Almost 40 years after a passerby found the skeletal remains of missing teenager Donna Sue Wayne in a northeast Aurora field, investigators finally identified a suspect in her death — a man already in prison for the murder and sexual assault of another woman killed in the city seven months after Wayne.
Richard “Ricky” Saathoff, 65, is charged with first-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping in Wayne’s death, according to the Arapahoe County District Attorney’s Office.
Saathoff’s arrest affidavit was first reported Wednesday by 9News.
While some details of the 18-year-old’s disappearance have long been public knowledge, a newly filed Aurora Police Department arrest affidavit illuminates the winding path investigators trod for nearly 40 years, using DNA and fingerprint evidence along with witness statements to identify Saathoff as a suspect.
Wayne went missing after leaving her Aurora home to meet up with friends at a Montbello house party and bar the night of June 13, 1986.
She was last seen alive early the next morning, when a Stapleton airport worker saw her being physically and sexually assaulted by a man driving her green 1972 Ford LTD in the 800 block of North Picadilly Road.
Earlier reports described the car as red, but the arrest affidavit includes photos of the green Ford. The car was later destroyed. .
Wayne screamed for help before the man forced her back into the car, the woman told police. The woman drove to the nearest house to get help, but by the time police arrived, Wayne and the man were gone.
Wayne’s car was seen abandoned in Aurora’s Hoffman Heights neighborhood the next day, on June 15, 1986, but police did not link the car to Wayne until it was towed away two weeks later, an Aurora cold case investigator wrote in the affidavit.
Police lifted two fingerprints from the driver’s side window, and a neighbor found Wayne’s car keys, tossed in an evergreen bush down the block near Vaughn Elementary School, a few weeks later.
Wayne’s body was found by a passing driver in a northeast Aurora field littered with trash and debris one month after she was last seen alive, with her clothes and purse were strewn about the area, according to the affidavit.
Her exact cause of death was never confirmed because of how much her remains had decomposed, but she had multiple broken bones, including her jaw, ribs, clavicle and in her neck, chest and face.
The investigation seemed to stall after her body was found as police chased leads that did not pan out.
Fingerprint evidence from the driver’s side window was later misplaced and went missing for years, until it was found and retested in 2009, with no matches.
Investigators retested the fingerprints in a new system in 2012 and matched the two prints to Saathoff, who was already in prison after he was convicted of murder in the death of 40-year-old Norma Houston. Houston’s body was found naked, brutally beaten and assaulted near a gas station at 11697 E. Colfax Ave. on Jan. 18, 1987, seven months after Wayne’s death, police wrote.
Like Wayne, Houston had significant trauma to her head and a broken jaw, police wrote.
Houston was sexually assaulted, and though Wayne’s remains were too deteriorated to confirm sexual assault, her pants and underwear had been removed, like Houston’s.
Investigators linked Saathoff to Houston’s murder after his DNA was found on her clothes, and he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in June 1988. He is eligible for parole in June 2027, state records show.
After the 2012 fingerprint match, investigators tried to further link Saathoff to Wayne’s murder, according to the affidavit. A detective interviewed him in prison in 2014, and he denied knowing Wayne (and later denied killing Houston).
Investigators determined Saathoff lived with his parents in the same neighborhood where Wayne’s car was abandoned, and so did his ex-girlfriend.
In May, more than a decade after the fingerprint match, investigators again looked at Wayne’s clothes for a DNA sample, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation found and tested DNA on Wayne’s jeans that had a high likelihood of belonging to Saathoff.
Saathoff remains in prison at the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility in Cañon City, according to state records. His next court date was not available Friday.
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