives, and I’m glad he’s behind bars.
Another Colorado Spree Killer
On January 4, 1984, James and Kimberly Haubenschild were attacked in their Aurora, Colorado, home. Kimberly, who prefers to go by Kim, has stated that she awoke to a flash of pain and sat up in bed to see the silhouette of a stranger, his arm raised above his head to strike another blow with a hammer. Kim screamed. This seemed to have startled the silhouette, and he threw the hammer and fled her bedroom. Despite the skull fractures he had sustained in the attack, her husband, James, got up and chased after the intruder out into the snowy night, trying to follow the stranger’s footsteps. James did this battered and bloody. At the same time, Kim called the operator from her home phone and reported being attacked to the police. This was only one of the first attacks that occurred in January of 1984.
Also, on January 4, 1984, flight attendant Donna Dixon returned home after shopping. She pulled into her garage and was reaching toward the passenger side of her car to gather packages and her mail when someone struck her from behind.
Donna does not recall everything else that happened to her. She was pulled from her car and ended up bending the emergency brake lever on the floorboard vehicle as she was pulled out, and then she was sexually assaulted.
Rob, Donna’s fiancé at the time, was an airline pilot who was away from the home. When he returned a few days later and got out of his vehicle, he noticed blood in the garage. Panic-stricken, he raced upstairs and found Donna in bed. She still had blood dried in her hair, and she didn’t respond as she normally would have.
Rob rushed her to the hospital. According to Donna’s story, she went into a coma. Eventually, she did wake up, but her life as a flight attendant would have to be put on hold due to the severity of her injuries. She had brain damage and couldn’t remember how to do simple things such as eating with silverware or even what silverware was, for that matter. She eventually did re-learn these things and returned to her career about a year and two months after her attack. That speaks volumes about this woman’s determination.
Patricia Smith’s Murder
The next attack happened on January 10, 1984, to Patricia Smith. She was bludgeoned to death after being sexually assaulted in her Lakewood home. She was an interior designer and often helped with picking up and dropping off her grandchildren to their schools and other functions to help her daughter out. Patricia was known to be a very punctual person, she was loving, and she cared for her grandchildren very much. She was found by her daughter and two of her grandchildren when she failed to pick up her granddaughter from school earlier that day. Patricia lay naked and battered, with her blood soaking through her four-year-old grandson’s security blanket.
Denver Hammer Killer’s Last Attack in Denver
On January 16, 1984, the Bennett family in Aurora was brutally attacked. Three would die, although the youngest, Vanessa, who was severely injured, would survive. Bruce Bennett had gone downstairs to warm a bottle for three-year-old Vanessa, and when he entered the kitchen, he was assaulted and beaten with a hammer. Bruce fought back and was stabbed to death. His body was found on the lower part of the staircase in his home by his mother, Connie, when she stopped by after being unable to reach him by phone.
Upstairs in the master bedroom, Debra Bennett’s body was located by police. It was still covered with blood-soaked bedding. Debra had been stabbed and bludgeoned to death in her bed, and she also showed signs of being raped.
The police next went into the children’s room, where they found seven-year-old Melissa Bennett with her nightgown pushed up and her legs dangling to the floor at the bottom of the bed. She had died of blunt force trauma to her head. She had also been sexually assaulted.
On the other side of the room, little Vanessa lay between the bed and the wall. She had been bludgeoned. At first, the police thought she had also succumbed to her wounds. She made a noise or something, and they rushed her to the hospital. She had several broken bones, and she had been sexually assaulted.
The twelve-day murder spree in Denver seemed to stop. The cases were investigated, but there were never any witnesses who came forward who could identify the attacker in all these cases. But that didn’t stop the police. They turned every leaf and every stone that they could possibly think of. Eventually, these cases were compared with other departments, and the Lakewood and Aurora police departments figured that they might be dealing with a single assailant in all these cases.
Denver Hammer Killer Flees Colorado
After the Bennett family attack and murders, Alex Ewing caught a ride with a truck driver in Denver all the way to Kingman, Arizona. The Denver Post newspaper stated the trucker’s name was Fred. Kingman Sheriffs later questioned this trucker after this next attack.
Ewing Attacks Again in Arizona
On January 26, 1984, Roy Williams in Kingman, Arizona, was jolted awake in his home in the 800 blocks of Evelyn Drive when a twenty-five-pound slab of granite rock struck him. He sustained a broken rib and a gash on his head that required 100 stitches. The man was taken to the hospital with severe injuries, and he survived. Amazingly, two days after the attack on Williams, a suspect was apprehended. Twenty-three-year-old Alex Christopher Ewing was arrested in the Kingman assault and booked by the Mojave County Sheriff’s Department into jail. However, the jail was experiencing overcrowding, so Alex was moved to Washington County Jail in Utah to await trial on the attempted murder charge.
