Cold Case: Man Accused In 1981 Brooks Towers Murder In Court

DENVER, CO – A man accused in a Denver cold-case 1981 murder will appear in Denver District Court this week. But prosecutors will not be able to use DNA as evidence, because a sample taken from the murder victim did not match the defendant's.

Peter Frank Hernandez, 56, faces first-degree murder charges in the beating death of James Curtis, then age 40, in his unit at the Brooks Towers apartments complex at 1020 15th Street in Denver. Hernandez would have been 19 at the time of the crime.

Hernandez was booked into the Denver County Jail in July. Before that, he was serving time in prison at the Lee Correctional Facility in Florence, South Carolina, for an unspecified crime, according to an affidavit.

On Aug. 3, 1981, at approximately 9:25 p.m., Denver police officers went to the Brooks Towers Apartments to check on James G. Curtis, who had not shown up for work. Curtis was described as a "successful business man" by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's cold case website. They found Curtis, dead inside the apartment. There were no signs of forced entry, and the victim was found naked, face-down with his ankles tied together, the affidavit said. Curtis died from "massive blunt force trauma to his head."

Items missing from the apartment included a VCR machine, police said. Curtis's roommate had loaned his car to Curtis while he went on a motorcycle trip, and the car was found a few blocks away on Arapahoe Street. Police believed it had been stolen by the killer (or killers) and then abandoned.

Detectives interviewed multiple tipsters over the years and several had pointed the finger at Hernandez, the affidavit said.

In 2004, Denver detectives traveled to speak to Hernandez in prison in South Carolina, at which point he evoked his "right to remain silent." In 2008 Hernandez contacted Denver police from prison in South Carolina, offering information about an unspecified crime, the affidavit said. But when Denver detectives traveled to speak to him, he again declined to be interviewed.

Most of the evidence from the crime scene was destroyed, the arrest affidavit said. But in April of 2011, investigators located "post-mortem" samples from Curtis's body. Police asked the Denver Crime Lab for tests to identify a possible suspect. In 2013, a lab report from the Denver Police Crime Lab identified the DNA of "at least two people" in penile sperm swabs obtained from the victim.

Police traveled to South Carolina again in 2016 and obtained a warrant to collect saliva DNA samples from Hernandez. They also interviewed him and he acknowledged knowing some of the people police had interviewed previously, but denied ever meeting Curtis or visiting his apartment in the Brooks Towers.

In July, 2016, investigators got word that Peter Hernandez was "excluded as a contributor to the DNA mixture," the affidavit said. Investigators interviewed Hernandez again in 2017, but he "declined to talk about the case."

Hernandez is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Oct. 26, according to an online docket.

No booking photo of Hernandez was immediately available.

Image: James G. Curtis, 1981 cold case homicide victim via Colorado Bureau of Investigation

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