In October 2012, Kara Nichols, a 19-year-old woman from Colorado, went missing, prompting a police search. Authorities were particularly interested in the activity she had with then 36-year-old Joel Hollendorfer and searched the Hollendorfer farm for Nichols’ body. The first search in 2013 didn’t reveal anything due to the amount of interference from buried animals investigators encountered. The case went cold for years after this.
Investigators were able to pick up the case again in January 2022 when Hollendorfer’s ex-wife Kristina Palmer began to cooperate with them, and they found a contradiction between what Joel and his mother had said about what was buried in a suspicious spot on the farm. When this spot was dug up, they found the remains of Nichols. A subsequent trial in 2023 saw Hollendorfer convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to 24 years in jail.
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Who is Joel Hollendorfer?
Joel Hollendorfer is from Colorado, and his family owned a farm with several animals. When the animals passed away, they would be buried in spots around the farm, something that would later hamper authorities when they attempted to search for the body of Kara Nichols. Hollendorfer was married to Kristina Palmer at one point, however, the pair later divorced. Witnesses described their relationship as abusive.
Holldendorfer was 36 when he met Kara in 2012, and when he was sentenced to jail in 2023 he was 47. The huge gap in time was due to the case going cold in 2013, and it wasn’t picked up again until 2022. But the case of Kara Nichols wasn’t Hollendorfer’s first clash with the law. Court records show that he was convicted of theft and two burglary charges in 1996 and was accused and convicted of harassment and protection order violations several times in 2012 and 2013.
What did Joel Hollendorfer do?
Joel Hollendorfer has several criminal convictions to his name, but in 2012 he encountered the 19-year-old Kara Nichols. She went missing shortly after talking to Hollendorfer via phone and text, something that prompted an investigation and trial that lasted over a decade.
Hollendorfer was charged with first-degree murder, but the jury convicted him of Kara’s manslaughter in 2023 instead. He was given a 24-year prison sentence, avoiding the life sentence he would have received if he had been convicted on the charges of first-degree murder.
Kara Nichols | Image via Dateline
Joel Hollendorfer’s Trial and Sentence Explained
Hollendorfer’s court proceedings relating to Kara Nichols’s disappearance began in 2022, with the prosecution charging him with first-degree murder for the death of Kara Nichols. A preliminary hearing saw several people testify, including civilian investigator Tammy Gugliotta, El Paso County Detective Arndt, and El Paso County Coroner Leon Kelly. After hearing their accounts, the judge allowed the trial to proceed.
The trial concluded in June 2023, with Hollendorfer being convicted of manslaughter instead of first-degree murder. Manslaughter is a Class 4 felony. In August of the same year, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison, concluding the Nichols family over a decade wait to find out what happened to Kara.
Timeline of Kara Nichols’ Disappearance, Murder and Trial
Kara Nichols was a 19-year-old woman from Colorado when she went missing. An aspiring model, she was reported missing on October 14, 2012, with her brother, Terry, being the last person to see her alive on October 9. She was on her way to a photoshoot in Denver according to friends. Police found that Joel Hollendorfer, a man who lived in the area, had been in contact with Nichols on October 9, over both text and phone, as Nichols was working as an escort and Hollendorfer was attempting to set up a meeting.
This meeting never took place, however, as the pair had disagreements about the location at which the encounter would take place. Hollendorfer admitted this in an interview with detectives in February 2013. Phone records back this up. In 2014, detectives uncovered further records from Nichols that revealed the last location her phone was close to was a farm owned by the Hollendorfer family.
The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office would authorize search warrants for the property in light of this, and while investigators were on the property they asked Joel’s mother to identify the many locations where farm animals were buried. The radar equipment that the authorities used to search for Nichols’ remains was rendered ineffective in the initial search, due to the sheer amount of “anomalies” it was picking up. Civilian investigator Tammy Gugliotta testified this to courts during a preliminary hearing in November 2022. The Gazette reported on his and other testimonies from this hearing.
@charleybournetruecrime Justice for Kara nichols. #truecrime #truecrimetok #truecrimetiktok #truecrimetiktoks #crimetok #crimetiktok #crimestory #truecrimecommunity #truecrimeanytime
This would bring the case to a cold close until January 2022. Investigators were able to get Hollendorfer’s ex-wife Kristina Palmer to overcome her initial reluctance to work with them when she was still his wife. She revealed in interviews that her then-husband had accidentally “killed and strangled an escort” and “buried the body on top of a horse at the farm.” She thought this was just an intimidation tactic by her abusive husband. El Paso County Detective Arndt testified this to prosecutors.
The case was reopened in 2022, with all the evidence reviewed. A particular spot on the farm became the focus of the investigation, with Hollendorfer’s mother being interviewed for a second time. She explained that her kid’s favourite horse Milo was buried in that spot. However, this contradicted something that Hollendorfer himself had said, as he claimed nothing was buried there.
Authorities have arrested and charged a man with murder in connection with the cold case of 19-year-old Kara Nichols, who vanished nearly a decade ago in Colorado. #Datelinehttps://t.co/w4GYEQUzhM
— Dateline NBC (@DatelineNBC) February 9, 2022
Investigators obtained another search warrant to dig up the spot and found Nichols’ remains on top of a horse. Hollendorfer attempted to argue at a preliminary hearing that Nichols had died because of an accident caused by either drugs or consensual choking during sex and therefore wasn’t a homicide. El Paso County Coroner Leon Kelly testified at the hearing to say he couldn’t determine a cause of death due to the late stage of decomposition Nichols’ body was in, but a toxicology report indicated that she was “probably” intoxicated with heroin at the time of her death.
Kelly added that someone who had a significant amount of heroin in their system would be more likely to die from brief strangulation when compared to a healthy person, and Nichols had a potentially lethal level of drugs in her body. This evidence convinced Judge William Bain that Hollendorfer should stand trial, and would remain in jail without bond.
Hollendorfer was found guilty of manslaughter in June 2023 according to The Gazette. In August 2023, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison, in what Kara’s father Paul and brother Terry described as a “miscarriage of justice.”
