McCaffrey-Pickett's final Facebook post before being taken into custody didn't directly address the case, but it summed up the situation. "I fucking hate my life," she wrote.
There's no indication that McCaffrey-Pickett is any happier today. She reportedly cried as she was given the maximum sentence for her role in the slaying of Bartmess, who died due to a combination of stab wounds, skull fractures and exposure to the elements.
As we reported, Bartmess shared photos of herself on a number of social-media platforms. Here's a collage from her Google Plus page....
...as well as this playful Google Plus image:
She also had a Twitter account featuring this profile pic:
However, her only personal tweet, from February 2013, was undeniably sad. It reads:
In an interview with CBS4, Andrea's mother said her daughter was bipolar — and used meth to self-medicate.Has my life been reduced to constant searching for love life and prosperity, I feel lost...
— Andrea Bartmess (@AndreaBartmess) February 20, 2013
She had been staying at a motel in the Fort Collins area but occasionally checked in by phone — and when a few weeks passed without contact, her mom filed a missing-persons report.
Then, on November 20, 2014, the Larimer County Sheriff's Office noted that deputies received a report about "possible human remains" along County Road 74E in unincorporated Larimer County. The next day, investigators found them near mile marker ten.
Here's an interactive graphic from the area. If you have problems seeing the image, click "View on Google Maps."
After the Larimer County coroner ruled the death a homicide, the investigation moved quickly.
On November 26, the Larimer County Sheriff's Office announced the arrests of two Fort Collins residents, Michael Bensen, 45, and Patrick Hannon, 51, on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and second-degree kidnapping.
Then, on November 29, came word of two more arrests — Fort Collins's Jose Rosario, 35, and Loveland's Kimberly Guinn, 32 — on suspicion of the same charges.
The final arrestee was McCaffrey-Pickett, whose Facebook photo gallery included shots like this one....
...and an uncropped version of the image at the top of this post.
As for the events that led to Bartmess's death, court testimony covered by the Fort Collins Coloradoan stated that they began on October 7, 2014, more than a month before the body was found.
That's when Bartmess and another man, Tyson Darby, went to a south Fort Collins apartment building to buy drugs.
Shortly thereafter, three of the defendants — Michael Bensen, Patrick Hannon and Jose Rosario — allegedly drove Darby to another location and assaulted him with a baton.
After that, they retrieved Bartmess and met with McCaffrey-Pickett and another woman, Kimberly Guinn, before traveling to a home on the 600 block of Larimer County Road 54G.
There, Bensen allegedly beat Bartmess "with coins rolled up in duct tape," the Coloradoan recounts, and the others choked her, stomped on her, and shot her with a stun gun. Then Bensen and Hannon are said to have sexually assaulted Bartmess before traveling to the Red Feather Lakes area, stabbing her in the neck and dumping her body.
The sentences handed down for this horror show were understandably harsh. Bensen previously received a 75-year jolt, while Hannon got sixty years and Guinn earned twelve years.
Rosario and McCaffrey-Pickett, who is said to have punched Bartmess to the ground and stomped on her head, were the last pair to learn their fate. His sentence was forty years, while hers was 32 — the maximum allowable for first-degree assault, the crime to which she pleaded guilty.
Our sincere condolences to the friends, family and loved ones of Andrea Bartmess. Look below to see a 7News report from November 2014, followed by booking photos of all those convicted of this heinous crime.
