Three Sets of Remains Found on Colorado Ranch

Searchers digging on a barren ranch have found a third set of skeletal remains in a shallow grave amid reports the victims were Denver-area transients who may have been recruited in an auto-theft ring, officials said Saturday.

Authorities would not confirm published reports that they were led to the remains by the son of Thomas R. McCormick, who once owned the ranch and has been charged with murder in an apparently unrelated case. The third grave was found late Friday.

Kit Carson County Sheriff Sharon Heinz has said that as many as six more bodies could be found. A lawyer in the case told the Denver Post that he believes there may be as many as 17 victims.

“We’re not doing anything today,” Heinz said Saturday. “Everybody’s trying to recuperate, and it’s darn cold. It was in the teens yesterday. If the ground starts freezing up on us, we’ll have a problem.”

The third body was found buried in a pasture about half a mile south of a house on the ranch, which is about 30 miles from the Colorado-Kansas border. The other two bodies were found Tuesday and Wednesday about 100 yards north of the house.

Heinz said none of the remains had been identified, and she had “no comment” on reports the victims were Denver-area transients who may have been recruited in a vehicle-theft operation in the 1970s.

The search began after McCormick, who lost the ranch in foreclosure proceedings in 1982, was arrested at his suburban Aurora home and charged with killing an Idaho truck driver in 1983.

McCormick’s 29-year-old son, Michael, led authorities to the body of Hubert Donoho, 60, of Caldwell, Ida., in an Adams County field. He then allegedly told investigators he helped his father bury other murder victims on the ranch.