The Candace Hiltz murder remains unsolved nearly two decades after the 17-year-old mother was shot to death inside her Fremont County, Colorado, home on August 15, 2006. No one has been charged. The investigation was hobbled from the first days by a compromised crime scene, and a decade later potential evidence turned up in a personal storage unit belonging to the detective assigned to the case. What follows is what the public record shows about how Candace died, who investigators looked at, and why the case has stayed cold.
What Happened on August 15, 2006
Candace’s mother, Dolores Hiltz, came home that day to find her 11-month-old granddaughter, Paige, crying alone in her crib. Blood had pooled through the house, and drag marks led from room to room. Dolores found Candace’s body wrapped in a green comforter and hidden beneath a bed.1The Pueblo Chieftain. Mother Talks About Mishandling of Her Daughter’s Murder Case
Paige was physically unharmed. The killer left an infant in the home and took time to conceal the body, which points to something more deliberate than a sudden outburst.
The Autopsy Findings
Candace was shot seven times with at least two, possibly three, different firearms. She was struck once in the head from the front with a shotgun, five times in the back with a small-caliber weapon, and once in the chest from the front with a medium-caliber gun. The bullets fired from behind traveled steeply downward and left to right, indicating she was likely on the ground or crouching when those shots were fired.2Canon City Daily Record. Autopsy: Candace Hiltz Shot Seven Times
The use of multiple weapons is the strangest feature of the killing. A single shooter switching between two or three guns during one attack is unusual, and it opens the question of whether more than one person was in the house that day. Investigators have never publicly explained the mix of firearms.
A Compromised Crime Scene
The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office investigation drew criticism from the start. The scene was not properly secured, and physical evidence was reportedly left behind rather than collected. Items later recovered from a detective’s storage unit were found in envelopes marked “evidence,” suggesting they had been logged and then removed from proper custody rather than simply missed.3The Pueblo Chieftain. Autopsy Report Released in 2006 Homicide of Candace Hiltz
When physical evidence leaves the chain of custody in the first days of a case, everything built on it becomes contestable. Any eventual prosecution would face defense challenges to nearly every physical item, and that problem has shadowed the case ever since.
The People Investigators Looked At
James Hiltz
Investigators initially focused on Candace’s 28-year-old brother, James Hiltz. After a three-day manhunt, authorities found him in the Copper Gulch-Iron Mountain area southwest of Cañon City. James, who reportedly struggled with psychological issues, was charged with first- and second-degree burglary, criminal trespass, theft, and criminal mischief. None of those charges related to the murder, and he has never been charged in his sister’s death.49NEWS. Brother Not Charged in Shooting Death of Sister
Public records do not show whether James was formally cleared or simply deprioritized.
Robert Dodd
The most persistent theory centers on Robert Dodd, a detective with the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office assigned to the case. Days before her death, Candace reportedly had a heated confrontation with Dodd in which she allegedly threatened to expose him for taking bribes from drug dealers. Dolores Hiltz has publicly said she believes law enforcement involvement played a role in her daughter’s death or in the failures that followed.
Whether Candace actually held damaging information about Dodd, or whether the confrontation happened as described, has never been independently confirmed. The allegation gained new weight a decade later.
The Storage Unit Discovery
In December 2016, a man named Rick Ratzlaff bought the contents of an abandoned storage unit at auction. Inside, he found items in envelopes marked as evidence that appeared connected to the Hiltz murder, including bloody socks, a hatchet, a blanket, and a rope. The unit had belonged to Robert Dodd.5CBS News. Former Detective Charged After Possible Murder Evidence Found in Storage Unit
Dodd was charged with abuse of public records and official misconduct. He was convicted on the misdemeanor charge of abuse of public records and sentenced to 15 days in jail, though the sentence was stayed after his attorney filed an appeal.6Canon City Daily Record. No. 2 Story of 2018: Robert Dodd Sentenced for Mishandling Murder Evidence The discovery prompted the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office to ask the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to take over the murder case.7The Pueblo Chieftain. CBI Investigating Found Evidence
What Cold Justice Concluded
The television program Cold Justice, which pairs prosecutor Kelly Siegler with investigators to reexamine unsolved homicides, took on the Hiltz case. The team reviewed the items recovered from Dodd’s storage locker and compared them to known facts about the crime scene. Their conclusion: the blanket, decorative axe, and rope could be ruled out as connected to the murder itself.8Oxygen. Cold Justice Investigates Candace Hiltz Case
The team also addressed whether Dodd had deliberately sabotaged the investigation. Investigator Steve Beicker concluded that what Dodd did was “stupid” and driven by laziness, but that he did not intentionally compromise the case or participate in a cover-up. Dodd told the team he was “embarrassed for the mistake” he made with the property.8Oxygen. Cold Justice Investigates Candace Hiltz Case
That finding, if accepted, weakens the theory that a detective covered up the killing. It does not fix the underlying problem: a decade of investigative momentum was lost while items sat in a storage locker.
The Family Dog
The Hiltz family’s dog was killed days before Candace’s murder. The Cold Justice investigation reportedly examined whether the weapon used to kill the dog matched one of the firearms used on Candace. If the same weapon was used on both, it would suggest the killer had access to the home before the attack.
Where the Case Stands
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation classified the case as an active investigation after taking it over in early 2017 and has declined to comment publicly on the work being done by agents from its Pueblo Regional Office.7The Pueblo Chieftain. CBI Investigating Found Evidence No arrests have been made. No suspects have been publicly named beyond the early focus on James Hiltz, who was never charged.
Dolores Hiltz has spent nearly two decades pushing for answers. She advocated for the CBI’s involvement and has reached out to both the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, though those appeals have reportedly gone unanswered. The case has produced no known public breakthroughs since the Cold Justice episode.
What Could Still Solve It
The best remaining hope may lie in forensic technology that did not exist or was not widely available in 2006. Investigative genetic genealogy, the technique that identified the Golden State Killer in 2018, has been used to solve more than 1,600 cases across the United States and Canada. The method uploads a DNA profile from crime scene evidence to consumer databases like GEDmatch, where volunteer genealogists trace family trees to identify suspects.9NBC News. This Powerful Forensic Tool Is Cracking Cold Cases – but Price Tag Is Often an Obstacle
Newer collection methods have also improved the odds for old evidence. Wet-vacuum systems like the M-Vac can recover up to 12 times more DNA from porous surfaces like fabric than traditional swabbing, and can pull usable material from items previously swabbed and thought to be exhausted.10PMC (PubMed Central). Comparison of the M-Vac Wet-Vacuum-Based Collection Method to a Wet-Swabbing Method for DNA Recovery on Diluted Bloodstained Substrates If the bloody clothing or the green comforter used to wrap Candace’s body still exists in an evidence locker, reprocessing those items with current technology could produce a profile that 2006 methods missed.
Candace Hiltz was 17 years old with an infant daughter when someone shot her seven times and hid her body under a bed. The crime scene was compromised, the detective assigned to the case stored potential evidence in a personal locker for a decade, and no one has been charged. One DNA match on preserved evidence could still change that.