Theodore Coneys: Denver Spider Man

In the early 1940s, a well-liked man was brutally murdered in his home while his wife recovered from hip surgery in a nearby hospital. There were no signs of forced entry, plenty of cash around the home, and every door and window was locked from the inside. So who did it? And more importantly, where did the assailant go after the murder? 

The house quickly gained the reputation of being haunted as neighbors noticed lights going on and off and the silhouette of a man being seen numerous times. 

It would take Denver, Colorado detectives nearly 10 months to get to the bottom of it and when they did, they wished they hadn't. 

Transcript

Welcome to Year Four of the Curator135 Podcast

I’m your host Nathan Olli and this is

Episode 69 - Theodore Coneys: Denver Spider-Man

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Theodore Edward Coneys was born on November 2nd, 1882 to parents Thomas and Isabelle. At the time, Thomas was 38-years-old and Isabelle 31. Theodore spent his formative years in Petersburg, Illinois where his father worked at the hardware firm, Coneys & Lankford.  

His parents were well-liked and respected within Petersburg. Sitting just twenty three miles southeast of the state capital, Springfield, Petersburg began as a planned community. Long before his presidency, Abraham Lincoln worked as the surveyor who first mapped, measured and helped in placing the lots within the town. A majority of Petersburg sits upon the bluffs that overlook the Sangamon River. Despite the flat plains that surround Petersburg, the town itself is covered in maple and oak trees.

Theodore Coneys was a sickly child whom many believed wouldn’t make it to see his eighteenth birthday. He struggled in school, but seemed to excel in music, picking up on the mandolin and guitar rather quickly.

Saturday, June 30th, 1888 was a day like any other but that evening, Thomas Coneys complained of a stomach ache. His wife phoned a pair of local doctors, Whitney and Myers who found Thomas to be quickly declining. Unable to find the cause of the man’s discomfort they called on a specialist from nearby Mason City, Dr. J.P. Walker. 

Walker was able to get his patient comfortable and felt confidently enough that Thomas would improve that he returned home at 2:00 AM.

Four hours later, Thomas Coneys was found dead in his bedroom. The cause listed on his death certificate was ‘obstruction of the intestines’. He was only 44-years-old and left behind his wife, Isabelle and five-year-old son, Theodore. Together, the remaining Coneys hosted a small funeral service at their home. 

In his early teens, Theodore and his mother left behind the comfort of their small Illinois town and moved over 900 miles west to Denver, Colorado. 

By 1899, Theodore was still battling various illnesses but managed to graduate from the School of Music with a certificate in mandolin and guitar. He floated from job to job, unable to keep employment due to his health. After joining the Denver Guitar Club he formed a bond with a slightly older gentleman named Phillip Peters. Mr. and Mrs. Peters often enjoyed the company of Theodore and his mother, Isabelle. 

Aside from Phillip and his wife Helen, Coneys wasn’t fond of people in general. He’d later be quoted as saying, “I hate people, they’re cruel.”

One reason for that sentiment occurred in August of 1899 when Isabelle and her son took on a boarder in hopes of making some extra money. The man, named George Huff, was supposedly a money lender and offered to help make the Coneys some cash. Huff would pay five percent a month on a loan from Isabelle. In turn he would loan out her money in smaller chunks to nearby railway workers for ten percent.

Isabelle negotiated a loan on the family property back in Illinois and secured $5000. George Huff forged a telegram and had the money wired to himself. That happened on Friday, and by Saturday he was gone.      

Huff was found months later in a different state, by then he was destitute and had lost all of the money he scammed. Isabelle, who had only wanted to better take care of her son, would never be the same. 

In 1911, Isabelle fell ill and passed away at the age of 60. Theodore Coneys, now nearing 30, was alone. No spouse and no family to speak of. The Peters couple, Phillip and Helen, did all they could to provide Theodore with company and warm meals but with no ties to Denver, he soon hit the road. 

