Joe Michael Ervin was never tried for anything. In 1969, at the age of 17, he was indicted by a grand jury in Tarrant County, Texas, for a murder in Fort Worth. In June 1981 he was arrested in Aurora, Colorado, in connection with the death of a police officer, and on July 1, 1981 he died by suicide before any case reached a court. For more than forty years the deaths of four women in the Denver area, between 1978 and 1981, remained unsolved. In January 2022 the Denver Police Department announced that Ervin was responsible for them, a conclusion it based on evidence that linked the four cases to a single person and then to him.
Because Ervin died before any prosecution, every attribution is the position of the police and not the finding of a court. Denver police named him as the person responsible for the four deaths. He was never charged with any of them.
Ervin was born on June 25, 1951. His criminal history begins in Texas. In October 1969 a Tarrant County grand jury indicted him for the murder of Rodney Gene Bonham, 21, on August 8, 1969, in Fort Worth. Ervin was 17 years old. The indictment is the only legal step on record in that case; there was no trial, and he was never convicted.
After the Fort Worth case Ervin went to Colorado.
Madeleine Furey-Livaudais was 33 years old. She died in Denver on December 7, 1978, in the northeast of the city. Her two daughters were present at the police announcement in January 2022. Denver police recorded no known connection between Ervin and any of the four women, and the commander of the department's major crimes unit said in 2022 that investigators had found no pattern in how the women were chosen.
Dolores Barajas was 53. She died in Denver in August 1980. Her death was investigated as a separate matter and went unresolved for decades. In 2013 evidence tied her case to that of Madeleine Furey-Livaudais, the first connection that investigators drew between any of the four.
Gwendolyn Harris was 27. She died in Denver in December 1980, in the Montbello district. In December 2015 evidence in her case was linked to the same person as the earlier two.
Antoinette Parks was 17. She died in January 1981 in Adams County, to the north of Denver, which put her case in the hands of the county sheriff's office and not the Denver police. Her brothers were among the relatives at the 2022 announcement. In October 2018 evidence tied her case to the other three.
Debra Sue Corr, 26, had served as an Aurora police officer for about a year. She died on June 27, 1981, in Aurora. She was the first officer of the Aurora Police Department to die in the line of duty. A young man who had gone to assist her survived and, in 2022, learned of the other cases at the announcement.
Ervin was arrested in Aurora and held on a murder charge in Corr's death. He was awaiting trial when he died by suicide on July 1, 1981. No trial took place and no verdict was returned. Denver police describe Corr's death as the last of the deaths attributed to him, and the deaths ended with his arrest.
The four deaths in Denver and Adams County were first handled as unrelated cases, by different agencies, and each went cold. In June 2013 evidence linked the cases of Dolores Barajas and Madeleine Furey-Livaudais. In December 2015 the case of Gwendolyn Harris was linked to the same person. In October 2018 so was that of Antoinette Parks. At that stage the person was still unidentified.
In 2019 the Denver Police Crime Laboratory began its own in-house work on the question of who that person was, and the work pointed toward Texas. In 2021 investigators in Colorado and Texas turned their attention to Ervin, and the identification was confirmed in January 2022. Police said they did not believe anyone else was involved.
Denver police announced the identification at a news conference at the Denver Police Crime Laboratory on Friday, January 28, 2022, together with the Adams County Sheriff's Office. Chief Paul Pazen said that naming the person responsible would not bring the women back but could offer closure and healing to their loved ones and to the community. About a dozen agencies had contributed over the forty years. They included the Denver Police Department's cold case unit, the Adams County Sheriff's Office, the Aurora Police Department, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the FBI's Denver field office, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Rangers, and the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department.
Daughters of Madeleine Furey-Livaudais and brothers of Antoinette Parks attended, and the families described mixed feelings after so long.
Denver police handle unsolved homicides through a Cold Case Project, which marked 25 years of work at the end of 2024. In its account of that work the department counts Ervin as a man determined after his death to be the suspect in four separate homicides of women aged 17 to 53, with the link to Texas made in 2022. The four cases passed between the Denver police and the Adams County Sheriff's Office, with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the FBI and Texas agencies involved at later stages.
No court has tested any of the attributions. Ervin was never convicted of the 1969 Texas murder, of the death of Officer Corr, or of any of the four deaths in Denver and Adams County. Denver police named him as the person responsible for the four deaths and said they did not believe anyone else was involved; he was never charged with them, and no defense was offered. Police count the four women as the cases they have closed, with Officer Corr's death as a separate matter in which he was held on a murder charge.
June 25, 1951: Joe Michael Ervin is born.
August 8, 1969: Rodney Gene Bonham, 21, dies in Fort Worth, Texas.
October 1969: A Tarrant County grand jury indicts Ervin, then 17, for the murder.
December 7, 1978: Madeleine Furey-Livaudais, 33, dies in Denver.
August 1980: Dolores Barajas, 53, dies in Denver.
December 1980: Gwendolyn Harris, 27, dies in Denver.
January 1981: Antoinette Parks, 17, dies in Adams County.
June 27, 1981: Aurora police officer Debra Sue Corr, 26, dies. Ervin is arrested and held on a murder charge.
July 1, 1981: Ervin dies by suicide before any trial.
June 2013: Evidence links the cases of Barajas and Furey-Livaudais.
December 2015: The Harris case is linked to the same person.
October 2018: The Parks case is linked.
2019: The Denver Police Crime Laboratory begins its own work toward identifying the person.
2021: Colorado and Texas investigators turn to Ervin.
January 28, 2022: Denver police and the Adams County Sheriff's Office announce Ervin as the person responsible for the four deaths.