In the autumn of 1898 Denver was gripped by a series of strangulation murders attributed to an unidentified assailant called the Denver Strangler. Julia Voght, who claimed to be clairvoyant and lived on Champa Street, told authorities she had entered a trance and emerged with a description of the killer. On October 7, 1898, she was found dead in her apartment, a towel wrapped tightly around her neck — the same signature used in the other strangulations.

A man named George Randall, who had borrowed money from Voght, was arrested in connection with her murder but was ultimately acquitted. Contemporary investigators reportedly expressed the view that a man of his race would be too superstitious and horrified by a corpse to have committed the crime. Voght’s death remains officially unsolved and is recorded among the Denver Strangler killings.