BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — An arrest warrant affidavit made public Friday gives more insight into a man’s death at a home in Fourmile Canyon earlier this week.
Just before 12 p.m. Tuesday, deputies were called to a home on Camino Bosque in Fourmile Canyon to investigate a missing persons report for Jeffrey Michael Lynch, 57, of Boulder who had plans to visit a friend days earlier but never arrived. Lynch's 28-year-old son also became concerned after not hearing from his father and started efforts to locate him.
During search efforts, the sheriff’s office said the son called a friend of his father’s who had recently hired him to work as a handyman on her vacant home on Camino Bosque.
As the son called the sheriff’s office to file a missing person’s report, the friend and her daughter went to the home to check to see if the missing man was there. When they arrived at the residence, the two noticed that the garage windows were covered in paper. They also encountered a man inside who did not have permission to be there, the sheriff's office said.
Deputies arrived at the scene to find the property owner standing in the driveway while waving her hands frantically, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. They also witnessed a man inside the garage who was carrying a handful of shovels that were partially covered in a black trash bag. The man dropped the shovels, ran between two vehicles and then attempted to close the garage door, the affidavit says.
A deputy then moved his foot across the garage sensor, causing the garage to open back up. The man tried to go inside but was ordered to stop and complied, the affidavit says. Deputies started to talk to the man and identified him as Stephen Christopher Wolf, 25, of Gold Hill.
He was placed in handcuffs while deputies started to investigate the scene further. As they were escorting him, Wolf uttered "I'm going to claim insanity" and "I need to go to the hospital,” the affidavit says.
Deputies entered the garage and noted a strong smell of bleach, according to the affidavit. A deputy then opened the trunk of one of the vehicles and saw a human body wrapped in a clear plastic bag, the affidavit says. There was also a small amount of blood near the shoulder on the floor of the trunk, according to the affidavit.
An odor of decomposition was coming from the plastic bag, the affidavit says, which indicated to investigators that the person had been deceased for a period of time.
From that point, Wolf was detained on suspicion of homicide and taken to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office headquarters. He's facing the following charges.
- First-degree murder
- Felony murder
- Second-degree burglary
- Tampering with a deceased human body
- Tampering with physical evidence
Wolf had been arrested three times in 2018, according to the affidavit. His mother told detectives in an interview that he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and that she had cut him off finally about two weeks ago.
Wolf is being held without bond and is expected to make his first court appearance later this week, the sheriff’s office said.
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