Suspect Joel Hollendorfer’s Ex-Spouse Helped Cops Resolve Kara Nichols Case

Two years after Joel Hollendorfer allegedly strangled aspiring mannequin and escort Kara Nichols in Colorado, he confessed the crime to his wife and advised her he buried the physique on his dad and mom’ farm, newly launched court docket paperwork say.

Kristina Hollendorfer stored that secret for eight years—till investigators dusted off the cold-case file, tracked her right down to Virginia, and knocked on her door.

Now often called Kristina Palmer, she advised detectives concerning the night time in 2014 when her then-husband requested her to go for a journey in his new truck and unburdened himself.

“She associated Joel advised her he employed an escort and through intercourse in her automobile he by chance strangled her till she died,” police stated in an affidavit for an arrest warrant for Hollendorfer.

“Joel then transported her to his dad and mom’ property the place he buried her in an outdated horse grave with plastic baggage and lime. Kristina had no data of Joel ever transferring the physique.”

She additionally advised detectives that Hollendorfer stated he had advised his dad and mom what he did and that he believed it had pushed his father to his grave.

Armed with Kristina’s assertion, police obtained a search warrant for the Hollendorfer property in Colorado Springs and zeroed in on a spot the place his mom stated her favourite horse, Milo, was buried.

Three ft down, they discovered a rubbish bag, a human hand, and extra stays. Hollendorfer, 46, was arrested days in a while prices of second-degree homicide and tampering with bodily proof—ending a decade-old thriller.

The affidavit lays out how shut police got here to fixing that thriller years earlier—if solely that they had dug more durable.

After Nichols’ father reported the 19-year-old lacking in October 2012, police discovered she had been working as an escort and had positioned an advert for a “attractive new blonde on the town” on a labeled advert web site.

In 2013, investigators obtained information for the cellphone quantity that Nichols had listed and located a collection of eight contacts with one quantity simply earlier than she went lacking.

Police referred to as and left a message, and Joel Hollendorfer referred to as again. His story was that he had been on the lookout for an escort that night time—he advised police he was into medication and intercourse staff again then—and spoke with Nichols however didn’t meet her.

Proof urged in any other case. Detectives used cell phone pings to determine the place Nichols had been the night time she talked to Hollendorfer, and the path led near his household’s property.

By now it was October 2014, and cadaver canines had been dropped at the property and floor penetrating radar was used to find out spots that had been disturbed. Based on the affidavit, Hollendorfer’s mom, Betty, walked across the property with investigators and identified the locations the place she stated horses had been buried over three many years.

For causes that aren’t defined within the affidavit, none of it was excavated.

As a substitute, police went to a close-by property that Betty stated her son had entry to, the place the cadaver canines zeroed in on what regarded like the location of a shallow grave. “Nevertheless, there have been no human stays recovered,” the doc says.

It’s not clear if police imagine Nichols was initially buried in that spot and later moved to the horse grave.

There was somebody who may have advised them—Kristina—however in keeping with the affidavit, she by no means returned detectives’ calls.

Nichols’ household has lengthy maintained that the El Paso County Sheriff’s Division botched the preliminary investigation; the sheriff was run out of workplace amid allegations of misconduct in 2014.

“When my daughter went lacking, the division was in what seems to be full disarray,” Julia Nichols advised The Denver Channel in 2016. “It leads us to suppose little or no was completed in her case, although they gave lip service to working exhausting to resolve my daughter’s disappearance.”