Colorado Springs cold case involving teen girl solved after more than 47 years

Colorado Springs police on Wednesday announced that a cold case murder of teenager Maria Honzell more than 47 years ago was finally solved. Thanks to the use of genetic genealogy, William C. Kernan, who died in 2010, was identified as the person responsible in the death of Honzell, who was 14 when she died on Feb.

7, 1977. “Because (Kernan) died in 2010, the investigation into the murder of Maria Honzell will be closed out as exceptionally cleared,” Caitlin Ford, a spokesperson with the Colorado Springs Police Department, said at a news conference. The Colorado Springs Police Department's Cold Case Unit has identified a suspect in the cold case of Maria Honzell as William Kernan, who died in 2010.



According to previous coverage by The Gazette, on the night of Feb. 7, 1977, Colorado Springs mother of two Janey Kusleika arrived home to find her babysitter, Honzell, dead with multiple stab wounds in her apartment bedroom along North Nevada Avenue. The two boys Honzell was babysitting, the children of Kusleika, were asleep and unharmed at the time police were called at around 11:20 p.

m. Reports state Kusleika and Honzell were neighbors and lived in the same apartment complex along the 5400 block of Nevada Avenue. Kusleika told authorities she had spoken to Honzell on the phone just a few hours earlier, and that nothing seemed out of the ordinary at the time of the conversation.

One of the boys told police he had gone to sleep at around 8 p.m. but was awoken sometime later by .