In 1975, a Greeley woman was shot in front of her 18-month-old son. Her killer has yet to be located.
Marjorie Fithian, 23, and her son had traveled from Greeley to Denver on a Friday to spend the weekend with family.
On Sunday, Fithian’s uncle dropped Fithian and her son off at a bus station in Denver, where they were supposed to get on a bus back to Greeley.
Instead of Greeley, Fithian and her son somehow ended up in Roggen, Colorado — a small town just west of Morgan County, according to Cold Case Detective Byron Kastilahn with Weld County Sheriff’s Office.
“There’s no clue as to how they ended up in Roggen,” Kastilahn said.
Fithian and her son were later found by drivers on the side of a road that connects Roggen and Highway 34, Kastilahn said.
Fithian had been shot in the face. Her son was with her, unharmed.
A farmer from a nearby ranch, who was one of the first people to find Fithian and her son on the side of the road, used the telephone at his ranch to call an ambulance to the scene, according to Kastilahn.
Fithian was transported to a hospital in Brighton where she was pronounced dead.
Initially, detectives looking into Fithian’s murder drew upon her known history of smoking marijuana to investigate drug dealers in the Denver area.
“They thought (Fithian) might have acted as a drug mule, transporting drugs from Denver somewhere else,” Kastilahn said.
This theory yielded information from a known drug dealer, who initially told police he had picked Fithian and her son up from the bus station in Denver because Fithian was supposed to be transporting drugs. He told police Fithian failed to deliver drugs or money that she’d promised, and that he saw another known drug dealer from the area shoot and kill her as a result.
A year and a half later, the man redacted his statement. He was administered sodium pentothal — a “truth serum” that was notable for its usage during World War II, Kastilahn said — and told police that he had made up his claim about the other drug dealer killing Fithian.
When the man had initially been brought in for questioning, the detective interrogating him had left Fithian’s case file, which stated all the details of the case, on the desk. The man read the file and that’s how he was able to come up with his false claim, Kastilahn said.
“He said he did this because he was mad at the other drug dealer who he’d named as Fithian’s killer,” Kastilahn explained. “They had a criminal history between them and they’d been narking each other out to the police.”
In 2020, the false informant, whom Kastilahn followed up with, maintained the same story – he actually did not see her shot, Kastilahn said.
Kastilahn circled back to Fithian’s cousins who had been there the weekend she and her son had visited their family in Denver, but they maintain they don’t remember anything out of the ordinary.
“It’s an unfortunate case as far as leads go,” Kastilahn said. “Nobody had threatened her and her family and friends didn’t know of anyone that had a problem with her.”
Fithian’s son doesn’t remember anything from the incident. After Fithian died, he was raised by Fithian’s sister, his aunt, according to Kastilahn.
The lack of leads in Fithian’s murder investigation makes Kastilahn believe a serial killer may have been responsible. However, there is no evidence that any active serial killers at the time had been in the area when Fithian was murdered, he said.
Fithian had reddish, auburn hair and green eyes. She was 5’0” and 108 pounds at the time of her death.
If anyone has any information about the details surrounding Fithian’s death, they’re asked to contact Detective Byron Kastilahn with the Weld County Sheriff’s Office at 970-400-2827.
