Insets, top to bottom: Casey Childers and Rachel Holeman. Background: The area where Holeman’s body was located (18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office).
A 41-year-old man in Colorado will spend the rest of his days behind bars for kidnapping and killing a 29-year-old woman, executing her with a bullet to the head in what prosecutors described as a “calculated and cruel” act of violence. District Judge Natalie Stricklin on Thursday ordered Casey Childers to serve a sentence of life in a state correctional facility without parole for the 2021 slaying of Rachel Holeman, authorities announced.
The sentencing came after a jury found Childers guilty on one count each of first-degree murder after deliberation, second-degree kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit second-degree kidnapping.
“The evidence shows this defendant senselessly murdered and left her body in a remote part of the county where he thought no one would find her,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Corrie Caler said in a statement. “Fortunately, an alert deputy responding to a different call took the time to run a plate which helped narrow down the search area for Rachel.”
According to a news release from the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, in early November 2021, Childers and two other individuals kidnapped Holeman, brought her to a remote area and shot her in the head. Prosecutors said that Holeman and those convicted in her murder were in Colorado “distributing drugs.” Childers’ two accomplices, 46-year-old Shantel Edlund and 23-year-old Leo Vanbuskirk, have been convicted on felony charges in connection with the case.
Left: Leo Vanbuskirk. Right: Shantel Edlund (18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office).
Investigators determined that Holeman was last seen alive on Nov. 6, 2021, in Edlund’s Chevrolet Malibu sedan in the area of Colfax Avenue and Victor Street in Aurora, Colorado, about eight miles east of Denver.
Deputies with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office were responding to an unrelated burglary call on Nov. 7, 2021, when they drove past the Chevrolet Malibu near South Parker and Russellville roads, about 40 miles south of Aurora. The sighting of the Chevrolet Malibu was captured on the dashcam of one of the responding deputies.
That deputy later ran the license plate of the Chevrolet Malibu, which authorities say helped investigators connect the vehicle and the location to Holeman’s disappearance.
Nearly two months later, on Dec. 29, 2021, police in Sheridan, Wyoming, conducted a traffic stop on Edlund’s Chevy Malibu and arrested Childers, Edlund, and Vanbuskirk on unrelated warrants and drug charges.
“Based on statements made by Edlund along with the dashcam footage, the Aurora Police Department, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, and Douglas County’s Search and Rescue Team flew a drone over the surrounding area and found Holeman’s body,” prosecutors wrote in the release. “The coroner’s report determined the victim died from a gunshot wound to the head.”
It was later determined that Childers was the person who shot and killed Holeman.
Edlund pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and was sentenced to 18 years in the Department of Corrections. Vanbuskirk pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for later this year.
“This was not a hastily committed crime; it was deliberate, calculated and cruel,” District Attorney John Kellner said in a statement. “Casey Childers deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
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