Long before the days of swiping left on a phone app, or posting carefully crafted profiles on paid websites, people sought love in the back pages of a newspaper.

Cassandra Rundle was one of them.

In the summer of 1984, the shy and twice-divorced Rundle took out two personal ads in the now-defunct Colorado Spring Sun, seeking “one good man.”

When she and her two children were slain in their home on Valentine’s Day 1985, police wondered if the ads were what introduced her to the killer.

The second episode of Colorado Cold Case, which airs Monday, looks at the earliest days of the police investigation into the unsolved murders of Rundle, 12-year-old Detrick Sturm and 10-year-old Melanie Sturm.

In the nearly four decades since the slayings, online dating has replaced personal ads and  transformed the landscape when it comes to finding love or a casual hookup. Over the years, online dating has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry.

Despite increasing popularity, dating apps and sites have brought horror to unsuspecting victims around the world, including Colorado Springs, where a man looking for a casual encounter on a gay dating app in 2015 ended up fatally stabbed.

In this episode, reported and produced by The Gazette, listeners will hear from a police detective, a Match.com spokeswoman and professional matchmaker from Colorado Springs as they talk about the risks in online dating and safety tips.

A biology professor at University of Colorado-Colorado Springs shares her unique view on how online romance can go bad, including her personal link to Boston’s so-called “Craigslist Killer,” who allegedly stalked his victims in the personal sections on the free classified site, killing one woman and robbing two others.

Seasons 1-4 of Colorado Cold Case can be found on iTunes, Spotify and wherever else you get your podcasts. Listen here: https://gazettedev.gazette.com/colorado-cold-case.

Colorado Springs police detectives investigate the murder of Cassandra Rundle and her two children on Feb. 14, 1985. The family was found dead inside their  Ivywild home at the 400 block LaClede Avenue by Rundle’s ex-husband. 

Cassandra Susan Rundle, her son, Detrick Sturm and her daughter, Melanie Sturm, were found slaughtered in their Ivywild home on February 14, 1985. The three died as a result of strangulation, and both Cassandra and Melanie had been sexually assaulted.