Dale Bruner: Conviction, Appeal, and Bernhardt’s Confession

The Dale Bruner murder case is the 2010 killing of Stephanie Roller Bruner in Silverthorne, Colorado, for which her husband, former wildlife photographer Dale Bruner, was convicted in 2012 and originally sentenced to 112 years in prison. A Colorado appeals court later vacated two of the assault convictions and cut his total term to 48 years, and in 2020 his own trial attorney filed an affidavit stating that Bruner had confessed to the killing before trial.

Who Stephanie Roller Bruner Was

Stephanie Roller Bruner was 41, a mother of three, and worked for Summit County reviewing home building plans. Friends knew her as an avid dancer.¹

Her marriage was falling apart in the weeks before her death. She obtained a temporary restraining order against Dale Bruner in October 2010, then asked to have it dropped, and filed for divorce on November 1, 2010, about three weeks before she disappeared.² At the restraining order hearing, a recording was played in which she testified that her husband had once threatened to kill her by placing his hands on her throat.¹ She had also begun what her dance partner, Ron Holthaus, later called an “emotional affair.” The two had met through a local competition called “Dancing with the Mountain Stars.”³

The Night She Disappeared

On the night of November 22, 2010, Dale Bruner said his wife left the couple’s Silverthorne home for a late walk after an argument and never came back. He waited roughly ten hours before reporting her missing, calling police around 8:45 the next morning.⁴ Four days later, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, searchers found her body a few hundred yards from the home, mostly submerged in the icy Blue River and wearing only a long-sleeve teal T-shirt.¹

An autopsy found blunt force trauma that fractured her skull and strangulation severe enough to break a bone in her neck. She was thrown into the river while still alive, and the cause of death was a combination of those injuries, hypothermia, and drowning.⁴

How Investigators Built the Case

Detectives focused on Dale Bruner quickly. His defense attorney later said police had identified him as a suspect within the first few hours.² Investigators noted that Bruner appeared “eerily calm” and was found sleeping in a chair at the police station while his wife was still missing.¹

Ron Holthaus and his then-wife, Cindy Bragg Holthaus, were also treated as suspects. Their home and vehicles were not searched until December 4, 2010. Both said they were home together in bed the night Stephanie disappeared, and investigators corroborated their accounts using computer records and personal journals before clearing them.⁵ Both failed polygraph tests, but police attributed the failures to the emotional stress of the investigation and the affair rather than deception.¹

One piece of digital evidence became central. On the night she disappeared, Stephanie had been writing an email to Ron Holthaus. It was never finished and never sent. Investigators recovered the draft from her internet service provider’s server even though the computer itself was never found, and prosecutors called it their “smoking gun,” arguing that Bruner interrupted his wife mid-message and that the confrontation escalated from there.¹

Indictment, Trial, and Verdict

On August 3, 2011, a Summit County grand jury indicted Bruner on six felony counts: second-degree murder, two counts of first-degree assault, and three counts of tampering with physical evidence. He was arrested that afternoon and held on a $50,000 bond.⁶ He turned down several plea offers.⁷

The trial began in July 2012 at the Summit County Justice Center in Breckenridge and ran nearly two weeks. District Attorney Mark Hurlbert prosecuted; defense attorney Robert Bernhardt represented Bruner.⁸ The couple’s ten-year-old daughter, whose name was sealed, testified via closed-circuit video that she had heard her parents arguing that night and was the last person other than Dale Bruner to see her mother alive.⁹ Ron Holthaus took the stand and, when Hurlbert asked him directly whether he had killed Stephanie, answered with what reporters called a “soft, but emphatic ‘no.'”¹⁰

Two of Bruner’s former girlfriends testified that he had been physically violent with them. One, Jodi Eberhart, described an incident in the early 1990s in which Bruner pushed her down, put both hands around her neck, and threatened to kill her.¹ An associate testified that Bruner had hinted he wanted his wife “dead” and suggested she might have a “heart attack.”³

