In 1982, a chain of unlikely events led to a man being saved on a treacherous Colorado mountain pass. Close to 40 years later, the man that was rescued would be accused of committing two murders on the same night that he narrowly escaped freezing to death.

On January 6, 1982 a man named Alan Lee Phillips, then 30, was traveling Colorado’s Guanella Pass in the dead of winter amid extremely windy conditions and temperatures well below zero that could easily kill. Given that the road wasn’t maintained during the winter months, Phillips’ vehicle got stuck near the top of the pass, putting him in a life-or-death situation.

In dire straits, Phillips used the only signal he had – the lights of his pick-up truck – to attempt to make a call for help, hoping someone would happen to see that he was in distress despite his extremely remote location. With a stroke of luck, Phillips’ SOS signal was spotted by a sheriff that happened to be a passenger in a flight overhead. The sheriff let the pilot know what he had seen and a rescue mission was organized that would ultimately save the life of Phillips.

A retired fire chief involved in the rescue once said that Phillips was rescued “straight out of hell,” calling the mission one of the craziest situations he had ever been involved in. After all, near whiteout conditions were present on the pass and temperatures were estimated at negative 20 degrees.

At the time, Phillips told rescuers that he had gotten drunk and was driving home, opting to take the mountain pass but forgetting how impassible it can get in the winter. The rescue mission attracted national attention due to how extreme the circumstances were, with Phillips being deemed one of the luckiest people around.

Meanwhile, on the same night, two women went missing in the Breckenridge area in two separate instances.

According to a report from the Denver Gazette, Barbara Jo Oberholtzer, 29, was last seen leaving a local bar relatively early after sharing drinks with friends. When she left, she had plans to hitchhike to Alma – something that would have been very normal in Colorado’s mountain country at the time. Meanwhile, Annette Schnee, 21, had left her job as a waitress at a local bar, visiting Breckenridge pharmacy before she is believed to also have attempted to hitchhike home.

That was the last night either woman would be seen alive.

The next day, Oberholtzer’s body was discovered down an embankment on Hoosier Pass with a zip-tie on one wrist and a gunshot wound on her chest. Schnee’s body would be found months later, in July, by a boy fishing along a rural Park County creek. It was determined that Schnee had been shot in the back.

Initially, Oberholtzer’s husband was blamed for the murders, with his business card suspiciously being found in Schnee’s pocket. According to 9News, he argued that he had given the business card to Schnee at a previous time when he picked her up as a hitchhiker, with DNA evidence eventually excluding him as a possible killer.

The case would remain relatively cold for nearly four decades, until DNA evidence found at murder sites and the use of genetic genealogy would allegedly link Phillips to the killings.

As prosecutors would explain, Phillips allegedly killed both women while posing as a friendly passerby willing to give them a ride, then attempting to escape the area by traveling over the remote Guanella Pass. At that point, he became stuck and was desperate for help, sending out an SOS signal that just so happened to be seen and recognized as a distress signal despite the wild weather conditions in the area and his remote location.

Evidence against Phillips for Oberholtzer’s murder has been called “strong” by a judge, though support for his involvement in Schee’s murder is said to be “more tenuous, based on circumstantial evidence,” according to an article about the progress of the trial that was published by the Denver Gazette. The defense attorney has called the case against Phillips shaky, also bringing into question whether or not his client would have had enough time to murder both women and get stuck on the mountain pass by when the plane was passing overhead.

At last update, Phillips was awaiting trial following his 2021 arrest in Dumont, Colorado, located about 20 miles from the mountain pass he was rescued on during the night of the killings. Phillips faced first-degree murder charges and was being held without bail. Phillips is to be considered innocent until proven guilty.

In researching this story, it’s also worth noting that a third suspect in the case was mentioned, possibly casting doubt on Phillips as the culprit.

A man named Tom Luther was convicted for killing a hitchhiking woman named Mary Brown in the Breckenridge area less than two months after the disappearance of Oberholtzer and Schnee. While serving a nine-year sentence for that murder, Luther allegedly bragged to fellow inmates about also murdering the other two women. He denied this when questioned by authorities and upon his release from prison, would go on to commit another murder, resulting in a 48-year prison sentence.

STAY INFORMED: Sign-up for the daily OutThere Colorado newsletter here