Not much is known about Theodore’s actions and whereabouts over the course of the next 30 years. He moved often and struggled mightily. The longest he was able to hold on to a job was during a stint in Tonawanda, New York where he worked as an advertising salesman for two years.  

In April of 1941, he returned to Denver with little more than the clothing on his back. Theodore spent the summer sleeping in alleys and doorways with a budget of ten cents a day for food. 

As fall arrived and the weather turned cooler, Theodore weighed his options. He could move further west and avoid the cold or find a more permanent shelter. That’s when he remembered his "old friend" Phillip Peters.

Theodore Coneys approached the home at 3335 West Moncrieff Place, unsure of what he would say to Mr. and Mrs. Peters. Maybe he would ask for a place to stay. Maybe he would ask for money, he’d become an expert in begging. He wasn’t even sure if they’d remember who he was. Thirty years of nomadic life had worn and aged him.

He knocked on the door and waited for it to open. It didn’t. No one was home. Helen Peters had broken her hip recently in a nasty fall. She was recovering at nearby St. Anthony’s Hospital. Mr. Peters, a retired office worker with Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, spent a majority of each day at the hospital by his wife’s side. Now Theodore had another decision to make. Should he let himself in? The brisk September wind decided for him… he didn’t want to be outside any longer.

Theodore entered the Peters’ home. It hadn’t changed much from what he could remember. He slowly passed through each room looking for a place to call his own. Once upstairs, the man searched through the pair of bedrooms. Inside the closet of one of the rooms he noticed an access panel to the attic above.

After maneuvering himself through the tiny opening he found himself inside an unused portion of the house. It was only three feet high and five feet wide but it was a place he could call his own that would keep him out of the elements.

In the beginning, Coneys would stay absolutely still, sometimes holding his breath as he waited for Phillip to leave the home. As time went on he got bolder, sometimes following the homeowner under the cover of darkness. It was a thrill for Coneys who had never experienced the feeling of having power over someone. 

For the next few weeks Theodore Coneys occupied the tiny space. When Phillip Peters wasn’t visiting Helen at the hospital he was often at the home of the Ross family next door. They’d promised Helen that they’d take care of her husband, keeping him fed during her recovery. Theodore took advantage of the alone time, exiting the attic and slipping downstairs to rummage for supplies.  He was able to splice into the home’s wiring system and install an outlet. He stockpiled canned goods, making sure to only remove a few at a time as to not draw suspicion. He also pieced together a radio to help him pass the time.

The pattern continued until Friday, October 17th. That afternoon Coneys listened for his old friend to leave the house. Once he was sure that he was alone he crept through the narrow passageway between the attic and the bedroom. He quietly worked his way towards the kitchen where he opened the icebox to see what was available. 

But Phillip Peters hadn’t left the home, instead he’d laid down to take a nap. The rustling coming from the kitchen awoke the 73-year-old man who approached the intruder with a cane.

Theodore Coneys had seen the revolver that Peters kept in the kitchen before, instinctively he grabbed for the weapon, deflecting the blow of the cane. He grabbed the gun by the barrel and brought the butt end of the revolver down on Phillip Peters’ head.

Peters crashed to the ground, dizzied by the hit but managed to stumble into the living room. He reached for the phone and Coneys struck him a second time. This time Peters wasn’t moving. He needed to act fast. His initial idea was to grab as much cash as he could and then flee the scene. Phillip Peters hadn’t recognized him after 30 years, he was sure of it. As he went to grab a handful of cash, he heard his old friend in a bedroom now, making another attempt at calling the police. 

With the gun back in the kitchen Coneys grabbed the first thing he could find, a cast iron stove shaker handle. The heavy handle would typically attach to a shaker grate within a stove. Once assembled, it allowed someone to shake the grates, helping ash to fall to the bottom. On its own, it proved to be a suitable weapon.

Theodore Coneys hit the 73-year-old man more than 30 times in the head. He swung the handle until he was sure that Phillip Peters was dead. Coneys was calm as he picked up the now broken revolver, washed his hands, wiped down the stove shaker,  snatched some food out of the icebox and retreated to his tiny room just below the roof.

