Denver District Attorney’s Office/Colorado Bureau of Investigation
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Nearly thirty years after Terri Turachak was murdered in her Denver home, her killer is finally facing justice.
Ricky Dawson, 65, was convicted of first-degree murder in the cold case on Tuesday, March 17, according to the Denver District Attorney’s Office. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“Today’s verdict can’t bring back Terri Turachak, but it brings a powerful measure of justice in this case — that Ricky Dawson will spend the rest of his life in prison,” says Denver District Attorney John Walsh. “I hope Terri’s family and friends feel some sense of justice and of relief with the jury’s decision today. …The Denver DA’s Office and the Denver Police Department did not rest until the case was solved and Dawson prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Turachak, 35, was found dead in her apartment in October 1996, killed by strangulation and blunt-force trauma to her head, according to the DA’s Office. The investigation into her murder yielded little results for years — until 2004, when the city’s cold case division matched Dawson’s DNA to the crime scene. And Turachak was not his only victim.
Dawson’s DNA was in the system because he was in prison for a 2001 sexual assault and homicide in Florida. His DNA was also linked to a third homicide from 2000 in Seattle, Washington, according to arrest documents.
A fourth murder case arose in January 2025, when California police issued an arrest warrant for Dawson for the 1992 murder of 45-year-old Nancy Hernandez in San Francisco. That cold case was reopened in November 2023, again identifying Dawson using DNA testing.
Like Turachak, the other murder victims were strangled, beaten and sexually assaulted, according to investigators.
Dawson wasn’t charged with Turachak’s murder until February 2023 – three months before he was set to be released for the Florida homicide.
Dawson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the Florida case and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was extradited from Florida to Colorado in February 2023. He will be sent to California after his Denver trial conclude; his sentencing here is scheduled for April 29.