After a week and a half of testimony, the jury deliberated four hours and convicted Bruner on all six counts.⁴

Sentence and Appeal

On September 28, 2012, Judge Mark Thompson sentenced Bruner to 112 years: 48 years for second-degree murder, 32 years for each of the two first-degree assault counts, and 18 months on each tampering count to run concurrently. Under Colorado law he had to serve at least 75 percent of the term before becoming parole-eligible, which would put his earliest parole date in 2071, when he would be 109.¹¹

Addressing Bruner at sentencing, Judge Thompson said: “Mr. Bruner you may believe that you lost something. But what you did that night was take something. You took Ms. Roller’s life, you took your children’s mother.”¹² Bruner waived his right to make a statement in court but continued to maintain his innocence in media interviews, pointing to Holthaus and his wife. The couple’s three children were placed with Stephanie’s family.¹¹

On appeal, the Colorado Court of Appeals vacated the two first-degree assault convictions, finding that the assaults were part of the same course of conduct as the murder and could not be sentenced separately. With the two 32-year assault terms removed, Bruner’s prison term dropped to 48 years.⁸

The Post-Conviction Petition and Bernhardt’s Confession Affidavit

In October 2019, Bruner filed a petition for post-conviction relief seeking to vacate his conviction or obtain a new evidentiary hearing. He alleged ineffective assistance by his trial attorney, Robert Bernhardt, claiming Bernhardt failed to exclude damaging domestic violence evidence, abandoned a motion for a change of venue, and did not object to certain expert testimony and to a Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent’s statements about Bruner’s guilt.⁸

Filing the ineffective-assistance claim waived attorney-client privilege and cleared Bernhardt to respond. On May 15, 2020, the Fifth Judicial District Attorney’s Office filed an affidavit from Bernhardt stating that Bruner had confessed during the early stages of the investigation. Bernhardt said Bruner admitted strangling his wife until she was unconscious, driving her to the Blue River, throwing her in, and bludgeoning her in the head with a rock when she regained consciousness.⁸

Bernhardt said the confession “strongly influenced” every strategic decision he made at trial. He said he deliberately allowed the domestic violence evidence in as part of a strategy to challenge Stephanie’s credibility, noting that she had petitioned for a protection order and then asked to drop it. On venue, he said he did not renew the motion after investigators found that most local residents had no knowledge of the case, and because national coverage by the time of jury selection made a venue change less useful. District Attorney Bruce Brown argued Bernhardt’s choices were reasonable trial strategy rather than deficient performance.⁸

As of the most recent reporting in May 2020, the petition was pending before Judge Mark Thompson, who could rule on the written filings or hold an evidentiary hearing. No timetable had been set.⁸

1
CBS News. The Blue River Murder: Who Killed Stephanie Roller?
2
Sky-Hi News. Husband Named Key Suspect in Murder of Stephanie Roller Bruner
3
Summit Daily. Bruner Trial: Stephanie Roller Bruner’s Lover Takes the Witness Stand
4
CBS News. Timeline: Investigating the Death of Stephanie Roller Bruner
5
Denver Post. Investigators Take Stand in Bruner Trial
6
Steamboat Pilot. Silverthorne Man Indicted for Wife’s Murder
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Summit Daily. Murder Trial: Investigators Stack Up Case Against Dale Bruner
8
Summit Daily. Attorney Claims Dale Bruner Confessed to the 2010 Murder of His Wife Before Trial
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Denver Post. Dale Bruner’s Daughter First to Testify in His Murder Trial
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Vail Daily. First Week of Testimony Ends in a Summit County Murder Trial
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Denver Post. Former Silverthorne Photographer Dale Bruner Gets 112 Years in Prison for the Murder of His Wife
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Summit Daily. Dale Bruner Sentenced to 112 Years in 2010 Silverthorne Murder