A little over an hour later Jennie Ross, the neighbor, began to worry about Mr. Peters. Dinner was ready and he was nowhere to be found. She walked next door and rang the doorbell but no one came. She was concerned enough that she contacted another neighbor who helped her pry open one of the windows. 

Every room they walked through seemed to be covered in varying amounts of blood. When they came upon Phillip Peters’ body sprawled out on the downstairs bedroom floor they exited the home and immediately called the Denver Police Department. 

Detective Captain James Childers was the first officer on the scene and the lead detective in the investigation. An initial walkthrough of the crime scene left detectives baffled. They were unable to find a single piece of physical evidence other than the blood covered stove shaker. Aside from the window that the neighbors had entered through, all of the doors and windows in the home were locked from the inside. There were no signs of forced entry.

Denver Police would soon find out that the 73-year-old Peters had no known enemies. It was also well known to family and friends that he kept stashes of cash around the home. These facts ruled out revenge or robbery as motives in the minds of authorities. Fingerprints were discovered but all of them matched the neighbors, Phillip Peters or his wife, Helen. 

Over the course of the next few weeks Detective Childers ran into nothing but dead-ends. A handful of arrests were made but nothing panned out. Detectives revisited the house again and again but with each trip the only thing they found was more frustration. The Peters home on West Moncrieff Place quickly gained a reputation of being haunted. Neighbors claimed to see lights flashing on and off and one person reported seeing the silhouette of a bony hand through the venetian blinds. 

All the while, Theodore Coneys sat quietly in the attic, his only companions were spiders, weaving their webs in every corner.   

Mrs. Peters was given a chance to say goodbye to her husband when they wheeled his casket into the hospital solarium. Four weeks later she was returning to her home as a widow. A nurse was brought in to live with and care for Helen. 

From the moment they arrived, things felt off. Food was often missing, there were strange sounds at all hours of the day and things were found out of place. Helen was hard of hearing but the nurse wasn’t. It got so bad that the nurse quit, no longer able to handle being in a haunted house. A new nurse was brought in but she didn’t last much longer than the first. 

One nurse, Ms. Hattie Johnson actually saw Theodore Coneys standing at the top of the stairwell one evening. She swore it was either a skeleton or a ghost and quit that night. 

Eventually there were no more nurses left that were willing to move in with Helen, no matter the pay. After the new year, Helen Peters moved in with her son and daughter-in-law in nearby Grand Junction. 

The house stood supposedly vacant for months. Strange sounds continued to be heard by neighbors and depending on which way the wind was blowing, horrible smells wafted from the home. In the colder months Coneys nearly froze to death. In the warmer months, the ventless attic nearly baked him alive. Police spent countless man hours watching the home and never saw or heard anything. 

In July of that year Detective Childers decided to assign two officers to stay at the haunted Peters home. Detectives Roy Bloxom and William Jackson took the assignment and joked with each other as they sat around the Peters old kitchen table in the dark. By this point both the electricity and water had been shut off to the home. 

After midnight of the first night they were both starting to get sleepy, then at 2:00 am they were jolted awake. Footsteps, clear as day, were heard above them. Any prior skepticism was quickly eliminated as they drew their guns, flipped on their flashlights and took off up the stairs.

They heard the intruders footsteps running from them and watched a closet door slam shut in a room ahead of them. Bloxom ripped open the closet door and saw a pale, thin leg disappearing into a hole above them. The detective grabbed hold of Coneys leg and pulled as hard as he could. In the beams of their flashlights, the detectives looked down at the crumpled mass on the closet floor. Coneys eyes darted wildly as they attempted to adjust to the bright light. He was practically naked and covered in filth, his skin was gray. After a moment Theodore Coneys passed out. The detectives called for an ambulance. 

Jackson grabbed a chair and stood on it, shining his flashlight around the attic space. He couldn’t believe his eyes and nearly threw up from the smell.. The area was no more than 40 inches high. The floor was covered in dirty blankets, clothing, newspapers and junk. There were jars and cans lined up along each side that contained human waste.    

