CENTENNIAL, Colo. — A Wyoming man was sentenced this week to 25 years in prison in connection with the kidnapping and death of an Aurora woman in 2021.
Leo VanBuskirk was sentenced to 25 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections for second-degree kidnapping and will also serve the same amount of time for conspiracy to commit second-degree murder.
The sentences will be served concurrently, according to a spokesperson from the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
Once released, he will also serve three years of mandatory parole.
VanBuskirk, along with Shantel Edlund and Casey Childers, were arrested in early 2022 in Sheridan, Wyo., on unrelated complaints but faced additional charges after a missing woman believed to have been kidnapped in Aurora was found dead in Douglas County.
The woman, identified as Rachel Holeman, was found along an embankment off S. Parker Rd. She had been shot in the head, according to prosecutors.
Aurora police believe the three suspects, driving a 2016 Chevrolet Malibu, kidnapped the 29-year-old woman on Nov. 6, 2021, from the area of E. Colfax Ave. and N. Victor St. Police said the suspects’ car was seen the next day in the area where her body was found.
Childers, who was identified as the shooter, was convicted of first-degree murder after deliberation, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Edlund eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and was sentenced to 18 years in the Department of Corrections.
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