DENVER -- The Colorado House approved a plan Tuesday to eliminate the death penalty and use the money saved to focus on cold cases.

The measure now goes to the Senate, where it's expected to pass. Gov. Bill Ritter, a former prosecutor, hasn't said whether he would sign the bill.

The bill passed by a single vote, 33-32, after victims' relatives asked lawmakers to help with unsolved slayings.

Rep. Ed Vigil, D-Fort Garland, cast the tie-breaking vote.

Vigil said he was torn by the decision, concerned that he was voting to take away an option for law enforcement to get guilty pleas, and the moral issue of taking a life. Vigil said he also worried that relatives of victims will now expect cold cases to be solved, which he said rarely happens.

"These are false hopes," he said.

Vigil was comforted by Rep. John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins, who said he whispered under his breath, "Thou shalt not kill," as Vigil struggled with his decision and eventually cast the final vote.

The legislation would shift funds currently used to prosecute death-penalty cases to deal with the growing backlog of more than 1,400 unsolved homicides that have stymied local investigators since 1970.

Rep. Steve King, R-Grand Junction, said the legislation will pit families of crime victims against law enforcement who are frustrated with a lack of resolution.

House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, a Democrat from Louisville, said the state should be spending money solving those cases instead of defending the only two inmates currently on death row and a half-dozen other cases that are pending.

Weissmann said the last death penalty case tried in Colorado -- against Jose Luis Rubi-Nava, who was charged with dragging his girlfriend to death behind a truck -- cost $1.4 million to prosecute.

Rubi-Nava, 38, was sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty.

Weissmann said it costs only about $70,000 to try a non-capital case.

Howard Morton, executive director of Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons released the following statement:

"This is a very heartening development, not only for the families of these victims whose killers have never been prosecuted, but also for all the Coloradoans who live in the communities that have been terrorized by the realization that we have killers walking among us and murderers living in our neighborhoods. This vote by the House sends the strong message that we will no longer take a passive approach to old, unsolved murders. Colorado now intends to be proactive in going after these killers."