how did she die who killed her |All Social Updates

In August 2006, teenage mother Candace Hiltz was murdered in the family’s trailer in Fremont County, Colorado. The gravity of the murder stunned the country, and police faced numerous challenges, including a very personal one. Despite decades of investigation, the killer or killers are still at large. According to Candace’s mother, the killer could be someone else, but police say it could be someone else.

The difficult case is meticulously followed in Valley of the Damned: Impossible Perpetrator on Investigation Discovery, which also lays out the facts in a way that viewers can understand. We’ve got your back if you’re curious and want to know all about the case. So let’s get started, shall we?

Candace Hilz

How did Candace Hiltz die?

Candace Colleary Hiltz was born on December 22, 1988 in Canon City, Fremont County, Colorado. She was enrolled in an online program at Brigham Young University and was about to graduate. Dolores Hiltz, her mother, recalled Candace’s ambition to attend Stanford Law School and eventually serve as a US Supreme Court Justice. The 16-year-old had a baby daughter, Paige, with boyfriend Jesse Weaver. She was also a teenage mom. Paige was born with hydrocephalus, an uncommon condition.

Candace was headstrong, which often got her into trouble, despite being witty and intelligent. Although they might be angry, she had a knack for telling people what she really thought of them. Dolores thought it was a big part of her horrific murder. On August 15, 2006, Jesse arrived at Candace’s trailer in the Copper Gulch community to find his daughter wailing alone in her crib. Candace lived there with her mother and daughter. He also noticed blood in the trailer’s corridor. When Dolores arrived, she discovered her daughter’s practically decapitated body hidden under a bed.

When Fremont County Sheriff’s officers arrived at the scene, they found the woman’s body wrapped in a green blanket and seven gunshot wounds. Five shots in the back of the head, one in the face, one in the left chest. According to the autopsy report, three separate firearms were used: a .45 Long Colt was used for the face, a .22 caliber shotgun for the skull, and a .410 caliber shotgun for the face. Police said there was no evidence of sexual assault or robbery.

Who Killed Candace Hiltz?

After Jesse Weaver was exonerated, James “Jimmy” Hiltz, Candace’s brother, was named as the prime suspect in the murder. Jimmy, who was charged with a series of local burglaries, had a series of psychiatric issues that caused him to become estranged from his wife and children. He used to live in the hills behind the trailer where Candace lived like a homeless person with her mother and daughter because of her social anxiety.

A three-day manhunt was launched after a murder when Jimmy was not discovered, and he was eventually taken into custody. However, detectives were unable to connect him to his sister’s death. Jimmy was a regular patient at the Colorado Mental Health Institute. He was found not guilty of a burglary because of a mental illness, and as a result he was sentenced to re-introduction to a mental institution. The case quickly went cold because there were no new leads or suspects.

But ten years later, in December 2016, a Canon City resident named Rick Ratzlaff purchased a storage shed that was once Lt. Det. Robert Dodd, a detective working on Candace’s murder case. Rick was reading the footage when he came across a Manila package labeled “Proof” that contained a blood-stained rope, an ax, and bloody socks. The Colorado Bureau of Inquiry launched an investigation after receiving the package believed to contain information related to Candace’s murder.

In 2018, Robert was found guilty of manipulating public records and an official misdemeanor and sentenced to 15 days in prison. Dolores initially blamed her son Jimmy for the murder, but eventually blamed the police. Dolores was questioned by a deputy about Jimmy’s possible trespassing at the Hiltz residence on August 10, 2006, which led to an argument with Candace. The Hiltz family discovered the body of their dog in the woods behind their trailer three days after the altercation.

Dolores insists the police allegedly killed her daughter and the dog and botched the investigation to cover up her crime. However, the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office has vehemently denied the allegations and has even produced evidence linking Jimmy to the murder. Police had testimony from Jimmy’s ex-wife and Jesse, both of whom described Jimmy’s sporadic acts of violence. The murder weapons were among the items looted in a series of on-site burglaries Jimmy was suspected of.

The most damning piece of evidence, however, is a bone fragment that detectives discovered near the house where Jimmy was living at the time of the murder. Investigators have submitted their case to prosecutors and there is a match with the victim’s DNA. Dolores has vehemently denied the circumstantial evidence implicating her son in her daughter’s murder while the police await investigation, claiming that the authorities had anything to do with her daughter’s death.

Background information on Candace Hiltz