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This story was produced in conjunction with WHIO-TV. We interviewed relatives and law enforcement officers to shed new light on this cold case. If you have ideas for future Miami Valley Murder Mystery segments, contact Becky Grimes, executive producer of special projects at 937-259-2143.
It’s a cold case that began on a bitter, snowy night 30 years ago.
Denise Chance, an 18-year-old Kenton Ridge High School graduate, disappeared from her Erter Drive residence early on the morning of Jan. 7, 1985.
She left behind her shoes, coat, purse and car keys, and left the door to the garage ajar. It was the freezing house that alerted her roommate that something was amiss that morning.
As the spring thaw set in 10 weeks later, her body was found submerged in the melting ice and snow in a drainage ditch along Baldwin Lane.
She’d been strangled; her lifeless, nearly naked body left to freeze until a man looking for aluminum cans spotted her on March 20.
Three decades later, her family, friends, and the detectives who investigated her death are still waiting for the missing piece of information that could bring her killer to justice.
Retired Springfield Police Detective Bob Kerr investigated homicide cases for 12 years, including Chance’s death, and worked for the prosecutor’s office for another dozen years.
“This is one (case) that really sticks out in my mind that’s unsolved and I would like to see it solved,” he said.
As the 30th anniversary of her death passed in January, Chance’s sister Dena Daugherty and mother Linda Phillips traveled to Springfield from their home in Indiana to meet with several generations of detectives who have worked on the homicide.
They are all linked by the same mission — to find out what happened once and for all.
“People know,” said Sgt. Jeffrey Flores, head of Springfield’s Crimes Against Persons division. “And we need them to come forward.”
A family left wondering
Dena Daugherty was 11 when her big sister was killed. It’s an event that has since shaped her entire life.
“I was scared to turn 18. I thought I was going to die,” she said. “I was afraid to have kids … My daughter is 20 and my son is 13, and my daughter is still living at home with me, going to college. Because if I allow her to move out, this is what happens.”
She knows her protectiveness can be seen as over the top, but says that’s how deeply her sister’s death has affected her personality.
“This is just me,” she said. “This is my mission. It’s every day.”
Daugherty began meeting with the detectives investigating Chance’s murder when she was 15. They wouldn’t let her see photos from where the body was found until she turned 18.
“So a few days after I turned 18 I was right here,” she said at the Springfield Police station in late January. “I’ve been here pretty much the whole time.”
It’s difficult for her to talk about her sister, even now, after so many years. But she wanted to call attention to the case on the occasion of the 30th anniversary in hopes that someone will come forward with new information.
“I’m angry. I’m probably more angry than sad. 30 years have gone by. This person or persons have gotten married and had kids and probably grand kids and haven’t given her a second thought,” Daugherty said. “Somebody out there knows something. Thirty years we’ve lived this way. There has to be closure. I don’t want to die not knowing.”
A young life cut short
Chance was just on the cusp of her adult life when she was killed.
Seeking independence with her newly minted high school diploma in hand, she’d begun a job at the I.O.O.F. nursing home and rented a room behind the garage at a family friend’s house.
“She liked older people, that’s why she worked at the home,” her mother Phillips said, fighting back tears remembering decades later how the staff told her Chance would take the residents out to lunch on her days off.
She had only lived in the room a few weeks before she went missing.
The petite brunette — she stood just 5-foot-2 and weighed less than 100 pounds — was a quiet but caring soul.
“She wanted to get married and have kids,” Phillips said.
The family has joked that she would probably have had at least four children by now.
“And now I feel guilty because I’m happily married for 22 years, I have kids, and she still has nothing,” Daugherty said.
Chance spent the last few hours before she disappeared like a normal young person.
She played pool with her brother and friends at the Forest Lake Fishing and Camping game room that Sunday night, then gave him a ride home, where she spoke to her mother for the last time.
“She dropped him off and she said, ‘I’ll see you, Mom.’ It was Jan. 7, my birthday was Jan. 9. She said, ‘I’ll see you for your birthday,’ and I said OK,” her mother said.
By all accounts Chance then went to her new home, talked to her boyfriend on the phone for a bit, then stayed up talking to her roommate until shortly after 1:30 a.m.
Less than five hours later, that roommate would awaken to find Chance gone without a trace.
Keeping the case alive
“I can remember that day well,” said Capt. Mike Hill. He now oversees all investigations by Springfield police, but on Jan. 7, 1985, he was a young patrol officer.
He and his partner at the time were assigned to investigate Chance’s disappearance after an overnight officer took an initial report.
“There was snow on the ground. It was one of the first snows of the year,” he said. “There were no tracks leading away from the house where she would have left, so we believe that she probably left prior to the snow sticking to the ground.”
The blanket of snow that morning stuck around, hampering efforts to find Chance.
“It snowed real heavy after that and if she was laying in the ditch all that time, she would have been under the snow. It was a cold winter from that point on until she was found when it started to melt,” Kerr said.
Despite the cold, officers from the police division, Clark County Sheriff’s Office and Ohio Department of Natural Resources scoured the Northern Estates subdivision and the areas around the Northwood Hills Country Club and Clarence J. Brown Reservoir.
They even sought the assistance of the WHIO-TV helicopter to perform an aerial, heat-seeking search, according to police and news reports.
“She was probably frozen all that time,” Kerr said.
Even after she was found dead, wearing only socks, detectives continued to search for evidence, using canoes to probe the waters of a nearby creek.
DNA evidence wasn’t yet the goldmine of information it is today, and there weren’t any distinguishable ligature marks on Chance’s body.
There have been rumors, suspects and theories over the years, but eventually the case went cold.
“What’s unique about this case, a lot of people knew Denise, went to school with Denise, that are now police officers,” Flores said.
Even though there has been turnover in the ranks and many years have passed, he said the case is still alive.
Detective Ron Jordan is the latest in a line of officers assigned to keep digging. He met Chance’s family last month and told them he got a voice-mail just two weeks prior from someone who wanted to talk about the case.
“I’m hopeful that after all these years, someone out there knows something that they probably want to get off their chest, and I think they may feel a lot better if they do so. I encourage them to contact me,” he said.
Anyone with information about Denise Chance’s death is asked to call 937-324-7707.
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