The Murder of Natalie Bollinger

April 02, 2022

On Friday the 30^th of December 2017 a passerby happened upon the body of a young woman by a dirt road near the McIntosh Dairy in Adams County. The body was quickly reported to local authorities at around 3:15pm that afternoon and police set to work identifying the unfortunate teenager.

Although the cause of death was not released (as the case in pending), the identity of the victim was; the body was that of missing 19 year old Broomfield resident Natalie Bollinger who had been missing since the previous day. She left the family home at 12:00pm on Thursday the 29^th of December never to be seen alive again.

Missing posters had been circulated, including a description of the unique looking teenager: her maroon hair, a colorful forearm tattoo with a ying-yang in the center, the piercings in her lip and septum, her stretched ears.

Her father, who was active on social media, left a comment on a Facebook post about his missing child: “My daughter was found murdered” he wrote, “just got back from the sheriff’s office.” Sympathetic messages and comments, naturally, flooded in.

A quick visit to Natalie Bollinger’s Facebook profile, which is now a memorial page, displays her final status update- and it’s not a meme or a YouTube video or a motivational quote that you may expect to see on someone’s Facebook timeline; Natalie’s final update was a lengthy paragraph detailing the issues she was having with a stalker. She informs her friends list that a man she met when she was around 17 years old had been stalking her in real life her and harassing her online. She describes the threatening emails that he sent almost daily, the hundreds of phone calls he made and text messages he sent, and even the weeks he apparently slept outside of her work place despite her asking him to leave her alone. The man’s name, she announced, was Shawn Schwartz.

This is her final update from the 13^th of December 2017- just over two weeks before she was found dead on the side of the road:

“Hey y’all, I have a public announcement... there is a man Shawn Schwartz. I met this man when I was young. I ran into him about 2 years ago. Long story short, I became friends w him. I helped him out w rides and stuff. I moved to VA. He drove across country to see me.. slept behind my work for weeks. When I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore, he sent me hundreds of texts and calls. He parked his car in front of my house, blocking Military Highway for hours... laying on his horn.. he was arrested. Since then, I’ve asked him to leave me alone.. and he won’t. He’s sent emails for over a year close to everyday, harassing me. Making numerous account until I block him again. Threatening my family, telling me he’ll kill himself in front of me, and sending my friends and family harassing messages as well. I’m sharing this because, he’s posting slander about me all over FB. So, if you receive a message... I am sincerely sorry. Please ignore him... it only encourages him when he gets a response(much like a child). He’s mentally ill and I’m trying to fix this.”

42 year old Shawn Schwartz has an active Facebook account. Visit his profile and you’ll see his posts about Natalie, which include video after video of him attempting to defend himself as a suspect in the case and complain about being harassed, usually sitting in what appears to be a shed or work space with various work tools cluttering up the background. In fact, Schwartz has many videos like this on many different topics (which seem to have been live videos) littered throughout his feed.

He sports a long, overgrown beard, has hair just around the sides of his head and a bald dome. In some of the videos he rants and yells at the camera, in others he seems defeated and upset. Scroll down and under many of the videos you’ll see him comment on his own posts, many times with links to the same set of videos of a documentary on the abuse of children in foster homes and a TED talk on autism.

Scroll through Decembers’ updates and you’ll see a photograph of a hanged man dressed as Santa Claus and a man clad in similar attire with a gun to his head. “I hate you all!” he spits in one of his live videos. “I hope your house burns down!” he screams in another. Schwartz talks about being victimized, having “no one in his corner “and vocalizes how he is feeling unsafe and insecure and targeted. There’s an unnerving feeling of rage, fear, frustration and paranoia in his videos. Ten minutes on his profile will make you feel greatly uneasy and make it clear to see why 19 year old Natalie Bollinger would have been afraid of such a character.

The night before Christmas Eve he made a video titled: “I’m not asking you to love me anymore. I’m asking you for help getting the pills I need to kill myself”- could this be one of the suicide threats that Natalie mentioned in her final update?

The victim is mentioned in various posts on the 42-year-old's page.

A video on YouTube shot by another person trawling through the suspects social media account can be seen here, and this one directly talks about Natalie in vicious fashion. (Heads up for use of foul language in the video.) I'll post it here for convenience as he has so many updates on his time line that it takes a significant amount of time to see his status updates month to month.

It’s very clear to see that Schwartz had issues with Natalie. These posts are extremely disturbing. Although it’s apparent that the suspect most likely has severe issues, it’s difficult to deny the rage he has towards the 19 year old. Various online reports and comments made by Bollinger’s family state that Natalie applied for a restraining order against him.

This article in the independent states that she was rewarded a permanent restraining order against her stalker just over 2 weeks before she disappeared. A reporter for CBS Denver commented that Shawn Schwartz claimed to have given investigators his computer and DNA samples in order to clear himself as a possible suspect. Other than the restraining order, his criminal record is almost clean, bar one arrest for theft.

Police want to know what happened during the last 26 hours of the victim's life between the periods she was last seen by a family member when they conversed at her apartment in Broomfield to the time she was found murdered. Strangely no one has come forward to say they were in contact with the victim via call, text or social media messaging at any point during that time.

Schwartz was arrested on unrelated charges and is currently (at the time of writing this) out on bail. He got into an altercation with local officers who showed up to his residence to perform a welfare check on the 42 year old after viewing what they feared was social media updates of a suicidal nature. Schwartz physically resisted the officers when they arrived at a local emergency care community health hospital. He became distressed and uncooperative, screaming, biting and kicking to escape.

He continues to update his Facebook profile with current details of his involvement.