CBS News
Woman’s murder in Colorado finally solved — after nearly half a century
Colorado police have solved the murder of 20-year-old Teree Becker, 48 years after she was killed.
According to the Westminster Police Department, Becker was last seen on Dec. 4, 1975, as she hitchhiked to visit her boyfriend at the Adams County Jail in Brighton, Colorado. Her body was found by a couple the next morning, and it appeared to have been dumped in a field with her clothing and other personal effects. Investigators found that she had been raped and asphyxiated.
The cold case has been reviewed multiple times over the decades, police said, including in 2003, when the Colorado Bureau of Investigation took male DNA from a piece of evidence related to the case. That DNA generated a profile, which was entered in the Combined DNA Index System nationwide database, but no match was found.
In 2013, a DNA profile submitted to the same database by the Las Vegas Police Department matched the profile generated in 2003. The Las Vegas profile had been generated while reviewing a 1991 cold case in the city, also involving a woman who had been raped and murdered. Police were able to determine that the same suspect was involved in both cases. Neither department had a suspect at the time.
Westminster Police Department
In 2018, the DNA profile created in Colorado was “determined to be a good candidate for genetic genealogy,” the Westminster Police Department said. Genetic genealogy compares DNA samples to each other to find people who may be related to each other. In this case, it was used to lead police to Thomas Martin Elliott.
Elliott was already deceased, but in October, the Las Vegas Metro Police Department obtained consent to exhume his body in relation to the two homicides. A detective from the Westminster Police Department was also in Las Vegas to witness the exhumation, the police department said. His bones were collected and analyzed, and in December, he was identified as a match to the unknown DNA profile, meaning that the Becker cold case was solved.
“We are thrilled we were able to solve this cold case and hopefully bring closure to the friends and family of Teree Becker,” the Westminster Police Department said.
Westminster Police Department
Detectives found that Elliott had spent some time in prison, including a burglary committed shortly before Becker’s murder. Elliott was eventually convicted of and served six years in prison for the burglary. He was released from prison in Las Vegas in 1981, and then committed a crime against a child that led to a 10-year sentence. He was released again in 1991, and then went on to commit the murder that led to the Las Vegas DNA profile, according to the Westminster Police Department.
Elliott died by suicide in October 1991, police said, and was buried in Nevada.
Police said there are nine remaining cold cases in Westminster, Colorado, that will continue to be investigated.
CBS News
Vatican excommunicates ex-ambassador to U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, declares him guilty of schism
A firebrand conservative who became one of Pope Francis’ most ardent critics has been excommunicated by the Vatican.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who once served as the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S., was found guilty of schism. The Vatican’s doctrine office imposed the penalty after a meeting of its members on Thursday, a press statement said Friday.
The office cited Viganò’s “refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the church subject to him and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council,” as its reasoning for the ruling.
Viganò, who retired in 2016 at age 75 and was the papal envoy in Washington from 2011-2026, convulsed the Holy See with accusations of sex abuse in 2018, calling on Francis to resign.
Patrick Semansky/AP
In an 11-page letter, Viganò claimed that in 2013 he told Francis of the allegations of sex abuse against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. But, he wrote, the pontiff ignored that, and allowed McCarrick to continue to serve the church for another five years publicly. He said the pope should resign and subsequently branded him a “false prophet” and a “servant of Satan.”
In the letter, Viganò also made a number of ideological claims and was critical of homosexuals within Church ranks. He did not offer any proof for his statements.
The Vatican rejected the accusation of a cover-up of sexual misconduct and last month summoned Viganò to answer charges of schism and denying the pope’s legitimacy.
Viganò, who regarded the accusations “as an honor,” said he refused to take part in the disciplinary proceedings because he did not accept the legitimacy of the institutions behind it.
“I do not recognize the authority of the tribunal that claims to judge me, nor of its Prefect, nor of the one who appointed him,” he said in a statement issued last week, referring to the head of the doctrinal office, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, and to Francis.
Viganò restated his rejection of Vatican Council II, calling it “the ideological, theological, moral and liturgical cancer of which the (Francis’) ‘synod church’ is the necessary metastasis.”
He had not yet commented on the Vatican’s ruling on Friday.
McCarrick, the ex-archbishop of Washington, D.C., was defrocked by Pope Francis in 2019 after an internal Vatican investigation found he sexually molested adults as well as children.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
The U.S. jobs market cooled in June but remains solid, raising the odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by year-end.
The economy added 206,00 jobs last month, in line with analyst forecasts, and unemployment edged up to 4.1%. The data follows a surprisingly strong 272,000 increase in May.
A modest slowdown in hiring and wage growth could increase the Fed’s confidence that inflation is trending closer to its 2% annual target, opening the door for policymakers to trim borrowing costs for consumers and businesses.
—This is a developing story.
Vatican excommunicates ex-ambassador to U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, declares him guilty of schism
Israel says it’s restarting stalled negotiations for a cease-fire deal in Gaza
Hiring in the U.S. slowed in June, raising hopes for interest rate cuts
Vatican excommunicates ex-ambassador to U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, declares him guilty of schism
Israel says it’s restarting stalled negotiations for a cease-fire deal in Gaza