DENVER — A man was charged in a nearly 22-year-old cold case homicide, the Denver District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.
Crespin Nene-Perez, 57, appeared in a Denver courtroom Wednesday. He is being charged with the 1998 homicide of then 47-year old Bonny Baker, Nene-Perez’s girlfriend.
Baker went missing from 3190 W. Louisiana Avenue in Denver on June 30, 1998. Baker was a waitress at the Fort Restaurant in Morrison but failed to show up to work the next day.
An unknown woman called police in the early morning hours of July 1, 1998 to report that a woman was killed in an apartment after an argument with her boyfriend. The caller told police the boyfriend was heading to Mexico with the body in the trunk, according to an arrest affidavit. When police arrived at the Louisiana Avenue apartment, they found no sign of a struggle and could not locate Nene-Perez nor Baker.
Later in the evening, Nene-Perez was involved in a single-vehicle accident near the town of Globe, Arizona, but he took off on foot before police arrived. However, investigators collected blood evidence from the car and in the trunk.
One year later, Baker’s remains were discovered by two boys riding horses in a remote area on Navajo tribal grounds in New Mexico. Prosecutors say her body was likely left in a shallow grave within about a day of her disappearance.
In October of 2012, the Cold Case Unit of the Denver Police Department worked with New Mexico officials and confirmed the remains belonged to the victim. An arrest warrant was then issued for Nene-Perez, who was living in Mexico and extradited back to Denver last year.
Nene-Perez is charged with one count of murder in the first degree and one count of second degree kidnapping.