The ambulance arrived and the paramedic checked Coneys vitals. He turned to the detectives and said, “This is the worst case of malnutrition I’ve ever seen, but he’ll live.” 

Bloxom and Jackson brought him to his feet and led him downstairs to the kitchen. He stood around six feet tall but at the time of his capture weighed less than 80 pounds. Aside from the malnutrition, Coneys was incoherent and in shock. Bloxom poured him a cup of black coffee and made him a sandwich as Jackson made a call to Detective Childers.

When the detective arrived he was quoted as saying that Theodore Coneys was, "the strangest looking human I had ever seen. He was a tall man, just under 6 feet, but thin as a wilted weed. His dirty hair hung low over his ears, and his skin was the ugly, unwashed gray of an overcast sky."

After a few cups of coffee, Coneys began to come around. He initially told detectives that his name was Matthew Cornish but quickly admitted his real name and then recounted the grisly murder of Phillip Peters. The officers could practically see the weight of what he’d done lift off of his shoulders. He was guilty, would plead as such and expected to be put to death. 

When asked if he was afraid of being executed, Coneys replied, “Afraid of getting away from this mess of a world? We have been told there is a future life. Alright. It can’t be worse than this.”

As he was arraigned, another detective named Fred Zarnow was quoted as saying, “a man would have to be a spider to stand it long up there.” His quote led to Theodore Coneys being referred to as the “Denver Spider Man” by newspapers around the country. 

Despite the guilty plea, the District Attorney, Joseph Burke, filed First Degree Murder charges on August 4th of 1942. 

On August 7th, selective service officials met with him in the jail so that they could give him an official draft registration card. He’d missed the registration for his age group in April as he was hiding inside of the Peters attic. It would be unlikely that his country would call upon him but he wasn’t excluded from registering for World War II. 

On September 1st, as his defense team continued to come up with ways to push back the trial, Theodore Coneys was taken to the Denver General Hospital. Already in rough shape from his living conditions, he’d now fallen ill with pneumonia. By the middle of the month, a new trial date was set. Coneys would face a jury of his peers on October 27th. 

The trial began on time. Despite his signed confession, Coneys pleaded innocent. The District Attorney was pushing for death by gas chamber, Coneys court appointed attorneys were seeking life in prison as an alternative. It was a short trial and in the end the jury only deliberated for two hours. 

59-year-old Theodore Coneys was found guilty for the murder of Phillip Peters. His sentence was life in prison. When asked how he felt about spending the rest of his days behind bars, he answered, “Now I feel safe. I'll have a better home than I have had in years."

On July 21st of 1943, a little less than a year after detectives found Theodore Coneys scampering into his hideout, Helen Peters succumbed to her illness and heartbreak. 

Theodore Coneys spent the next twenty-five years in prison until his death in 1967. The last few years were mainly spent in the prison hospital. He was 85. Throughout his incarceration he had a nearly flawless record and worked various jobs inside the prison. 

He had no known relatives or friends outside. The money saved from his social security along with prison benefits was enough to afford him his own plot at Mountain View Cemetery in Canon City, Colorado. There was a brief service and a few of his fellow inmates acted as pallbearers for the “Forgotten Man” as he’d been known in prison. 

It was a nickname he didn’t mind after being called The Denver Spider Man, the Phantom, or The Ghost Killer. He’d never committed a crime before illegally entering the Peters home. He never planned to kill anyone, he was only desperate to get off the streets. When he was caught in the act he panicked and committed the murder of one of the few people to show him compassion. 

In the end, prison wound up being a reprieve from the hell he experienced inside the attic. In prison he had a bed, ate meals and had purpose. In the attic he only had a toaster for warmth and the spiders which he found to be friendlier than humans. 

Let me know what you think. Nathan@curator135.com Visit the website to see photos of Theodore Coneys and his attic home. Curator135.com  

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