1970 Murder of Betty Lee Jones Has Been Solved, According to Boulder County

Betty Lee Jones was a 23-year-old mother of two living in Denver with her husband of less than a year when she was killed in Boulder County. On March 9, 1970, her body was discovered by two Colorado Department of Transportation workers on Highway 128.

Jones and her husband, newly married, had supposedly been arguing for days when Jones finally decided to leave her home and flag down a car on a road near her residence. A blue sedan stopped to pick her up, and that was the last vehicle that she was seen alive in.

The murder of Jones was a cold case, riddled with unanswered questions until Boulder County decided to reopen it in 2006 with help from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation— and a new lead on a suspect.

According to a press release, thanks to evidence obtained from the victim's body, six suspects were identified. One of them was her husband, but he was ruled out after his DNA was not a match to the obtained samples.

Thanks to relatives with close matches to the DNA evidence, the CBI eventually zeroed in on a subject, Paul Leroy Martin, who died in June of 2019. His DNA was, indeed, a match for that of the evidence found on Jones' body. According to the Boulder County Sheriff's office,

Martin has no known link to Betty Lee Jones, and a close family member, who was living during that time, said the Martin name was not familiar to her and she did not recall Betty dating anyone by that name. The name was not in any of the original reports or in the original officers’ notes.

Along with the positive DNA match, it was confirmed that Martin had driven a blue sedan during that time, the same one that Jones was last seen in on the day of her death. Sadly, he bound Jones, sexually assaulted, strangled, and shot her.

In a tragic case such as this one, it's a relief for many to finally have an answer to the question: "Who killed Betty Lee Jones?" The Boulder County Sheriff's office says that "if he were alive today, Paul Martin would be charged and prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office for the murder of Betty Jones."