On August 9, 1984, Ewing was being transported by the Mojave County Sheriff’s Department in a van from Henderson, Nevada, back to Kingman, Arizona, for the trial of his assault on Roy Williams. The van stopped at a Texaco station, and Ewing escaped. He ran across the street into the K-Mart department store, stole some shorts, and changed out of his orange jumpsuit. Then he fled on foot, but he didn’t go far. He ran into the home of Christopher and Nancy Berry. He beat them nearly to death with an ax handle that he found in their garage. Christopher, who was thirty-four at the time, and Nancy, who was twenty-four, both survived their attacks.
On March 1, 1985, Alex Ewing was sentenced to forty years for the assault on the Berrys. He would serve his time in the North Nevada Correctional Facility in Carson City. Together with his attempted murder sentence, Ewing had a 110-year sentence to serve.
Meanwhile, Back In Colorado
Denver police had no intention of letting this case remain cold as time passed. The police and sheriffs continued trying to keep it in the public eye in hopes that someone knew something. In the background, they had a deep-seated suspicion that this type of murder spree wouldn’t stop until the suspect was caught. With this in mind, they reached out to other law enforcement agencies.
This killer’s insatiable need for violence had to have continued somewhere; eventually, this assumption led them to the Henderson, Nevada case. But before they got there, they heard about a murder suspect being caught through new technology known as genetic phenotyping. It gave a face to a suspect in Virginia that led to an arrest in a cold case.
DNA Phenotyping Gives Police a Face
In 2017, the police put out a suspect description and a progressed or age-progressed image of what they believed a suspect could look like.
“But how could they do this if there were no witnesses?” I can hear you asking. I wondered the same thing.
It turns out that the Denver police had hired a Virginia-based company called Parabon. This company does phenotyping DNA facial reconstruction. Parabon has had success in helping to find some missing people for their families. They have also had success in a couple of other murder cases. The Denver police, not wanting to let this cold case age much more, were desperate.
The Aurora Police Department posted a picture of a suspect rendered by the phenotyping DNA analysis. Then it was circulated by different news media outlets in the Denver area and across the United States.
More DNA Evidence
While this was being done, authorities also had in their possession DNA evidence from the rape of Melissa Bennett, vaginal swabs, and semen from the comforter and the carpet around her body. From Patricia Smith’s murder, they had semen samples collected from her body and on the carpet where she was found. When the police submitted the two different DNA samples, it solidified their suspicions. The results came back as originating from the same perpetrator, even though these murderers and sexual assaults happened in different counties within Colorado. The police continuously searched CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) for matches.
In 2017, we get back to the police looking for similar MO (modis operandi) cases. They began to investigate the Henderson, Nevada case. Their review brought up too many similarities for everyone’s comfort level. Colorado then asked that the North Nevada Correctional Center Medium Security Prison submit a DNA sample from Inmate #20866, Alex Christopher Ewing. There hadn’t been a similar crime since 1985. Coincidentally, Alex Ewing had been locked up since 1985.
The DNA results came back in 2018. Denver police were ecstatic to announce that they had a suspect in the Bennett family murders and the murder of Patricia Smith. News outlets throughout Colorado were elated to air these updates.
Alex Ewing was put on trial and subsequently sentenced on August 17, 2021, to three life sentences to be served one after the other and not consecutively. Alex Ewing was also convicted of three counts of felony murder for the Bennett family. He was scheduled to stand trial for Patricia Smith’s murder in October 2021. However, when that trial got underway, a mistrial was declared after a judge granted a defense motion requesting Ewing undergo a competency evaluation. The trial was then rescheduled to April of 2022.
The judge in the Patricia Smith murder trial sentenced Alex Ewing on April 12, 2022, to a fourth life sentence to be served after the Bennett sentences. Therefore, under no circumstances will Alex Ewing be released on parole in his lifetime.
Where Is Alex Christopher Ewing Now?
Alex Ewing has a new inmate number, #191967. He is currently serving time for his serial killing murders in the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility in Canon City, Colorado.
Wait! Alex Ewing Got Off on Technicalities?
I can hear y’all asking, “Well, what about Kimberly and Donna?” Unfortunately, they were caught up by a flaw in the legal system here in Colorado. Neither of their assaults can be tried as their perpetrator was apprehended after the statute of limitations had run out.
Assault Statute of Limitations
Colorado has a statute of limitation for felony assault that states charges must be filed within three years from the date of the crime.
Sexual Assault Statute of Limitations
I can hear you asking about Donna Dixon’s sexual assault. In Colorado, this falls into a slightly different category. This assault has a statute of limitations of twenty years. Alex Ewing was found thirty-four years after; hence, he couldn’t be charged in either of these cases.
Kidnapping Has No Statute of Limitation
However, the Denver Police Department and district attorney’s office did offer Donna Dixon (now Donna Holm after her marriage to Ron Holm) the possibility of charging Alex Ewing with kidnapping, since he forcibly removed her from her vehicle. Donna and her husband declined to pursue these charges. They feel it is enough that Ewing has already been convicted of the four murders. They just want to get on with their lives.
