CANON CITY, Colo. (AP) — A man charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl and killing her mother,
brother and sister in Colorado bound and gagged the victims with socks and packing tape, newly released
court documents show.
A 16-year-old girl told police she was able to escape the man after he assaulted her because he passed
out after drinking and taking some of her mother’s prescription pills, the arrest affidavit states. The
girl ran to a neighbor, who called 911.
The document revealing the new details about the March 9 triple slaying in Canon City was released
Friday. Jaacob Vanwinkle, 31, a sex offender from Indiana, has been charged with three counts of
first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault. Vanwinkle was being represented by a public
defender, who did not immediately return calls for comment.
The girl told authorities her relatives were tied up in a garage, and officers later found their bodies
in a bedroom of the house. She said her mother and Vanwinkle had broken up about two weeks earlier, and
he returned to the house, summoned her downstairs, grabbed her from behind and held her at knifepoint,
according to the affidavit.
Officers said they found Vanwinkle in a different bedroom. He initially told them he watched TV at the
home, left to get methamphetamine from a friend, and returned to find the bodies but decided not to call
police because he was a fugitive, the affidavit says. Authorities were drafting a warrant for his arrest
for failing to register as a sex offender at the time of the killings.
Vanwinkle also told police he moved the bodies and hid a knife in a crawlspace after wrapping it in bed
sheets, the affidavit states. He acknowledged sexually assaulting the girl but denied the killings, the
documents say.