Provided by Denver Police DepartmentShawn Winkler Denver authorities released a murder suspect after linking him by DNA to the victim’s apartment and after he confessed to bashing the disabled man’s head against a wall and stomping him to death in 1978 because of a miscommunication between a judge and a prosecutor, authorities say. Shawn Mandell Winkler, 60, a suspect in the murder of 18-year-old Van T.