Kimberly Bell Case: Disappearance, Cold Case Break, and Charges

The Kimberly Bell case is a Colorado cold case homicide in which 51-year-old Kimberly Kay Bell was strangled in a Douglas County parking garage on July 22, 2019, by an acquaintance who then dismembered her body and dumped the remains near Estes Park. More than five years later, in October 2024, Javier “Alex” Martell and Jennifer Bremer were arrested and charged in connection with her death. Her remains have never been found.¹

Who Kimberly Bell Was and When She Vanished

Bell was a California native living with her sister on the 11800 block of Kokomo Road in Franktown, Colorado, and working as a limousine driver. She stopped showing up for work around July 22, 2019, and was last seen that day in the Denver metro area.² Her sister reported her missing on August 19, 2019, nearly a month later, and told investigators Bell had recently “fell in with a bad crowd” tied to the drug culture. Bell had been driving a rented black Ford Focus, which was later found abandoned in Estes Park.³

What Happened on July 22, 2019

A grand jury indictment lays out the killing. Bell was sitting in the driver’s seat of her rental car at the Lincoln RTD parking structure near Park Meadows Drive in Douglas County. Two people she knew were with her: Martell, in the back seat, and Jennifer Bremer, Martell’s girlfriend and a former coworker and roommate of Bell’s.⁴

Martell became enraged, put his arm around Bell’s neck, and pulled her into the back seat, where he strangled her while ordering Bremer to take the wheel and drive away.⁵ They then drove around the Denver area with Bell’s body in the car. At Martell’s direction, Bremer stopped at a gas station and used Bell’s credit card to fill the tank, and the two then went to a Home Depot where Martell bought an axe.⁶

They continued to a remote area near Estes Park, where Martell allegedly used the axe to dismember Bell. Her remains were placed in trash bags and thrown into a dumpster at a nearby veterinary clinic. They have never been recovered.¹

How the Cold Case Was Solved

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office first worked the case as a missing person investigation and transferred it to the cold case team in 2021.⁷ The break came through digital evidence. Investigators used Google location data from Bell’s phone to reconstruct her movements and those of the suspects on July 22, 2019, and they recovered post-killing internet searches from Bell’s devices, including “does phone ping location if off” and “take a tracking system out of a Ford Focus.” Sheriff Darren Weekly described the digital evidence as central to the case, along with persistent witness interviews that eventually included statements from one of the suspects.⁴

The Charges Against Martell and Bremer

Martell, then 30, was arrested on October 10, 2024, and faces two counts of first-degree murder. Bremer, then 38, turned herself in the following day and was charged with accessory to a crime and identity theft, the latter stemming from her use of Bell’s credit card at the gas station.¹⁶ Because there was no body, the case was presented to a grand jury rather than through a standard preliminary hearing.⁵

The sheriff’s office has marked the case as solved.⁸ As of the October 2024 announcements, both suspects were awaiting trial, and Sheriff Weekly said parts of the investigation remained ongoing.¹

1
CBS News Colorado. 2 Arrested Cold Case Murder Colorado Douglas County Woman Kimberly Bell
2
Colorado Cold Case Files. Kimberly Kay Bell Case Detail
3
The Charley Project. Kimberly Kay Bell
4
Forensic Magazine. Digital Forensics Cold Case Team’s Work Leads to Arrests in 2019 Murder
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Denver Post. Kimberly Bell Missing Homicide Death Douglas County Arrest
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KTLA. Arrests Made in Grisly Cold Case of California Woman Killed, Dismembered in Colorado
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Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. Cold Cases
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Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. Cold Case Kimberly Bell