COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Colorado Springs Police officers have released new details related to the finding of a badly burned body in the city early Wednesday morning.
Officers arrested 21-year-old Marcus Smith last week for first degree murder after the El Paso County Coroner ruled the death a homicide but couldn't determine exactly how 87-year-old Kit Grazioli died.
Colorado Springs Firefighters found Grazioli's body burning on Captain Jack's Trailhead around 2:13 a.m. that day after a nearby resident called to report the fire.
Officers said they found Grazioli badly burned, wrapped in bedding, and they couldn't immediately identify even a gender.
The coroner found Grazioli's denture plate still in her mouth, which is how officers were able to identify her and get an address. When they searched her home in the 1100 block of Samuel Point, they found a screen missing from one of her windows, as well as a neighbor's window. They also said her car was missing.
Fingerprints from the neighbor's window matched Smith's, who was in the database for a prior burglary conviction.
A neighbor told officers she saw Grazioli in her house sitting at her computer Tuesday night. When officers searched the house Wednesday afternoon, the computer equipment was gone.
Officers ended up finding her car two blocks west of her house. Two people from the apartment complex where her car was found said they saw a man who officers determined matched Smith's description hop a fence, get into the car and drive it away.
Fingerprints found on the car also matched Smith's.
Officers have not named any additional suspects in the murder.
Meanwhile, those who knew Grazioli said she was a business-minded woman who loved technology, her family and the local community.
"Kit encouraged and supported her fellow entreprenuers, but she was also an advocate of helping kids," friend Trevor Dierdorff said. "This community has definitely been delt a blow whether or not people knew her, she was definitely behind the scenes making a difference."
"She sent notes, that was Kit, 'Keep in Touch Kit,'" friend Bill Stanley said.
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