Denver Hammer Killer Survivors
There were four survivors from Denver, and each of them has overcome so many adversities. My heart bleeds for them all, but I want to spend time on their stories more than I do on their attacker. This is the often-overlooked part of true crime, in my opinion—the survivors are often forgotten.
Colorado Survivor Kimberly (Haubenschild) Rice
Let’s briefly talk about Kim Rice or, as she was previously known before her divorce, Kimberly Haubenschild. In various interviews through the years, it is obvious that Kim suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from her attack. She frequently agonizes about making sure her garage door is shut. (This is how Alex Ewing was able to break into her home and assault her and her ex-husband—because her garage door was left open.) She has been known to knock on neighbors’ doors and advise them to keep their garage doors closed too. In addition to her anxiety and PTSD, she has also suffered from migraines since her attack.
Colorado Survivor James Haubenschild
James has shied away from the media attention, choosing instead to live a much more private life. I can’t blame him for this, but it does make telling his story difficult. Nonetheless, I will gladly respect his wishes.
Colorado Survivor Donna (Dixon) Holm
Now let’s talk about Donna Holm, the flight attendant who went into a coma after her attack. Donna eventually returned to being a flight attendant, and she has had a fulfilling life since both she and her now-husband, Ron, say they have no regrets.
In one of the articles on Donna, Ron Holm tells the story of how he proposed to her. It was about a year after she was attacked. He decided to make her favorite dessert, which had pistachio pudding and some other things. He talked about chopping up the nuts, how he wrote the message on top: “Donna, will you marry me?” and then hid it in the fridge.
I love this story because he chose something special for her, and he wanted to put his spin on it. Additionally, he stood by her side throughout her recovery, through her learning how to talk and walk and feed herself again. He waited until she was at a good point, both mentally and physically, before he proposed. They have been married ever since.
Colorado Survivor Vanessa Bennett
In an interview with People Magazine, Vanessa stated that, “There is no fixing what he [meaning Alex Ewing] took from me.” Her story is also relayed in the July 11, 2022, episode of People Magazine Investigates on the Discovery+ channel. The episode, titled “The Colorado Hammer Killer,” takes a very in-depth look at the case and how authorities finally brought Ewing to justice.
Vanessa says that she was often suicidal, starting around the age of seventeen. She struggled with homelessness and drug addiction as she fought to escape the trauma that had plagued her since she was a little girl. In the past few years, she has gotten clean, and she lives in an apartment with her husband Frankie and their cat. She hopes to finish her degree and become a drug counselor.
Arizona Survivor Roy Williams
Roy Williams walks with a cane and has other health afflictions from his attack. He also has led a private life for the most part and continues to live in Kingman, Arizona, as far as my research has found. His case was thrown out after the Berrys’ attempted murder conviction of Ewing. I was unable to verify if this was Mr. Williams’s choice or if the courts made the decision not to pursue his attack.
Nevada Survivors Christopher and Nancy Berry
Nancy Berry shared that her husband’s injuries were permanent. Christopher’s jaw was out of alignment, and he had lost his sense of smell. Nancy had to have surgery for her head injury and suffered multiple fractures to both her hands from trying to protect her head from the ax handle attacks. She and Christopher went on to raise their children. Sadly, Christopher died of cancer in 2011. Since Nancy and her husband’s attacks led to Alex Ewing’s 110-year sentence and incarceration, she deeply sympathized when the DNA evidence linked Ewing to the Colorado Hammer Killings.
Nancy’s sympathies show clearly when she was asked about her thoughts on the Colorado families: “I thought about all those families and how traumatic that was for them, and that could have been us,” she said. “I know where he is. I can’t imagine—that’s my thoughts—I can’t imagine the devastation those families have gone through, and how they’ve been haunted all these years.”
Thanks for Spending Time With us!
Some final thoughts: First, we’re so glad you stopped by.
Next, if you want to read on, we have some other true crime posts you might enjoy, like Colorado’s Other Cannibal. You might also like a little more in-depth information on the DNA side of things True Crime Lovers Guide To Forensic DNA. Also, listed under the sources is an interview with the criminal profiler that was brought in early on that made some scary accurate perdictions on these cases.
And lastly, we hope to see you again soon!
Sources
All news articles, pictures, and/or videos are used under the Fair Use Act, and individual sources are given credit.
https://kdvr.com/news/local/mistrial-declared-for-hammer-attack-murder-from-1984/
https://people.com/crime/people-magazine-investigates-victim-colorado-hammer-killer-speaks-out/
https://snapshot.parabon-nanolabs.com/phenotyping
https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/blame/hammer-attack-survivor-alex-ewing/73-04286869-f36d-46cc-85c0-efd10c61d024
https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/blame/jefferson-county-jury-convicts-alex-ewing-in-1984-murder-of-patricia-smith/73-5a3447fc-addd-40a3-bae1-d561795252b1
https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/suspect-in-84-hammer-attacks-claimed-he-hitchhiked-out-of-denver/73-584529431
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/jury-finds-man-guilty-in-hammer-killer-murders-of-aurora-family-members-in-1984
