Time of death questions arise in 1998 stabbing death

Kevin McKinney

AURORA | A man charged with murder last year in connection with a 1998 Aurora stabbing was wearing an ankle monitor that showed he was in his home when Diane Caldwell was slain in an Aurora ditch, according to court testimony Monday. 

But police said during Kevin McKinney’s preliminary hearing that the initial coroner’s estimate about Caldwell’s time of death was inaccurate, possibly by more than three hours. 

Aurora police Detective Steve Conner, the cold case detective who re-opened the investigation a few years ago, testified Monday that the coroner’s office ruled Caldwell died between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Nov. 23, 1998.  

McKinney’s ankle bracelet showed he was inside his mother’s Aurora home — about a mile from the ditch where police found Caldwell’s body — by around 10 p.m. the previous night, Conner said. 

The ankle bracelet evidence appears to show McKinney wasn’t near Caldwell when she was killed, but Conner said that’s not the case. 

The coroner’s office determined Caldwell’s time of death based on the temperature of her liver, Conner said, a technique they have since decided wasn’t very accurate and stopped using. 

Mckinney’s lawyer, James O’Connor, argued Monday that the ankle monitor evidence was just one example of the flaws in the case against McKinney, who was charged with Caldwell’s murder last year based on DNA evidence. 

O’Connor said the only evidence against McKinney is his DNA, which only shows he had sex with Caldwell, not that he killed her. 

The fact that police waited almost seven years after a 2003 DNA test linked McKinney to the case to charge him proves the case’s weakness, he said. 

“There just isn’t any evidence that Mr. McKinney committed that act,” O’Connor said of Caldwell’s stabbing. 

But prosecutors said a forensic gynecologist ruled Caldwell was killed in the same place where she had sex with McKinney, which points to him as her killer. 

Judge Gerald Rafferty ruled at the end of Monday’s hearing that there was probable cause for McKinney to stand trial on the murder charge, though he noted that there is a low evidence burden for prosecutors during a preliminary hearing. 

McKinney, who is already serving a virtual life sentence for a separate crime, is scheduled to appear in court again in April for arraignment.