A Highlands Ranch man arrested in the 2012 death of his second wife at Rocky Mountain National Park is also being investigated in connection with the 1995 death of his first wife, officials said Thursday.
Harold Henthorn, 58, is accused by federal officials in the Sept. 29, 2012, death of his second wife, Toni Henthorn. An indictment on first-degree murder was filed Wednesday by Colorado’s U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver federal court.
Henthorn, who was arrested near his home by the National Park Service and the FBI, appeared in court Thursday afternoon for a first appearance. He wore a University of Kentucky pullover.
Officials said Henthorn had just dropped his daughter off at school when law enforcement officers made a traffic stop and arrested him without incident Thursday morning.
Authorities in 2012 found Henthorn’s 50-year-old wife, an ophthalmologist, after she fell from steep, rocky terrain on the north side of Deer Mountain. Toni Henthorn fell 40 to 50 feet while hiking in the area with her husband.
The Henthorns were married for 12 years, according to a 2012 obituary in The Denver Post.
Harold Henthorn’s first wife, 37-year-old Sandra Henthorn, was killed in 1995 when she was crushed to death after a car slipped off a jack while she and Harold Henthorn were changing a flat tire near Sedalia.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said at the time that Sandra Henthorn apparently was reaching under the car to help her husband change a front tire on their Jeep Cherokee that went flat on Colorado 67. The car fell on her when the jack slipped.
There is an “open and active investigation” into the first wife’s death, said Deborah Sherman, an office spokeswoman.
Sherman declined to comment further on the investigation.
Henthorn is due back in federal court on Wednesday when more details in the case are expected to surface.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JesseAPaul
Denver Post librarian Vickie Makings and The Estes Park Trail Gazette contributed to this report.
