Investigation revived

Kathy Ireland, then Kathy Young, had just started in investigations at the Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office in 1988 when she was assigned to the Wallace case.

She investigated it over several years, piecing the evidence back together and tracking down witnesses.

“The more you turn over the more you want to dig,” she said.

As she and others from the department sorted through the evidence, they found a hair brush that Undersheriff Steve Fry had tucked away in 1974. Strands of Wallace’s hair still were caught in the bristles.

A forensic laboratory matched the hair from the brush to that in the braids, she said.

By 1992, Melanson was in jail in Kentucky on a burglary conviction. Ireland went to confront him on the murder charge. He denied it.

A retired laboratory agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations who looked at the braids pointed Ireland to an organization he called the “pig people.” NecroSearch International, the official title, is a collection of law enforcement agents and scientists who volunteer to help police agencies find human remains.