A man who was allegedly with a 29-year-old woman just hours before she died has been sentenced to prison in connection with the discovery of her body inside a plastic tote bin, according to prosecutors in Colorado.
Daniel Ryan Clark, 41, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday, February 11, for tampering with a deceased human body, the Colorado First Judicial District Attorney’s Office announced on Friday, February 13.
He’d previously pleaded guilty to the charge arising from the death of Chelsea Beadles, according to a news release issued by the district attorney’s office.
A maintenance employee found Beadles’ remains inside a plastic tote bin, which was “covered with bedding,” and left near a dumpster at an apartment complex in Arvada, a Denver suburb, on September 15, 2025, the district attorney’s office said.
She was partly naked and had several injuries, according to prosecutors.
At sentencing, Clark told the court that while he disposed of Beadles’ body, he did not kill her, the district attorney’s office said.
“I’m owning up to the stuff I did,” Clark said, according to the office. “I didn’t harm her in any way, shape, or form.”
It was not immediately clear who represented Clark in the case.
Based on cell phone evidence and data from Facebook, investigators learned that Clark had been with Beadles shortly before she died, prosecutors said.
Further evidence also allegedly connected him to the plastic tote containing Beadles’ remains.
Nine days later, Clark was charged with tampering with a deceased human body and tampering with physical evidence on September 24, according to the district attorney’s office. He was not directly charged in her death.
It is still unclear how Beadles died, as a Jefferson County Coroner’s Office forensic pathologist, Dr. Dawn Holmes, found “no evidence of significant anatomic trauma,” the district attorney’s office said.
The cause of her death remains undetermined, according to Holmes, who also noted that “in consideration of the unclear circumstances surrounding the decedent’s death, a traumatic death cannot be definitively excluded.”
The criminal investigation into her death never resulted in additional charges due to the available evidence, the district attorney’s office said.
During Clark’s sentencing, Beadles’ mother spoke. She said that her daughter’s body was dumped “like trash” and said, “No parent should have to collect their child’s body from the trash,” according to the district attorney’s office.
Beadles’ mother called her daughter a “sweet soul” and described the pain of not knowing what happened to her daughter before she died, the district attorney’s office said.
In the courtroom, Chief Deputy District Attorney Brenna Zortman addressed how Beadles’ family are left without complete answers in relation to her death.
“I’m so sorry we can’t provide the family with more information about what happened,” Zortman said, according to the district attorney’s office. “It’s not fair.”
Zortman also said that Clark’s ten-year prison sentence, which he had agreed to as part of his plea deal, “feels so abysmally low for what happened.”
Clark’s sentence will be followed by a mandatory three years of parole, according to the district attorney’s office.
