Arrest Made In 1994 Springs Murder Case
Colorado Springs police made an arrest Monday in a 1994 murder case. Jose Ruiz Burciaga, 57, is in custody on suspicion of murdering Sharon Sklavos, 38.
On Monday at around 12:30 p.m., police detectives and Tactical Enforcement Unit (TEU) officers arrested Burciaga without incident in the parking lot of 1605 Briargate Boulevard.
The investigation began on July 22, 1994, when Sklavos was reported missing from her residence. She was mentally impaired and lived with her sister in the 4100 block of Kincannon Road on the city’s southeast side.
Nine days later, police found the victim’s body in North Cheyenne Canyon near Lower Camp Road in southwest Colorado Springs. Her death was ruled a homicide as a result of blunt force trauma injuries.
Investigators collected numerous items of forensic evidence during this investigation, both from and around the body of Sklavos. In the fall of 2011, evidence from this investigation — specifically, DNA — was forwarded to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation by CSPD Cold Case investigators for further analysis.
Through this analysis, a suspect DNA profile was identified and matched to Burciaga. Police say that Burciaga was an associate of Sklavos prior to her death.
The case took an unfortunate turn in July 1995 after two men, Edward Rubio — a relative of Sklavos — and Christopher Kinney were convicted of killing Marcos Hernandez-Castillo and injuring Rafael Balderrama in a shooting outside the Wagon Wheel Lounge on Platte Avenue.
Prosecutors said Rubio, a nephew of Sklavos, believed Balderrama was involved in her murder or knew who committed the crime because Balderrama was a friend of Sharon Sklavos’ sister, lived at the Sklavos’ home and may have been the last to see the victim alive.
However, police said Balderrama and Hernandez-Castillo were not suspects in the Sklavos murder. Rubio and Kinney were sentenced to 32 years in prison, almost a year to the day after Sklavos disappeared.
Police said that some of the work that resulted in Monday’s arrest was funded by a federal grant. The Police Department applied for and received federal funding to re-examine unsolved “cold” sexual assault and homicide cases. The $464,724 grant was awarded in 2009 from the National Institute of Justice under a program called “Solving Cold Cases with DNA.”
The focus of re-examining cases under the grant has been identifying any biological evidence that could have DNA testing done to find a possible match with known offender DNA in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database.
The police Cold Case Unit thanked the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and agents with the Social Security Administration for their efforts in seeking justice for Sklavos.
Burciaga is scheduled for an advisement at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center.
