Who murdered John Nygaard in 1977? John Nygaard was found dead on May 24, 1977, in Jefferson County, Colorado. He was discovered early that morning near the entrance to the Chieftain Mine, immediately west of the Lakewood Motorcycle Park at about 15000 West Alameda Parkway. Workers for Robinson Brick arrived at the gate around 6:40 a.m., and when they got out, they found Nygaard’s body.
What had begun as an ordinary morning at an industrial site became the discovery point in a homicide that remains unresolved in the publicly available case record.
Nygaard had last been seen the night before, on May 23, 1977, leaving his apartment building at 1250 Lafayette Street at about 9:00 p.m. He was not alone. According to the Jefferson County case summary, he left in the company of an unknown White male, described by several witnesses as approximately 25 to 35 years old and between 5 feet 9 inches and 6 feet tall. Investigators developed composite images based on witness accounts, and some witnesses believed the man may have been wearing a cowboy hat and had a moustache.
The morning Nygaard’s body was found, another sign that something was wrong had already emerged: he had not shown up for work. He had been a morning carrier for the Denver Post, and his failure to appear on May 24, 1977, stood out because his route depended on him being there early. Nygaard was originally from Iowa and had been living in the Denver area for less than a year. He was also a member of the Metropolitan Community Church, placing him within a community network during what appears to have been a relatively brief period of his life in Colorado.
The available public information does not state Nygaard’s age, race, exact cause of death, specific injuries, weapon used, or a confirmed motive. It identifies the case as a homicide and places the focus on the unknown man last seen with him. That man remains the key publicly described suspect or person of interest: a male companion seen leaving Nygaard’s apartment building with him roughly nine and a half hours before workers discovered Nygaard’s body near the mine entrance.
No arrests, charges, trials, or convictions are reported in the available Jefferson County public case summary. The case remains listed as a cold case, and the publicly released details do not identify any named suspect beyond the unknown male seen with Nygaard on the night before his death.
