A fake name, a pornographic video and a murder: How a confession in a 1988 Colorado cold case led police to a suspect

Thirty-six years ago, Denver police found Edward Chase dead in his living room.

The 53-year-old man had been stabbed 11 times, beaten and strangled in his home at 1328 S. Acoma St. His hands were bound with cords from the home’s curtains, and it appeared he’d been strangled with a pipe, a purple bandana and a sock, according to newly filed court records that spell out how police this summer finally charged a suspect in the cold case.

On Jan. 12, 1988, officers found a knife, a pair of scissors and a bloody T-shirt near Chase’s body. Beer bottles sat by a TV, and when investigators hit the start button on the VCR, a pornographic video of two women having sex played. Investigators found a pack of Marlboro cigarettes in the trash, and .22-caliber ammunition in the house, but no gun.

Detectives who investigated the case quickly learned that Chase worked at Sachs-Lawlor, a sign company a half-mile down the road from his rented home. He got around on a bicycle and didn’t own a car, sometimes bumming rides to the grocery store from his coworkers, who considered him a “prompt and excellent” employee.

But his colleagues knew Chase as 40-year-old Edward Peterson, a false identity he’d been using “for some time,” according to court records.

The detectives spoke to Chase’s neighbors, including 18-year-old David Lucero, who lived in the house next door. He told police he’d talked with Chase from time to time over their shared fence, and that he’d last seen Chase a few days before he died, when the older man stopped by to borrow a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. He told detectives he thought Chase was gay, though Chase’s colleagues disputed that, saying he often spoke about women.

The detectives couldn’t build enough of a case to make any arrests, and the case went cold. When a detective interviewed Lucero again in 1992, he reiterated his earlier account.

Lucero faced a series of criminal charges between September 1988 and 2020. He was convicted of assaulting a police officer in 2010 and was sentenced to six years in prison. In 2020, he pleaded guilty to menacing and received a two-year prison sentence.

Through six criminal cases, he never said a word about the 1988 homicide.

Until last year.

In October 2023, Lucero talked with his parole officer. The parole officer made a note in Lucero’s file to follow up after Lucero discussed knowing about a homicide, but never did, according to the records.

That same year, Lucero called the Denver Police Department’s cold case unit and said he wanted to share information on a killing. But when a sergeant met with Lucero, who was at the time incarcerated in the Arapahoe County Jail, Lucero said he was too afraid to talk while behind bars.

The 1988 case stayed cold into 2024.

Finally, in July, Lucero, now 55, called the Denver District Attorney’s Office and arranged a meeting with investigators, telling them he wanted “protection” if he provided information on a homicide. The picked him up and drove him to their offices, sat him down in a private conference room, made sure he knew he was free to go at anytime. No one read him his rights.

Lucero confessed, according to court records.

He told the investigators he’d visited his neighbor in January of 1988 “on the darkest night” he ever remembered to drink beer and smoke cigarettes, and that Chase had put on a pornographic video. Lucero said he became concerned that Chase was going to try to have sex with him, so he hit the man with a pipe until he fell unconscious.

Lucero said he then searched the house for something to steal and pocketed a gun and cash. But Chase was “still moving,” so Lucero attacked him again, strangling the man until he died, according to court records. He didn’t mention stabbing Chase and couldn’t remember what he’d used to strangle the man, according to the records.