A 71-year-old Clear Creek County man was convicted Thursday by a Park County jury in the cold case deaths of two young women, whose bodies were found in 1982.

Alan Lee Phillips was arrested in February 2021 for the deaths of Annette Schnee, 21, and Barbara “Bobbi Jo” Oberholtzer, 29. The victims were two women who disappeared when they were hitchhiking home, separately, from their jobs in Breckenridge. They were both abducted and shot on Jan. 6, 1982.

Phillips was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder after deliberation, two counts of felony robbery and four counts of kidnapping. His trial started Aug. 29 with jury selection. The jury began deliberations at about noon Thursday and returned with a verdict just before 5 p.m., according to a Colorado Judicial Department spokesman.

Oberholtzer’s body was found on the summit of Hoosier Pass the day after her disappearance. Schnee’s body was found six months later in a rural area in Park County.

Investigators used DNA evidence to link Phillips to the murders through genetic genealogy. At the time of his arrest, Phillips was a retired mechanic who had lived in different Colorado locations over the years.

“Bobbi Jo (Oberholtzer) was a fighter and is a hero. She fought back and because of that we were able to get DNA evidence to convict Annette and Bobbi Jo’s killer after all this time,” said District Attorney Linda Stanley, 11th Judicial District, in a news release.

Park County Sheriff Tom McGraw said that his office, the 11th Judicial District Attorneys, CBI investigators and crime analysts and United Data Connect, a forensic science computing firm, worked together for justice in the cold case.

Deputy District Attorney Mark Hurlbert said that the long-awaited conviction should serve as a reminder that cold case, unsolved murders do not close.

“This absolutely gives hope to people,” Hurlbert said. “This case being so old, this shows there’s no case that can’t be solved.”