visiting skiers. a person has to make a living. for dale, skiers were it. i love taking wildlife photos and scenics. why don t you sell more of your work that way? i said buffalo don t carry credit cards, you know. anyway, up there on the mountain he spotted this young woman seemed to be conducting some sort of forestry service survey. i skied up to her and said what are you doing, writing parking tickets? she looked up at me and smiled. then she took off her big ski goggles. i was stunned. i was like, wow, she s beautiful. they moved in together right away. when they got married a few years later, they eloped, jetting off to fiji. it was so stephanie, said her friend. yeah, they kind of just ran off and did it. they made their home in silverthorne, where dale s photo business grew and grew. when things were really rolling i had several different operations in different states around the country, around 25 different photographers working. stephanie got a job in
pried at the windows and licked under the door frames at the bruner house here in silverthorne, colorado. hardly a night to take a walk, certainly not an all-night walk. had she hurt herself, or had someone else hurt her? it wasn t like her to just disappear. seemed more of like a stranger might be involved or she herself might have run off into despair and maybe hurt herself. stephanie s friends and family poured over those last few weeks, so full of change, secrecy, turmoil. were there clues? some knew about stephanie s relationship with her new man and how upset she was about losing her job. still, she seemed to be holding the trouble at bay. six weeks before she disappeared, as dale recalled, she suggested a little family holiday. she said let s go to glennwood springs for the weekend, all classic, wonderful place. it was almost romantic, said
first murder in silverthorne in decades. but who would do such a thing? and why? it was just hours before stephanie took her walk in this virtually crime-free community that somebody robbed that nearby bank. so, did the robber later encounter stephanie and then assault and kill her? this is where a predator could have been hiding out. there s any number of opportunities at that point. still, it was so cold. perhaps too cold for a lurking predator. this is one of those very few cases where it s a whodunit, if you will, and we ve got i had at least three viable suspects. any one of whom had potential motive? absolutely. there was ron holthouse, the other man, who had just suddenly dumped stephanie. there was cindy, ron s wife, who, if she knew about the affair, could have wanted revenge. and then there was dale, dale
in the fall of 2010, an annual fund-raiser here in silverthorne called dancing with the mountain stars, local worthies paired with ballroom pros. did you go? oh, yeah, absolutely. i went to three years of them. the last one, i did not go to the last one. had a wedding to shoot. so, he missed the chance to watch stephanie teach those lead-footed businessmen the fox trot and tango and so on. which means he also missed what happened that night. she coached a number of couples and in the process she met a man named ron. ron holthouse, a local, married physical therapist. she started working with him and got to know him. they really clicked. and stephanie was dancing on
dale bruner was taking and selling photographs of visiting skiers. person has to make a living and for dale, skiers were it. i love taking wildlife photos and scenics. why don t you sell more of your work that way? i said buffalo don t carry credit cards, you know. anyway, up there on the mountain he spot this had young woman seemed to be conducting some sort of forestry service survey. i skied up to her and said what are you doing, writing parking tickets? she looked up at me and smiled. then she took off her big ski goggles. i was stunned. i was like, wow, she s beautiful. they moved in together right away. when they got married a few years later, they eloped, jetting off to fiji. it was so stephanie, said her friend. yeah, they kind of just ran off and did it. they made their home in silverthorne, where dale s photo business grew and grew. when things were really rolling i had several different operations in different states around the country, around 25