James Papol, the 46-year-old Pueblo man suspected of killing a woman in Colorado Springs 30 years ago, will undergo evaluation at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo after entering a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. He's due back in court October 8th for a review hearing.
The 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office is pursuing charges against Papol as an adult, event though he was 15-years-old at the time Mary Lynn Vialpando was killed.
Papol has been at the Pueblo facility since his arrest in September 2018.
Vialpando, 24, was found raped and murdered in an alley in Old Colorado City in 1988. She died of blunt force trauma. No suspects were ever named in the case, but police sent DNA evidence to a lab in Virginia, which recreated the suspect’s facial appearance.
District Attorney Dan May said this was the first case in Colorado state history where officers collected DNA from a crime scene.
