PUEBLO, Colo. – Police made an arrest Friday in the cold case investigation of Denver woman Kelsie Schelling, who disappeared in 2013.
The suspect, ex-boyfriend Donthe Isiah Lucas, 25, was already in custody at the Pueblo County Detention Center on unrelated charges, according to KDVR.
Investigators said he faces a charge of first-degree murder and is being held without bond in the case. Schelling's body was never found, and it wasn't until Friday that police officially called the case a homicide investigation, according to KMGH.
"But still no Kelsie. I'm heartbroken," Schelling's mother Laura Saxton said in response to the arrest of Lucas. Lucas was arrested at Denver International Airport on Nov. 13 in connection with a robbery investigation from September in Pueblo.
The Pueblo Police Department said Lucas and his brother, Duschon, robbed a man while he was sitting in his vehicle in the 1100 block of West Mesa Avenue.
A new search began in early November in the cold case of Schelling, 21, who was eight weeks pregnant when she disappeared almost five years ago. Police wouldn't specify what caused detectives to reopen the case, only saying that they had recently found new leads.
Authorities returned to a field Nov. 8 just west of the Walmart store where she was last seen in February 2013.
Saxton said her daughter disappeared shortly after she texted a photo of her ultrasound to her ex-boyfriend, Donthe Lucas.
Schelling was last seen at the Walmart store in the 4000 block of West Northern Avenue in Pueblo on Feb. 4, 2013.
She reportedly texted a photo of her eight-week ultrasound to Lucas, then made the two-hour trip from Denver to meet Lucas at his request. She arrived at the Walmart just after 11 p.m., and nearly an hour later, texted that she was "tired of waiting."
Lucas asked her to meet on a street near his grandmother's house. A half-hour later, she wrote: "Where are you ... I've been here for over an hour just waiting."
She was never heard from again.
"We're going through our fifth holiday season without Kelsie and her baby, and I can't tell you what torture that is. Another Christmas without her," Saxton said.
