Austin Sigg was convicted of murdering a 10-year-old girl, Jessica Ridgeway, whose dismembered body was found at his home and a local park in Arvada, Colorado.
At approximately 8:35 a.m. on Oct. 5, 2012, Jessica left her house on Moore Street to meet up with a friend at Chelsea Park.
They had contrived to walk to Witt Elementary School in Westminster, Colorado, where she attended fifth grade, but she never arrived—and she never made it to school either.
School administrators contacted Jessica’s mother, Sarah Ridgeway, by telephone to inform her of Jessica’s absence, but there was no answer. She worked the night shift and was asleep at the time.
When she awoke, she listened to the message from her daughter’s school and immediately contacted the Westminster Police Department to report Jessica Ridgeway missing.
Sarah told the Denver Post in 2012 that she knew something was amiss because Jessica loved school and she never wanted to miss a day.
Nearly eight hours after Jessica Ridgeway disappeared, an Amber Alert was issued, and a search began. Hundreds of volunteers, including family and friends, joined law enforcement officers to help search for her.
For several days, they searched the parks, her school, and her friend’s house, but Jessica was nowhere to be found. That’s when Sarah said she began to lose hope.
She told ABC News that “you get the pit in your stomach that you don’t want any parent to ever experience in their whole entire life.”
“She’s all of our rock. She’s the one that when you’re kind of down she’s going to come along and she’s going to make you laugh, she’s going to give you a hug, she’s going to give you a kiss.”
“She was the light of the house. With all the people there, it’s still too quiet. It’s way too quiet. It needs to be lively and happy again.”
On Oct. 7, 2012, authorities found Jessica’s backpack on a sidewalk about six miles from her house. It was located near Alpha Court and Andrew Drive in the Rock Creek neighborhood of Superior.
When they looked inside, they discovered a pair of her underwear, a water bottle, clothes, and boots. The CBI analyzed the contents of the backpack and learned that the DNA evidence on the water bottle and underwater was linked to an attack that occurred at Ketner Lake.
After compiling the evidence, officials acknowledge that there is a strong possibility that the person who attacked the jogger may have also kidnapped Jessica.
On the evening of Oct. 10, 2012, Jessica was found dead. Two county workers were picking up trash at Pattridge Park open space in the city of Arvada when they encountered a “very heavy trash bag,” according to KDVR.
They then gave the bag to their supervisor, who opened the bag and discovered a torso, which was later identified as Jessica.
On Oct. 23, 2012, Sigg’s mother, Mindy Sigg, called 911 and stated that her 17-year-old son “admitted to murdering Jessica Ridgeway and attacking the jogger at Ketner Reservoir. He has human remains in the crawl space of my house,” CBS Denver reported.
Mindy then gave Sigg the phone, and he said: “I murdered Jessica Ridgeway. I have proof that I did it and I’ll answer all the questions that you want.”
He added, “You just have to send a squad car, something down here. I’m giving myself up completely, there will be no resistance whatsoever.”
Officers arrived at Sigg’s home in the 10600 block of 102nd Avenue and took him into custody for questioning.
In a recorded interview with detectives at the Westminster Police Department, Sigg confessed to killing Jessica and said “it was a random place, a random time. Random everything.”
Sigg, who was a student at Arapahoe Community College studying mortuary science, said he had never seen Jessica before that day. “I was just driving and just kind of looking. And I saw her,” CNN reported.
When he saw Jessica walking, he parked his vehicle—a Jeep Cherokee—down the street so no one could see him. He then got in the back seat of the car and waited for her to walk by.
At the time, Jessica was playing with the snow, collecting handfuls of it and forming it into a snowball. When she finally walked by Sigg’s vehicle, he grabbed her.
She screamed as he placed zip ties on her hands and feet before putting her in the back seat of his vehicle. Then he drove off.
During the drive, Sigg claimed that Jessica constantly asked questions. He said he would lie to her and say that “everything was going to be okay.”
When they arrived at his home, which was a little over a mile from Jessica’s house, Sigg made Jessica watch a movie while he cut her hair.
He then forced her to go into the bathroom and change into a pair of shorts and a shirt that he had bought prior, according to the News-Herald.
Chief deputy district attorney Hal Sargent stated that Sigg kept Jessica alive in his bedroom for nearly two hours before he killed her. He said, “It’s painful to imagine what he did to her [SIC] in that time.”
Sargent also expressed that he didn’t want to go into detail about how Sigg dismembered Jessica’s body.
According to Sigg’s confession, he initially tried to strangle Jessica with zip ties but was unsuccessful because “it didn’t have enough leverage.”
That’s when he began strangling her with his hands for up to three minutes.
Afterward, he saw her twitching and decided to “fill a bathtub with hot water and push her face down into it.”
He then ate a snack while he dismembered her body, investigators said.
Sigg discarded her torso at a park, and kept the rest of her remains, including her skull, at his home.
An autopsy revealed that Jessica died from asphyxiation and suffocation by strangulation.
After the confession, Sigg was formally arrested. He was booked into the Mountain View Detention Facility on 15 counts, which included first-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping, sexual assault on a child, robbery, sexual assault, sexual exploitation of a child, and attempted second-degree kidnapping in the jogger’s case, according to Westword.
On Oct. 30, 2012, Sigg was charged as an adult.
During the trial, psychologist Anna Salter testified that Sigg, who wanted to be a mortician, had the traits of a psychopath. She said, “He certainly had no empathy for Jessica Ridgeway, either during or after the crime.”
Salter added that “Sigg was sexually aroused by dismemberment.”
When his mother found child pornography and violent porn on his computer in 2008, she sent him to get treated by a therapist.
In October 2013, Sigg pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and murder of Jessica, as well as the attack on the jogger.
The following month, Sigg sat emotionless as Judge Stephen Munsinger sentenced him to life in prison plus 86 years for other offenses.