Police say man’s 1982 mountain rescue holds key to double murder mystery

• Alan Phillips accused of killing two female hitchhikers in 1982
• Phillips, 70, rescued from mountain pass in Colorado that night

Investigators in Colorado have linked the extraordinary 1982 rescue of a stranded motorist from a frozen mountain pass to the murders the same day of two young female hitchhikers - one of the state's most notorious and enduring cold cases.

Alan Phillips, 70, was arrested in March over the killings of Annette Schnee, 21, and Barbara Jo Oberholtzer, 29, who went missing while hitchhiking separately near the ski resort of Breckenridge, where they both worked.