Just a couple of weeks ago, we noted that Edwin Ernest Rivera Gracias, suspected of committing a brutal murder in Jefferson County circa 2011, had been added to the FBI’s updated Ten Most Wanted list. Gracias didn’t stay there long, however. He surrendered to the FBI in El Salvador and…
There have already been several weird twists in the story of David Reathman, 65. And don’t bet against more of them popping up before the final chapter is written. Unfortunately, the end has already come for Reathman’s wife, Barbara, age seventy, who was found dead in her Golden home on…
Update: Evan Ebel is dead, but the investigation into his suspected murder of pizza-delivery man Nathan Leon and Colorado Department of Corrections boss Tom Clements goes on, and it’s making more ripples nationally than at any point since the news broke. As the Colorado Department of Corrections released his prison…
Update: Earlier today, we told you about a murder on the 1600 block of Bryant Street; see our previous coverage below. Now, the identity of the victim has been released, albeit a bit prematurely. The Denver Police Department sent out a news release without the name of the man, but…
In July, we told you about Greeley high school teacher Rhonda Eisenberg’s arrest for sexual assault in a case involving what was at the time an underage student. Eisenberg subsequently pleaded guilty in the matter, and she was sentenced yesterday. But the resolution of the case was complicated by two…
Update: At a news conference moments ago, a Denver Police Department spokesman identified the woman arrested in a fatal hit-and-run that took place yesterday afternoon in the vicinity of 13th and Kalamath as Latoya Nelson, thirty. The victim in the case has also been ID’d. He was Charlie Herrera, 85,…
In recent days, members of Colorado’s general assembly have been battling over legislation intended to outlaw the death penalty in Colorado. Yesterday, however, the proposal failed in the House Judiciary Committee. This development distressed the Colorado ACLU; see the group’s statement below. But it was good, or at least positive,…
Attorneys for Fox News reporter Jana Winter, who reported that Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes sent a notebook “full of details about how he was going to kill people” to a psychiatrist, are fighting to postpone a hearing at which she has been subpoenaed to testify about where she…
Family members of the victims in several mass murders, including Columbine and the Aurora theater shooting, are calling on the federal government to establish a protocol for a “national compassion fund” that would ensure that any money donated in the wake of a tragedy goes directly to the victims. “Our…
Update: Earlier this month, we told you that Warren Watson had been captured in Idaho after being named a person of interest in the slaying of Lakewood family attorney Claudia Miller; see our previous coverage in its entirety below. Now, a grand jury has named Watson in eighteen charges, including…
March 22 was a brutal night — snow, sleet, chilly temperatures — and no doubt mom Zama Bee Khan wanted to get her two kids, Za May, eight, and Ah Zet, six, out of the cold and into the warmth. But she never got the chance. As she crossed the…
Earlier this month, we told you about a reported sexual assault of a man in Capitol Hill by two still-unknown male assailants. Afterward, a reader argued that the case had gotten so much attention because the victim was male, whereas incidents of women being raped in Capitol Hill happen frequently…
Update: The tale of Evan Ebel, the man shot during a gun battle with law enforcers in Texas on Thursday (see our previous coverage below), seems to grow stranger with each passing day. Hours after Ebel was taken off life support, as evidence that he had killed both pizza-delivery man…
Here’s one of the oldest examples of reefer madness we’ve dug up so far for Colorado Cannabis Time Capsule. This article, which ran August 24, 1904, in the Telluride Daily Journal (as well as several other small papers across the state later that week), frames marijuana as a plant that…
The Denver District Attorney’s Office is a big fan of Katie’s Law, which allows the state to collect DNA samples from anyone arrested for a felony, in part because of the growing number of times when this evidence links to cases that have long since grown cold. As an example,…
Update: We’ve been following a series of surprising incidents involving Gunsmoke Guns, a Wheat Ridge store that served as the setting of American Guns, a reality TV series that was recently canceled by the Discovery Channel; see our previous coverage below. First, there was a robbery. Then, there was an…
Last week, the FBI added onetime Coloradan Edwin Ernesto Rivera Gracias to its Ten Most Wanted list. In conjunction with this announcement, the agency also put together two other most-wanted compilations focused on Denver, including one called the “Top Ten Fugitives Arrested/Located Within the Denver Division” — although, strangely enough,…
The crime bears all the marks of an assassination: A political appointee with a high-profile position overseeing the state’s prison system answers his door one night and is immediately shot in the chest by an unknown assailant. We have no confirmation at this writing that the attack was carefully planned…
We’ve all seen the public-service announcements that tell television viewers, “Never shake a baby.” But while the delivery of this line may seem overwrought, the message is inarguable: Parents frustrated with a child may actually kill him or her by reacting in a way that may seem totally natural but…
“They didn’t take his phone. They didn’t take his car. Twenty bucks and maybe a pizza? That’s worth his life?” These very good questions are posed by Bernadette Alness, mother-in-law of Nathan Leon, a 27 year old whose second job was as a pizza delivery man. Hours after going missing…
“Strangers are using smartphone apps with GPS to track down children and have sex with them.” That’s the word from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which want to warn parents about the dangers of smartphone apps such Grindr and Blendr, which allow adults…
The combination of St. Patrick’s Day and alcohol can make for a volatile brew. And that’s especially true when the annual March 17 celebration falls on a weekend, as it did this year. The result this time around was at least two metro-area incidents involving gunfire — the first taking…
