Young couples are frequently encouraged to write wills and make estate plans that will be ready in the event of unexpected death — but few of them do so. Such a tragedy seems too unlikely to most to undertake such a sad task. But Travis and Samantha Mason were an…
Our sophomore year in college, my roommate and I decided to spend spring break on a beach in south Texas. One balmy night at our hotel, the guy interested in my roommate spotted a twelve-pack in the middle of the street. At twenty, we were so desperate for alcohol it…
Editor’s note: This post is the third in a three-part series about violence on the 16th Street Mall. Access part one by clicking “Inside the Bloody Stabbing on the 16th Street Mall You Haven’t Heard About.” Access part two by clicking “Denver’s Top Block for Arrests and an Advocate’s Take on…
Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series looking at violence on the 16th Street Mall. To read part one, featuring a Good Samaritan’s story of helping a stabbing victim, click here. A weekend stabbing on the 16th Street Mall that led to two arrests wasn’t an isolated…
Mike Rust, nicknamed “Mike the Bike,” isn’t credited with inventing mountain biking. But he was undeniably a pioneer, helping to popularize the sport both as a competitor and a behind-the-scenes technician whose innovative spirit is still being felt today. Now, finally, his friends, family and loved ones have some closure…
Part 1 This past Saturday night, Erin Chalmers visited the 16th Street Mall with her sister to check out the attendees of some special events in the area. “It was Comic Con and Pridefest and the Greek Festival,” Chalmers says. “We wanted to have a long dinner and watch people…
Last week, we told you about Tim Plybon, a Denver firefighter who’s been accused of indecent exposure for allegedly masturbating in a store at the Town Center of Aurora mall. Now, a woman has come forward to say that Plybon followed her and her girlfriend for as much as two…
Over the past few years, the Denver Fire Department has received more than its share of bad publicity. Note criticism over an alleged lack of diversity in the ranks, the firing of a DFD captain who denied accusations that he used offensive language and a settlement in a lawsuit that claimed…
In recent months, we’ve been keeping you up to date about the murder of Lauren Mann, a former CU student who was killed in Vienna, Austria, where she’d been working as a nanny. Now, a Gambian national identified as Abdou I. — Austrian law precludes his full name from being…
The legalization of limited recreational marijuana sales hasn’t prevented police from staging cannabis-related raids — note the Pueblo County Sheriff’s war on allegedly illegal pot grows, which has resulted in the confiscation of at least confiscated 5,900 marijuana plans and 35 arrests in 25 homes since mid-March. But police agencies appear…
During the summer of 2014, we told you about the arrest of Kelsy Newell-Skinner. She told authorities she awoke after heavy drinking to find her baby daughter, Natalee Skinner-Hurst, horribly beaten. The baby, who was just two months old, died from her injuries. Now, Newell-Skinner has entered a guilty plea…
At first, Carbondale’s Arturo Navarrete-Portillo said he didn’t know why he’d used a machete to kill his wife, Maria Carminda Portillo-Amaya. But he says he knows now. In court this week, Navarrete-Portillo maintained that jealousy over another man’s sexual superiority drove him to commit the horrific act. “She said the other…
In October 2014, we reported not once but twice about allegations that Casey Nocket had defaced a Rocky Mountain National Park, the Colorado National Monument and a number of other federally protected locations. The evidence was at least partly provided by her. She shared images of her “art” on a now-deleted Instagram…
As we’ve reported, authorities arrested Tanner Flores, eighteen, after recovering a body that’s been positively identified as Ashley Doolittle, a Berthoud eighteen-year-old — and his former girlfriend. Now, an affidavit in the case is revealing new and disturbing details about the circumstances of Doolittle’s death. The document maintains that Flores…
According to the father of Jubal Dee Alexander, the murder of his son in Texas was horrific in and of itself. But the circumstances surrounding the crime have compounded the pain. Alexander’s body was found inside his truck, but not his head. He’d been decapitated — and at this writing, the…
In recent weeks, we’ve been reporting about victims who drowned in Colorado waterways. Included among them were Jacob and Daniel Foreman, two young brothers who drowned in the Little Thompson River. Now comes a bizarre twist on this theme. A report about a family in danger of drowning after a…
“Twice in a week,” marijuana activist Wayward Bill wrote late last night on his Facebook page. “Siege situation at mi casa.” Specifically, officers with the Denver Police Department got into a gun battle with a man who allegedly opened fire on them near the intersection of 20th and Arapahoe. He…
In recent years, the Denver Police Department has regularly used its Facebook page to share what are essentially dumb criminal stories — tales of scofflaws busted for minor offenses or less serious crimes, often due to their own stupidity. We published our first roundup of DPD dumb criminal stories in…
Yesterday afternoon, the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office made official the worst fears of Ashley Doolittle’s friends, family and loved ones. On Friday, June 10, following reports that Doolittle had gone missing the evening before, Tanner Flores, her former boyfriend, was arrested in unincorporated Mesa County with the body of “a young…
Last August, we told you about disturbing accusations against four men — Edgar Barroso, Steven Hillen, Juvenal Tamayo and Pedro Valdez — on suspicion of kidnapping and sexual assault. They were accused of holding several women hostage for at least a day and possibly more. During that period, crimes against the…
Earlier this year, High Times announced that it would move its annual Cannabis Cup to Pueblo after it was forced to relocate the event from Denver. And while the plan subsequently fell apart (and the Cup headed to California, at least temporarily), the idea of the Cup in Pueblo made sense since…
In March 2013, Evan Ebel, who had been released from a Colorado prison early due to a clerical error, allegedly killed pizza-delivery man Nathan Leon and Department of Corrections executive director Tom Clements before fleeing to Texas, where he died in a gun battle after shooting an officer. The inquiry into the…
