Peo v. Cumberbatch

── Peo v. Cumberbatch ── Court: Colorado Court of Appeals Date: May 07, 2026 Category: General 23CA1345 Peo v Cumberbatch 05-07-2026 COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS Court of Appeals No. 23CA1345 City and County of Denver District Court No. 20CR20010 Honorable Alex C. Myers, Judge The People of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Steven Cumberbatch, Defendant-Appellant. JUDGMENT AFFIRMED Division II Opinion by JUDGE KUHN Fox and Sullivan, JJ., concur NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced May 7, 2026 Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Allison S. Block, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Kira L. Suyeishi, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant ¶1 Defendant, Steven Cumberbatch, appeals the judgment of conviction entered on a jury verdict finding him guilty of first degree murder after deliberation. We affirm. I. Background ¶2 Evidence introduced at Cumberbatch’s trial would have allowed the jury to find the following facts. ¶3 On December 2, 1994, the victim, Rita Desjardine, rented a room at the Broadway Plaza Motel. Three days later, on December 5, a housekeeper saw Desjardine alive in her room with a Black man. ¶4 At 11 a.m. on December 6, the housekeeper knocked on Desjardine’s door but received no answer. Later, the housekeeper knocked again and after receiving no answer, she used her passkey to enter the room. She saw a woman’s feet on the bed. The housekeeper assumed the woman was sleeping and closed the door. The next morning, when the housekeeper and her coworker received no answer after they knocked on Desjardine’s door, they again opened the door and saw a woman in the same position as the day before. They left and reported what they had seen to their manager, who called the police. 1 ¶5 After first responders arrived, Desjardine — who was lying on the bed on her back, naked, bloody, and partially covered with a blanket — was pronounced dead at the scene. ¶6 The autopsy revealed that Desjardine had sustained significant injuries: a laceration and bruising on the back of her head caused by blunt force trauma with a “hard rigid object”; bruising to the areas around her eyes and her eyelids, neck, hands, armpit areas, and lower breastbone area, all caused by blunt force trauma; petechial hemorrhaging of her eyes and eyelids; “through and through” lacerations of her lips “caused by pressure from the front of the mouth forcing the lips into and tearing along the teeth”; extensive hemorrhaging of her tongue due to it being bitten down on; scrapes to her face, neck, and hands; and hemorrhaging of her genital area. Desjardine also had fluid in her lungs and an enlarged liver. The medical examiner concluded that the cause of Desjardine’s death was asphyxiation by smothering, and the manner of her death was homicide. ¶7 During the initial investigation in 1994, five people were named as possible suspects but were ultimately excluded. 2 ¶8 The case remained unsolved until, in 2018, the cold case unit identified Cumberbatch as a possible suspect.1 Subsequent reprocessing of some of the evidence in the case linked Cumberbatch to the crime scene. Specifically, his DNA was found on a detached table leg next to the bed; on a metal brace for the detached table leg; in hairs discovered on Desjardine’s body; on a pair of shorts next to the bed; on a gin bottle in the room; in Desjardine’s oral, vaginal, and anal swabs; and in Desjardine’s fingernail scrapings. The DNA evidence also eliminated the five original potential suspects from further investigation. Additionally, Cumberbatch’s fingerprints and palmprint were fo