Body of missing Colorado woman found in Clay County woods; suspect charged with murder
A man is accused of killing a missing Colorado woman, then leaving her body in the woods in Clay County, Missouri authorities said.
Benjamin Tyler Simmons, 36, has been charged in the killing of Sarah Tafoya, 37, of Sterling, Colorado, who was reported missing nearly three months ago, according to a news release from the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Highway patrol began its investigation into Tafoya’s disappearance on May 4. Authorities said Tafoya was reported missing by her estranged husband three days after they last spoke.
Tafoya’s estranged husband told authorities that during their last conversation on May 1, she told him she was in Clay County with a man named Benjamin T. Simmons and “needed help,” according to highway patrol.
On May 23, a witness told authorities that Simmons confessed to killing Tafoya in a Kansas City area hotel and leaving her body in the woods in Clay County, according to the release.
Investigators interviewed Simmons on May 25 and he allegedly confessed to killing Tafoya, authorities said. He then told law enforcement where he abandoned her body. Authorities located human remains in the same area soon after. The Kansas City Police Department assisted in the investigation.
Simmons, who is from Fort Morgan, Colorado, was charged on June 6 in Clay County with first-degree murder and abandonment of a corpse, according to the release.
On Wednesday, it was publicly announced that the body was identified as that of Tafoya.
Loved ones set up a GoFundMe on May 30 for Tafoya, who they said was a mother to four children.
“Sarah was not just another beautiful face with sharp wit,” her cousin, Morgan, wrote in the online fundraiser ... “She knew how to lighten any darkness with her beautiful smile, loving embrace, and hilarious, albeit sometimes inappropriate, sense of of humor. That is how we would like to remember her by.”
Information has not yet been made public on how Tafoya was killed, said Sgt. Darrin Haslag, with highway patrol. He said authorities couldn’t yet say why Simmons and Tafoya were in Missouri, but Haslag said Simmons has ties to Clay County and Springfield.
“Simmons is being held in the Missouri Department of Corrections Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center on an unrelated probation violation and has an active Clay County warrant for first degree murder and abandonment of a corpse,” the release read.
His bond is set at $5 million, cash only, court records show.
This story was originally published July 26, 2023 at 12:31 PM.
