CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) – A man freed after serving nearly 40 years in an Arizona prison for a double murder is behind bars in Colorado, accused of sexually assaulting two children.
William Macumber was arrested in suburban Denver in October and remained in jail on $200,000 bond Wednesday. He is charged with four counts of sexual assault in Aurora allegedly starting in April 2013, five months after he was released from prison. Prosecutors allege the assaults continued through August 2013.
Court records show Macumber, 78, has pleaded not guilty in the case, which was first reported by the Arizona Republic.
A spokeswoman for the Arapahoe County District Attorney’s Office said Macumber was accused of assaulting two children. More detailed court documents weren’t immediately available.
The Republic reported that Macumber had been living with his son Ronald’s family in Colorado when the assaults happened and that the son ultimately kicked him out of the house. Ronald Macumber told the Republic that other relatives whom his father then tried to stay with -a social worker and a deputy sheriff – reported the allegations to police in September because they are legally required to report such accusations.
Macumber’s attorney didn’t immediately return calls for comment.
Macumber was twice convicted and sentenced to life without parole for killing two 20-year-old telephone workers, Joyce Sterrenberg and Timothy McKillop, in what was considered a lovers’ lane area in then-desert land near Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1962. He was convicted for the first time in 1975 and tried again in 1976 and 1977 after an appeals court found the first judge should have allowed a ballistics expert to testify.
He was released from prison in November 2012, striking a deal with prosecutors after his lawyers challenged evidence in the case and pressed for another trial. Prosecutors said another trial wasn’t possible because key evidence had either been destroyed or lost over the years. He pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to time served.
Macumber’s defense attorneys argued that jurors weren’t told at his second trial in 1976 and 1977 that another man had confessed to killing the couple.
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