Two hikers walking through Colorado’s South Saint Vrain Canyon in June 2006 discovered a scene that would haunt investigators and one grieving family for the next two decades.

Near what appeared to be a shallow grave lay the badly decomposed body of a woman. She had apparently been pulled from the burial site by an animal and was found without clothing, except for a ring still resting on her left hand.

Authorities could not immediately determine who she was.

For months, the woman had no name. Investigators had a body, a remote crime scene and the disturbing signs of an attempted burial, but little else to explain who had left her there—or why.

Twenty years later, the long-running case finally reached a measure of resolution.

On July 28, 2026, 57-year-old John Angerer pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in connection with the death of Angela Wilds. The agreement ended years of investigations, court battles and unsuccessful attempts to secure a verdict.

Angerer was sentenced to three years in prison and two years of mandatory parole. However, because he had already spent more time in custody than the new sentence required, he will not serve additional prison time after his release.

Giving the Victim Her Name Back

The first major breakthrough came five months after the hikers’ discovery.

In November 2006, DNA analysis identified the woman as Wilds, who would have been approximately 38 years old when she died.

Learning her identity gave investigators a starting point. It also transformed the case from the mystery of an unidentified body into the story of a real woman whose family was waiting for answers.

But identifying Wilds did not immediately reveal who was responsible for her death.

Investigators spent years examining evidence, speaking with witnesses and trying to reconstruct the circumstances that brought her to the isolated canyon area.

In 2009, three years after her remains were found, authorities connected Angerer to evidence from the crime scene.

An affidavit later cited DNA findings indicating that Angerer had engaged in sexual activity with Wilds. That evidence became especially significant because Angerer had reportedly told police that he did not know her.

The discovery placed him at the center of the investigation, but it would take many more years—and several failed legal proceedings—before he accepted responsibility.

The First Murder Case Falls Apart

Authorities arrested Angerer in 2010 on suspicion of second-degree murder.

The arrest appeared to mark a major turning point. After four years of uncertainty, prosecutors finally had a suspect in custody and were pursuing one of the most serious charges available.

But the case did not move forward.

A judge dismissed the charge that same year after determining that prosecutors had not established probable cause to support it.

The ruling sent the investigation back into uncertainty. Angerer was no longer facing prosecution, and Wilds’ family remained without a conviction or an admission explaining who was responsible for her death.

Still, investigators did not abandon the case.

Over the years that followed, authorities revisited the existing evidence and searched for new information. They identified additional witnesses, returned to people previously interviewed by law enforcement and consulted forensic pathologists.

Investigators also sent more evidence to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for testing and DNA analysis.

The work reflected how a cold case can evolve even when its central facts remain unchanged. Scientific testing improves. Witnesses may remember new details or become willing to speak. Evidence that once appeared inconclusive can take on greater meaning when examined alongside newly discovered information.

Eventually, prosecutors believed they had enough to bring Angerer back to Colorado and place the allegations before a jury.

Two Trials, But No Verdict

Angerer had moved to Alaska, requiring authorities to extradite him back to Colorado as the prosecution was revived.

He was extradited in both 2010 and 2023 during different stages of the case.

The renewed effort led to two trials. Yet neither produced the decisive conclusion prosecutors and Wilds’ relatives had hoped to see.

One jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. A second proceeding also ended in deadlock.

The repeated failures left the case suspended between accusation and resolution. Prosecutors continued to maintain that the evidence connected Angerer to Wilds’ death, but jurors had not agreed on whether it proved the murder charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

For Wilds’ family, the process meant returning again and again to a death that had already shaped nearly 20 years of their lives.

Each new investigation raised the possibility of accountability. Each unresolved trial brought another disappointment.

Meanwhile, Angerer’s criminal history in Colorado and Alaska included offenses involving disorderly conduct, resisting or obstructing an officer, burglary, driving under the influence, trespassing, arson, assault and menacing.

Those past cases were separate from Wilds’ death, but they formed part of the background surrounding the man prosecutors had pursued for years.

A Plea Before a Third Trial

With a third trial approaching, Angerer accepted a plea agreement rather than face another jury.

He pleaded guilty to one count of criminally negligent homicide. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed the second-degree murder charge.

The lesser offense carried a three-year prison sentence, far below the punishment Angerer could have faced if convicted of murder.

But even that sentence will not result in more time behind bars.

Angerer received credit for 1,375 days previously spent in custody between the two unsuccessful trials. That period exceeds the three-year sentence imposed under the plea agreement.

As a result, the court’s judgment formally holds him accountable for Wilds’ death, but it does not require him to begin a new prison term. He will instead be subject to two years of mandatory parole.

The outcome carries an unavoidable tension.

After two decades, the case finally includes a guilty plea. Yet the person accepting responsibility will not spend additional time incarcerated because of the years he has already served while awaiting the earlier trials.

A Measure of Accountability After 20 Years

Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty acknowledged that the plea could never repair what Wilds’ family had lost.

For 20 years, he said, her relatives had lived with the painful uncertainty of whether the justice system would ever hold anyone accountable.

The plea did not erase Angela’s death or restore the years her family spent waiting. But Dougherty described it as a meaningful step toward recognizing her life and establishing responsibility for what happened to her.

The case began with a woman found alone in a remote canyon, her identity hidden by decomposition and nearly every immediate clue stripped away.

DNA eventually restored her name. Persistent investigators repeatedly reopened the path toward prosecution. Two juries failed to reach verdicts, but the case survived those setbacks.

In the end, the resolution was not the murder conviction prosecutors had once pursued. It was a negotiated admission to a lesser charge, delivered shortly before a third trial might have reopened the entire ordeal.

For Angela Wilds’ family, the plea cannot make the outcome complete. No sentence can return the woman whose remains were discovered beside that shallow grave in 2006.

But after 20 years of unanswered questions, failed prosecutions and uncertainty, the legal record now contains something it had long lacked: an acknowledgment of criminal responsibility for her death.