Authorities unknowingly rescued man from snowdrift after he killed 2 women near Breckenridge, Colorado

It was Jan. 6, 1982, a bitter cold evening with blizzard-like conditions, when two women hitchhikers vanished from the popular ski resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado, and were later found shot to death.

Even though the women — 29-year-old Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer and 21-year-old Annette Schnee — disappeared on the same day, their cases were not linked until Annette's body was discovered six months later. She was wearing an orange sock — a recent Christmas present from her mother. Investigators had found her other orange sock near the body of Bobbie Jo, and they knew then that the women almost certainly were killed by the same person.

But for nearly 40 years, the identity of their killer confounded police, even though he was within their grasp the night of the murders. It was only when the killer was identified decades later that investigators learned the bitter truth.