A Cañon City man is facing first-degree murder charges after three bodies were found Sunday evening in a home on Phay Avenue.
The Cañon City Police Department arrested suspect Jaacob Van Winkle, 31, without incident inside the home. The identities of the victims — a 35-year-old woman and her two children, a 5-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl — are not being released until all relatives are notified, according to the CCPD.
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Cañon City Police Chief Paul Schultz said Monday during a press conference that authorities were dispatched at about 8 p.m. Sunday to a home near the 1100 block of Phay Avenue on a call of sexual assault. Responding officers discovered the bodies of the three victims.
Chief Schultz said the sequence of events is still under investigation, but a press release states that a teenaged girl from the home reportedly ran to a neighbor’s house and the neighbor called 911. The teenage girl was treated at St. Thomas More Hospital, received some counseling from a victim’s advocate and is with relatives, Chief Schultz said.
The press release states that an autopsy of the victims is scheduled for Tuesday, and “once the coroner’s report is finalized,” the cause of death will be released.
Charges are expected to be formally filed against Van Winkle in district court at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday.
At an advisement hearing Monday, District Judge David Thorson said he reviewed a probable cause affidavit and found probable cause on the charges contemplated by the affidavit.
Van Winkle may face three counts of murder in the first degree, capital offenses, which the minimum penalty is life without parole and maximum penalty is death; one count of first-degree kidnapping, a class 2 felony, for which he could be sentenced to eight to 24 years in the Department of Corrections; one count of sexual assault, a class 3 felony, for which he could face four years to life in the DOC; and one count of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, also a class 3 felony.
Van Winkle is being held on a no-bond hold, and Judge Thorson said Monday that he had “no intention on setting bail.”
Chief Schultz said the Cañon City Police Department, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office and Florence Police Department, as part of the Fremont County Combined Investigative Response Team, are working on the investigation.
Anyone with information that could help investigators in this case is asked to call Cañon City police at (719) 276-5600.
