A Family’s Pain

The cold case homicide arrest and advisement of 57-year-old Jose Ruiz Burciaga dredges up emotional wounds that are as fresh now as they were nearly 18 years ago. Leroy Vigil is the nephew of Sharon Sklavos. Her body was discovered on July 31, 1994, in North Cheyenne Canyon near Lower Gold Camp Road.

Vigil, known to family and friends as Sonny Boy, talked to me on the phone from Denver about his mentally challenged Aunt Sharon. He said, “She was like a little girl. She couldn’t live by herself. Her sister was a caretaker for her.” Vigil goes on to say, “She had a good soul. We all loved her. She always laughed and was a good kind-hearted person.”

Springs Police tell me that Burciaga was the boyfriend of Sharon’s sister. Detectives questioned him in 1994 about Sharon’s death. She’d been hit multiple times in the head. They believed he was a suspect but didn’t have enough solid evidence to charge him. Officers had D.N.A. evidence, but the technology 18 years ago was prehistoric compared to today’s high-tech testing. A Cold Case Team with the Colorado Springs Police Department resubmitted the D.N.A. evidence and with today’s testing came up with a hit and arrested Burciaga.

The Sklavos investigation is just one of 30 cold case homicides that have been submitted for testing for further analysis of D.N.A. evidence. This is one of the first ones that have been submitted to the lab that Police used for an arrest. Officers tell me that by the middle of this Summer, the results of those other cold cases should be back to them for further examination.