Gerald Gerry Boggs, 52 and owner of a Steamboat Springs hardware store, was found dead in his home on October 22, 1993. His brother Doug discovered the body after Gerry failed to open the store that morning. The scene showed a violent struggle: Boggs had been beaten with a shovel, shocked with a stun gun, and shot to death.

Investigators focused on two prime suspects, Boggs’s recent ex-wife Jill Coit and her boyfriend Michael Backus. Boggs and Coit had a brief marriage that was later annulled after Boggs learned she had been married to other men. At the time of the killing they were involved in a lawsuit over a bed and breakfast. Witnesses reported seeing a man and a woman in what appeared to be Halloween costumes near Boggs’s home in the days before the murder.

Coit and Backus claimed an alibi of a camping trip in Poudre Canyon, but forensic evidence played a key role: the contents of Boggs’s stomach matched a morning diner meal, placing his time of death when Coit and Backus were still nearby. A phone call Coit made to her son saying it was done and messy was also cited by investigators. In March 1995 both Coit and Backus were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy and given life without parole.

Did anyone in Steamboat Springs recognize the couple seen near Boggs’s house or have additional information about the days before October 22, 1993?