A manager of transitional housing is found stabbed to death In the winter of 1998, in Denver, Colorado, the life of 44-year-old Polly Sullivan was tragically cut short. Of Irish and Muscogee Creek heritage, Polly was a lawyer and the project director of the Crooked Tree housing project, a residence for the homeless located at the former Lowry Air Force Base. She was not just an administrator but also a resident, choosing to live among the people she was dedicated to helping.
Her apartment was known for the lighthouses she collected and displayed in her window, their lights a comforting beacon for the other residents. On Christmas Day, after visiting with her parents, Polly returned to her apartment to prepare a holiday dinner for several of the women living at Crooked Tree. It was sometime that afternoon that an intruder entered her home and the lights in her window went dark.
The following day, December 26, 1998, after she hadn't been seen, Polly's body was discovered in her apartment. She had been brutally beaten and stabbed to death. The investigation into her murder quickly focused on a resident of the building, a 48-year-old ex-convict named Willie Safford. Safford had a long criminal record and was reportedly on the verge of being evicted due to arguments with other tenants and late rent payments. Two weeks prior to her death, Polly had expressed her fear of Safford's volatile behavior in letters to the building's administrators and his parole officer.
Based on this information, Willie Safford was arrested and charged with Polly Sullivan's murder. However, Safford maintained his innocence, and prosecutors ultimately had to drop the charges against him, citing a lack of sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. With no other suspects identified, the investigation into Polly's murder went cold. Despite the passage of time, her family continued to seek justice. In 2012, her sister successfully petitioned the Vidocq Society, a group of volunteer criminologists, to review the case in the hopes of uncovering new leads and finally solving the murder that had silenced a beacon of hope in the Denver community.
