After nearly 40 years, the murder of an Antlers Hilton housekeeper, a case Colorado Springs police detectives feared had gone cold for more than three decades, will go to trial.

Robert Baillie, 59, a convicted rapist and Colorado prison inmate whose DNA allegedly matched a genetic profile developed from biological evidence preserved by police, will stand trial beginning Monday at the El Paso County courthouse when attorneys on both sides make opening statements before 4th Judicial District Judge Timothy J. Schutz.

The body of Janet K. Conrad, a housekeeper at Antlers Hilton for seven years, was found Dec. 3, 1976, naked from the waist down with her hands bound by a vacuum cord and her mouth gagged with a washcloth.

An autopsy discovered Conrad had been restrained, sexually assaulted and choked to death. She was 38 at the time.

Investigators chased leads without results until 2009, when a grant helped secure the funds to submit pubic hair and other evidence gathered by the original detectives to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. CBI forensic technicians matched the DNA found in the submitted sample to Baillie’s genetic profile, which had been entered into a federal database after he was convicted for two rapes in Colorado.

Baillie, who would have been eligible for parole from the Fremont Correctional Facility in Cañon City in January of this year, appeared at the El Paso County courthouse Thursday for a pre-trial readiness conference.

As an unorthodox approach to the case, the judge agreed to allow members of the jury, accompanied by Baillie and his lawyer, to visit the Antlers guestroom where the murder took place and other parts of the hotel pertinent to the case.

Although the prosecution expressed concerns that the hotel had changed dramatically through the decades, Schutz affirmed after touring the scene earlier in the week that he was confident the areas jurors would see had remained very close to their original layout in 1976.

“Seeing the scene will help members of the jury learn more about what happened there long ago,” Schutz said. “It will be important that the area is as free of extraneous information that would not have been there in 1976.”

Jury selection will take place Monday at 9 a.m. and opening statements will follow.

–

Contact Andrea Sinclair: 636-0235

Twitter @GazetteAndrea

Facebook facebook.com/andrea.sinclair.376