Helene Pruszynski was brutally assaulted and murdered in 1980, and her killer has finally been arrested and charged.

A suspect has been arrested in a 39-year-old unsolved murder case in Douglas County.

Helene Pruszynski was a 21-year-old college student who interned at a local Denver radio station. She disappeared on the night of January 16, 1980, after taking a bus home. The next morning, her body had been found; she'd been stabbed to death in a field on Daniels Park Road. Officials working the case believe that she was abducted on her way home, walking near a bus stop on Union Avenue, in today’s Highland’s Ranch area.

The case has been listed as an open homicide ever since.

A break was made in the case recently, and the Douglas County Sherriff’s Office announced on Monday, December 16, that they had arrested 62-year-old James Curtis Clanton, a truck driver from Florida who now faces multiple counts of first-degree murder and a kidnapping charge.

Closure, though decades after her tragic death, is finally here for Helene. She was described by those who knew her as a bright, beautiful girl, just starting her life. Douglas Country Sheriff Tony Spurlock was at the start of his career then, and after almost 40 years, he's finally able to say that justice has been served for Helene.

Clanton was 22 years old at the time of the murder and working as a landscaper in the area, living mere blocks from the bus stop where Pruszynski was known to use. Clanton already had a rape conviction for a 1975 sexual assault case in Arkansas—he raped a woman at knifepoint in her home, then forced her to drive him to a bus stop. He was arrested that very night and sentenced to 30 years in prison. However, he only served four short years before being released on parole and heading to Colorado.

Through the use of genealogy, detectives were able to identify possible relatives of the suspect, and semen had been left at the crime scene giving a sample of DNA to go on and a DNA profile was built for the case in the late 1990s. About two years ago, possible relatives were identified through GEDMatch. Through persistent research, they narrowed down potential suspects then conducted a surveillance operation, collecting a recent sample, a discarded beer glass, from the suspect at a bar in Florida and used to tie Clanton to the evil deed.

He has not been charged with sexual assault; the statute of limitations has passed for that charge. Clanton was arrested in Florida and extradited to Colorado, with the arrest and filing of formal charges announced Monday.

Clanton, who had formally gone by the name of Curtis Allen White, continued to brush with the law years after the murder, using different aliases and birthdates, eventually ending up in Florida where he was known by friends and neighbors as a quiet family man. He officially changed his name two years after the murder and went about his life in Florida for almost 40 years.

Courtesy of the Douglas County Sherriff's Office

Clanton remains in custody of the Douglas County Sherriff, and a series of other sexual assaults and attacks in the area at the time of Prusyznski’s murder are being investigated for a connection as well.

Janet Johnson, Helene’s sister, is one of her only remaining relatives alive, and gave this statement regarding the arrest:

"I want people to know what a special person Helene was. My sister was my best friend. She was a loving daughter, sister, aunt, & friend. Helene was on track to do great things, she had a bright future ahead of her. There has not been a day that goes by that we haven't missed her. The detectives and everyone else who helped to make this day happen are my heroes. I look forward to justice being served.”

The Colorado Bureau of Investigations and the Douglas County Sherriff’s Department never gave up on finding out who was responsible for the horrific way Helene died, and we are grateful to them for every hour spent searching for the suspect. 

More and more cases are being solved using public genealogy databases as ways to find potential suspects, back in September 2019 a suspect was identified in the cold case of Jeannie Moore, another young Colorado woman abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered whose case was cold for many years.  

What do you think about this recent development in this cold case? What do you think about all the advances in solving crimes that have become available due to genealogy mapping and databases? Sound off in the comments.