LAS VEGAS – Las Vegas law enforcement officials announced Wednesday that two cold-case homicides were solved after advancements in DNA technology linked a suspect to murders in both Nevada and Colorado, nearly 16 years apart.
During a press conference to announce its findings, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said officers responded in May 1991 to reports of a suspicious death at an apartment in the 1000 block of Monroe Avenue, the New York Post reported.
Upon arrival, police contacted a friend and a relative of Sherrie Bridgewater, 31, who had just discovered the woman dead inside her apartment.
An autopsy revealed that Bridgewater was sexually assaulted and murdered by strangulation. Homicide detectives worked the case “relentlessly” over the years, yet it remained unsolved.
In 2013, LVMPD submitted a sexual assault kit obtained during the investigation for DNA examination. This process allowed detectives to develop a suspect profile of the person believed to have killed Bridgewater. Though in possession of the DNA profile, investigators could not put a name to it.
However, Las Vegas detectives entered the profile into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), and received a hit that connected Bridgewater’s killer to a second unsolved murder that occurred in 1975 in Westminster, Colorado.
As a result of the match, homicide detectives in Las Vegas began collaborating with the Westminster Police Department. The Colorado case involved a woman named Teree Becker who was found dead in a field. An autopsy revealed that she, too, had been sexually assaulted and died by strangulation, KDVR reported.
Detectives discovered that Sherrie Bridgewater, left, and Teree Becker, right, were both killed by Thomas Martin Elliott. (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)
At the time of this discovery, technology was not yet available to identify the suspect unless police obtained a DNA sample from the specific individual accused of the murders.
However, in 2018 both agencies worked together and submitted the suspect DNA for forensic genealogy to a lab and subsequently to a company in Denver. Four years later, in 2022, detectives were provided with the identity of the suspect as Thomas Martin Elliott, according to the New York Post.
Detectives were able to place Elliott in Las Vegas in 1991, at the time of Bridgewater’s murder, and in Westminster, Colorado in 1975, when Becker was killed.
Despite the major break in each case, there was no one to arrest since Elliott died October 30, 1991 — about five months after the Bridgewater homicide — from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Las Vegas. The 40-year-old man was subsequently buried in a local cemetery.
“Thomas Elliott spent a large portion of his life in and out of the prison system,” Westminster police said.
Shortly before he murdered Becker, Elliott committed a burglary in Lakewood. He was convicted and spent six years in prison before he was released in Las Vegas in 1981, reported KDVR.
Once Elliott was released, his crimes continued. He received another 10 years for committing a crime against a child and was once again released in Las Vegas in 1991, the same year Bridgewater was raped and murdered.
While exhuming a body is an expensive process, law enforcement authorities approached the Vegas Justice League to help fund the exhumation of Elliott’s body so detectives could conclusively determine who killed the women.
Martin Elliott’s remains were exhumed so DNA could be extracted. (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)
In October 2023, Elliott’s remains were exhumed and detectives were able to obtain tissue and bone samples which were submitted to a lab.
The results proved to be a match in both homicide cases. Las Vegas and Westminster police had found their killer and each case was closed.
