WELD COUNTY, Colo. — One of Weld County’s oldest cold cases recently saw a massive step forward when human remains found near along a river west of Platteville were identified.
The identification came more than 50 years after hunters reported finding skeletal remains from an area near the Saint Vrain River north of Highway 66 on Nov. 19, 1973. Investigators believed the remains belonged to a young woman, but had limited other information.
Skip forward to late 2024, when genetic genealogy helped the Weld County Sheriff’s Office finally identify the remains as Roxanne Leadbeater.
Late in the year, Pam Simek, who lives in Vermont, got a call from the sheriff’s office about her first cousin. Investigators had tracked Simek down after they extracted DNA from Leadbeater’s remains at Linn Grove Cemetery in Greeley in early 2022 and completed a facial composite. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation created a family tree using websites like GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA to make the connection…