Home Invader: The Crimes of “Hammer Killer” Alex Ewing

The Bennett family.

In a shocking incident that took place in Aurora, Colorado in the early hours of January 16, 1984, twenty-seven-year-old Bruce Bennett was awakened by a strange noise he couldn’t quite place. As he exited the second-floor bedroom he shared with his wife Debra, twenty-six, he saw a man coming up the stairs. Realizing instantly what was happening, Bruce had lunged at the intruder, who in turn struck him several times on the head with a hammer. Once he was down, his assailant pulled out a knife he had stolen from the kitchen and sliced his throat.

Proceeding up the stairs, the killer sexually assaulted Debra before beating her to death with the hammer. When he was finished, he headed to seven-year-old Melissa’s bedroom, where he molested the terrified child before taking her life in the same manner.

In another bedroom down the hall, the now triple murderer had found three-year-old Vanessa clinging to a teddy bear for comfort. Bent on killing everyone on the premises, he had attacked her with the hammer, breaking her jaw and shattering her skull, arms and legs. Believing that she was dead, he left her where she lay, her blood-soaked companion still by her side.

Later that morning, when Bruce and Debra failed to show up for work at the family’s furniture store, his mother Constance went to check on them…