Lumber Baron Inn

Two teenage girls were murdered in an attic of the Lumber Baron Inn in 1970. The case is open and the room is still rented as the Valentine Suite.

Cara Lee Knoche was 17. Marianne Weaver was 18. On October 13, 1970, both were found dead in a rented attic room of the building that now operates as the Lumber Baron Inn in Denver's Highland neighborhood. Knoche had been strangled. Weaver had been shot. The killer was never identified. The case is still open fifty-plus years later. The room is still rented out, now as the Valentine Suite.

Guests who book the Valentine Suite sometimes ask to be moved. The stated reasons vary: a weight on the chest at night, something sitting on the edge of the bed, soft crying from the closet that stops when the guest gets up to check. Owners Walter and Marilyn Keller bought the building in 1991 and spent five years restoring it. The Westword profile from 2022 quoted Walter saying guests almost always look up the murders on their own before the first night ends.

The building itself predates the crime by 80 years. John Mouat, a Scottish-born lumber baron who supplied much of the wood for Denver's late-1800s boom, built the three-story Queen Anne in 1890 at 37th and Bryant. It was one of the grandest houses in the neighborhood. Mouat lost the house after the silver crash of 1893 and never recovered the wealth. The property passed through several hands, got chopped into apartments by the 1940s, and by 1970 the attic was a cheap rental.

The murders were never tied to anyone specific, but enough is known to frame the night. Knoche and Weaver were at a party nearby. They left with a man who had been drinking. Physical evidence at the scene suggested more than one attacker, and investigators at the time believed there were two. A gun and a rope or ligature were both involved. Decades later, a cold-case review produced no new suspects.

Other parts of the inn have their own accounts. Staff have reported the grand piano in the parlor playing on its own, usually a few notes at a time and usually late at night during wedding weekends. The butler's pantry off the kitchen has an old bell system that rings when nobody's home. One former housekeeper told Denver Terrors she once walked into Room 4 and saw a woman in an Edwardian-style dress standing near the window, gone by the time she turned the light on. The Kellers keep a small binder at the front desk with guest accounts; staff will hand it to you if you ask.

The inn appeared on Netflix's 28 Days Haunted in 2022, which brought a wave of bookings and a lot of attention the Kellers hadn't asked for. The show's investigators said the Valentine Suite was the room with the most activity they'd worked that season, though that's one crew's word and not a measurable thing. Walter's take in the Westword piece was that the show was good for business but the 1970 murders of two teenagers still weren't something he wanted turned into content.

The cold case file for Knoche and Weaver sits in a Denver Police cabinet and gets pulled, on average, once every few years. So far, no matches.