It’s been more than twenty years since three members of the Bennett family — father Bruce, mother Debra and seven-year-old daughter Melissa — were brutally murdered. But the Aurora Police Department hasn’t given up on finding their killer. The department has employed age-progressed DNA phenotyping, a technique developed by Parabon NanoLabs and dubbed Snapshot…
If you somehow missed the first two installments of Dr. Phil’s exclusive, three-hour, fantasmagoric interview with Burke Ramsey, twenty years after the unsolved murder of his six-year-old sister JonBenét, let me catch you up in a heartbeat. There were no big revelations here, and there are not likely to be any in…
The wheels of justice grind slowly — especially when it comes to the Aurora theater shooting. In October 2012, we told you about a lawsuit filed against Cinemark, owner of the Century 16 theater where James Holmes killed twelve people and injured seventy others on July 20 of that year,…
One of the most repellent wildlife cruelty cases in state history drew to a close this week with the sentencing of a Western Slope outfitter, the last of six defendants involved in a poaching operation that provided high-priced hunts of mountain lions and bobcats — many of whom had already…
Why the hell is faux-marijuana known as spice so popular in pot-friendly Colorado? This question was begged by a 169-count indictment issued by a Jefferson County grand jury against John Swanson and Michael Whitney late last month As noted by the First Judicial District DA’s office, the two men are…
Marijuana home grows may be “the new meth houses,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. In a June report, the DEA’s Denver division compared residential marijuana grows in Colorado to “the meth houses of the 1990s” and warned of the potential threats and nuisances of home-growing operations. “Marijuana grows often…
Last week, we told you about a fatal police shooting in Westminster — the second officer-involved metro-area shooting in two nights. (The previous one took place in Lakewood and resulted in the death of suspected car thief Robin Barber.) Now, Adams County authorities have identified the man killed in the…
In recent years, we’ve reported about alleged bias-motivated crimes in which the victims have been foreign-born (including a Moroccan native attacked at a Denver hookah bar in 2012) or gay (a man was assaulted in 2014 after disparaging remarks were made about his sexual orientation). But the arrest affidavit for…
As seen by the reaction of our readers to the story of artist wannabe Casey Nocket, who admitted to vandalizing Rocky Mountain National Park and other federal lands with dubious painted illustrations and then Instagramming the results, most Coloradans take purposeful damage to our natural wonders very personally. Understanding that,…
In his wheelchair, Hasan Jones rolled into the courtroom for his sentencing hearing Thursday, August 18, for the death of two-year-old Ny’ari Hines. The hearing at Arapahoe District Court finalized a plea deal that avoided a child abuse trial that neither hardened gangbangers nor hardened prosecutors seemed to have the stomach…
In the late spring of 2015, a home in Greenwood Village was utterly destroyed after Robert Seacat, a suspected Walmart shoplifter, took refuge inside and refused to come out for nearly twenty hours. In the wake of this bizarre episode, the trio that had been living in the residence — John Lech,…
It’s been a rough past few months for the venerable PT’s strip clubs in Denver — and things just got rougher. Early yesterday morning, a shooting took place outside PT’s II, 8315 East Colfax, following a promotion dubbed #selfiesaturday. One man died in the incident, and no suspect information has…
In July, we told you about the death of 23-month-old Jayvion Johnson, as well as the arrest of his mother, Candice Lampley, and her boyfriend, Delonta Crank, in the tragic incident. Early word suggest that the child had suffered serious burns, and a just-released autopsy report has confirmed it. Jayvion…
In 1994, Colorado enacted the toughest and most far-reaching statutes to combat domestic violence to be found anywhere in the country. While many states have since increased penalties for various forms of spousal abuse, none have modeled their laws on the Centennial State’s particular scheme, which requires arrest and prosecution…
The circumstances of the sexual assault committed by former University of Colorado Boulder student Austin Wilkerson are unique (and distressing). But the outcome — Wilkerson will spend no time in prison for his crime — was all too familiar. An example: In speaking about the sex assault case against Air…
George Brauchler, DA for the 18th Judicial District, is frustrated that Doyle Carmack got no jail time for his sixth DUI conviction — an outcome he associates with a 2015 felony DUI law that has no mandatory minimum provision and is, in his view, inconsistent “with the other sentencing portions…
In April, as we’ve reported, a Denver police officer, Technician Jeffrey Motz, shot and killed Dion Damon, a man wanted for bank robbery, as he sat in his car near the Denver Art Museum. Damon was unarmed at the time of his death, but Motz said the suspect made a “threatening-type…
For any pet lover — hell, for any thinking, feeling human being — the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals video focusing on Thornton’s Jurassic Pets is difficult to watch. The description of the clip, first posted in December 2014 (two months after PETA shared the footage, plus witness…
After Denver Police detectives left the interrogation room, the suspect they were questioning about a murder began to mumble to himself. At least, that’s what a video recording of the interrogation suggested. The problem was that detectives could not hear exactly what the man was saying under his breath; the…
In 2011, Matthew Weatherspoon made headlines in Denver for stabbing his girlfriend’s bulldog puppy — in self-defense, he insisted at the time. Now, Weatherspoon is back in the news — this time for mistreating a human being. According to the 18th Judicial District DA’s office, he was the first person to go…
Last year, Governor John Hickenlooper signed into law a bill that made DUIs a class 4 felony under certain circumstances. Among them: The violation must occur after three prior convictions for DWAI, DUI or DUI per se and the offender’s blood alcohol content has to be at least .15 —…
Oh what a difference a few months make. In early September, running back Montee Ball was a member of the Denver Broncos squad that would go on to win Super Bowl 50. Now, however, he’s a free agent without an NFL job, as well as an arrestee charged with battery…
