Essel G. Levin, a 45-year-old female, White, lived an ordinary life in Colorado Springs until the night that would mark her name in the city's cold case files. On November 19, 1981, police were called to the 1900 block of Sussex Lane, where they found her lying face down in the bushes near the front porch of a residence. Records list her death as occurring the day before, November 18, 1981, placing the discovery just hours after her final day.
The scene told a stark story: Levin had been shot at close range, a precise and personal act carried out steps from a doorway, with no immediate sign of who had pulled the trigger or why. There was no public indication of a struggle that spilled into the street, no quick answer offered by neighbors or passersby, only the sudden silence of a life ended and the echo of a gunshot in a quiet neighborhood.
In the days and years that followed, investigators documented the essentials—her age, the location, the wound, and the date—but no arrest was announced, and no suspect was publicly named. The case remains unsolved within the Colorado Springs Police Department's cold case records, a file that still invites information from anyone who might carry a missing piece of the story.
