Joseph Michael Ervin

Serial Killer

Joseph Michael "Joe" Ervin: Serial Killer Identified Decades After His Death

Joseph Michael Ervin, commonly identified in law-enforcement records as Joe Michael Ervin, was an American serial killer whose known violent history stretched from Texas to Colorado between 1969 and 1981. For decades, several of his murders remained separate cold cases with no known connection to one another. Only advances in DNA analysis and investigative genetic genealogy allowed authorities to identify Ervin long after his death. Investigators eventually linked him through DNA to four previously unsolved murders in the Denver metropolitan area, while records also connected him to an earlier Texas homicide and the 1981 killing of an Aurora police officer. Authorities have therefore attributed at least six killings to Ervin.

The 1969 Killing of Rodney Gene Bonham

Ervin's known homicidal history began while he was still a teenager in Fort Worth, Texas. In August 1969, 21-year-old Rodney Gene Bonham, a student at Tarrant County Junior College, was sitting in a vehicle outside the Berry Bowl bowling alley on East Berry Street with a friend. Contemporary and later accounts differ on whether the shooting occurred on August 8 or August 9, but Ervin was subsequently accused of approaching the vehicle and shooting Bonham in the neck. Bonham was transported to a hospital in critical condition and died from his injuries several days later, on August 13, 1969. The apparently random nature of the attack initially left investigators with few leads. Ervin was eventually identified as a suspect, and a Tarrant County grand jury indicted him for Bonham's murder later that year. By then, however, Ervin had fled Texas. Ervin relocated to Colorado and used the name Joe Michael Erwing. The outstanding Texas murder case would follow him in official records, but administrative errors involving identifying information reportedly prevented Colorado authorities from recognizing that the man they were repeatedly encountering was wanted for murder in Texas.

Violent Crimes in Colorado

During the 1970s, Ervin repeatedly came into contact with law enforcement in Colorado. Investigators reviewing his history decades later found records involving burglary-related sexual assaults in which homes were entered and victims were threatened with a knife. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity in connection with one of his early Colorado cases and spent time at the Colorado State Hospital in Pueblo. His dangerous behavior continued after his release. In June 1980, Ervin was arrested after allegedly breaking into a woman's home, kidnapping her at gunpoint, taking her to his residence and sexually assaulting her. He was charged in connection with that attack but was released on bond. Within months, investigators now know, women were being murdered in Denver while Ervin remained free. ...

Confirmed Victims: (6)

Rodney Gene Bonham Age: (21), Date of Death: August 9, 1969

Survivors:

Glenn Joseph Spies Age: (19), Date of Attack: June 27, 1981

Joe Michael Ervin - Wikipedia