ELBERT COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — The Elbert County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Monday that human remains found on a cattle ranch were identified as 35-year-old Emily Norman.
Police say they don’t know how Norman died and are treating the case as an open homicide investigation.
Norman was the mother of two young children. She struggled with homelessness the last several years, but typically stayed in the Denver metro area. Norman would “disappear for a couple weeks at a time,” according to her sister April. When nobody heard from her on her birthday, the family started to worry in September.
Norman’s family is now asking for the public’s help to solve her case. They have also set up a gofundme page to help her children.
“Her daughter is asking a lot of questions. She’s 7. All she knows is her mom’s in heaven and waiting for her, and she’s at peace and experiencing perfect love,” Norman’s brother Ramon Rocha told FOX31. “[Her daughter] has a lot of questions, all we can tell her is we don’t know. [It] would be nice to have some closure.”
On Oct. 8, members of the sheriff’s office responded to a large cattle ranch in rural Elbert County in reference to a “suspicious circumstance” call in which property owners believed they discovered human remains. The ranch is about 17,000 acres and located near the Elbert/Arapahoe County border.
“A rancher out there on a very large ranch discovered what he believed to be human remains. When we responded, we did locate human remains we were not able to identify at the time until several days,” said Sgt. Jon Rollf of the Elbert County Sheriff’s Office. “Unfortunately it’s a very rural location; not a lot of people travel road out there and that makes it very difficult to track down any possible witnesses. We just don’t have a lot of leads to go on right now, just hoping someone out there that was friends with Emily will reach out to us and help us establish a little bit more of a timeline of when this may have occurred or what may have happened to her.”
“We need to know, we just really need to know,” said Norman’s mother Karen Armstrong. “That would be my plea, anyone who has any information, please come forward, please just have courage and come forward. Oh God, please just help our family and let us say goodbye to Emily and not worry about what might have happened and wonder. We need to know.”
If you have any information regarding this case, contact the Elbert County Sheriff’s Office through the tip line at 303-805-6111 or through email at crimetips@elbertcounty-co.gov.
As of Feb. 19, Metro Denver Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $2,000. Tips can be submitted online or by calling 720-913-7867.
Crime Stoppers tipsters can remain anonymous.
