THE COLD CASE FILES: Memorial Hospital worker killed, 1999

Each victim is a face frozen in time, haunting investigators whose job it is to bring their killers to justice decades after the trail has gone cold.

The Gazette in cooperation with the Colorado Springs Police Department runs a weekly feature called “The Cold Case Files.” The Colorado Springs Police Department Homicide Cold Case Unit is currently responsible for approximately 90 unsolved homicide cases dating back to 1949. CSPD considers a case to be cold if it remains unsolved for more than one year. If you have any information that would be of assistance in these investigations, please contact 719-444-7613, by e-mail at CSPDColdCase@springsgov.com or you may remain anonymous and could earn a cash reward by calling Crime Stoppers at 634-STOP (7867).

The Victim: Jennifer Lee Watkins, 23, Memorial Hospital employee beaten to death, 1999.

File Number: 99-36195

The Crime: Watkins, a mother of two from Fountain who worked as a food service aide, washing dishes and retrieving patients’ trays, did not pick up her children from her mother’s home after her shift at the hospital and failed to return home on Nov. 5, 1999. She was reported missing the next day by her husband Michael, who along with her mother and other relatives began searching for her. Watkins’ body, wrapped in plastic and decomposed, was discovered two days later in a locked stairwell leading to the heliport.

The Investigation: Watkins’ family told The Gazette in 1999 that a hospital surveillance tape showed Watkins on the day she disappeared arguing with an unidentified man. Police have not said what is on the tape nor what was in an anonymous letter investigators received a few days after the killing. More than a hundred people were interviewed, including coworkers and relatives. Her husband later went to prison for threatening to kill a coworker. No suspects have been named and no arrests have been made.