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In late 1996, just days after their six-year-old daughter JonBenét was found murdered in their Boulder home, John and Patsy Ramsey hired Pat Korten of Rowan & Blewitt, a Washington, D.C.-based firm adept at crisis management — a specialty perfectly appropriate for the situation in which the Ramseys found themselves…

“Sight Unseen,” by Eric Dexheimer, March 16, 2000 I was appalled when I read Eric Dexheimer’s story about Carole Abbott. It is bad enough that she did not protect her daughter, but that she is also a so-called “expert” in child abuse is truly horrifying! Her husband may wind up…

In the unhappy and shameful world of sexual abuse, the case brought by Denver cops in the first week of November last year barely rated at all. It began with a private complaint to friends — known as an “outcry” among professionals in the field. Late last summer, the now-22-year-old…

By now, most of the state knows who John Fielder is. Anyone who has been inside a local bookstore, read the Rocky Mountain News, watched News4, done business with Norwest Bank, passed the Colorado History Museum or opened their Public Service Company bill has certainly come across his name and…

William Henry Jackson, 1843-1942 Job before becoming a photographer: Civil War soldier, bullwhacker for a freighting company along the Oregon Trail. Beginning of photography career: Opened a studio in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1868. Moved to Denver: 1880. Name of company: W.H. Jackson Photo Co. Corporate sponsors: Union Pacific Railroad, Hayden…

On the afternoon of June 10, 1999, suspected drug dealer Xavier Davis was puttering around Aurora in his silver Hyundai when he received a call on his cell phone from his buddy Nathan Brown, aka “Lil’ Nate.” Lil’ Nate, FBI agents believe, was looking to purchase dope from Davis, who…

One frigid night in December, hundreds of people stood shivering in what seemed to be an endless line outside the Denver Zoo. The people driving by looked on in envy. Sure, they were warm, but they weren’t going to get to see the holiday light display. They were too busy…

Former Central High School student Terry Mosley was found not guilty of first-degree assault by an Adams County jury last Thursday. The jury deliberated for a little more than two hours before ruling that Mosley had acted in self-defense when he struck Hinkley High School student Levi Cumins with an…

There was a time in the 1960s when computers took up entire rooms. By the early 1970s, there was at least some floor space for the programmers to move around on, but they still didn’t have video screens. Instead, they had to use switches on the front of the machine…

The strange fate of one of Colorado’s most treasured historic inns is uncertain once again. The Redstone Castle, a century-old bed-and-breakfast in the Crystal River Valley west of Aspen, which was saved from the auction block last summer, is going to be sold to the highest bidder. The sad saga…

Offensive interference: The news that George W. Bush is the Denver Broncos’ new No. 1 may have come as a surprise to kicker Jason Elam, who already wears No. 1 on his jersey. And apparently former quarterback John Elway, often rumored to be a potential candidate for elected office, didn’t…

Even the Whoppers had to go. My wife and I have decided to eat “better,” so to speak, and for the next six weeks that means more protein, more veggies, more complex carbohydrates, no fat and no sugar. So she came home the other day with two Wild Oats grocery…

During a recent performance at the Lion’s Lair, vocalist/griot Gil Scott-Heron preceded his musical set with an extended riff about, among other things, a media scenario in which virtually everything has a price tag. “Now you hear, ‘The weather is brought to you by…'” he said. Grinning, he added, “Motherfucker…

“Out at Home,” by Patricia Calhoun, March 9, 2000 My heart goes out to Loi Nguyen, the subject of Patricia Calhoun’s March 9 “Out at Home.” We all make mistakes when we are young, and he has owned up to them and paid the price — seven years behind bars!…

The Shooting At night, the parking lot outside the King Soopers at Iliff Avenue and Buckley Road in Aurora is a flat field of black asphalt. Thousands of white parking stripes lie useless, while the neon signs above the closed shops next to the food castle cast a fuzzy light…

For years, Jan Pacheco led a quiet life as a Pueblo homemaker, raising two sons and counting on her husband Howard’s job in the huge steel mill that looms over the south side of town to pay the family’s bills. The Pachecos enjoyed their comfortable home near City Park and…

The last time Mike Quintana made the papers, he wanted to run for Denver City Council. He didn’t. But just as it seemed like the Graffiti Avenger’s fifteen minutes of fame were up, he has settled in for a lawsuit against the city over an incident in which he says…

People either love them or hate them. And according to the lovers, the haters have spent the last year and a half getting rid of as many Colorado prairie dogs as possible. In July 1998, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it would consider listing the black-tailed prairie…

Intellectually, I know that the earth thaws from the outside in, but my gut feeling tells me it works the other way. Even when the visible part of the city is frozen into hard cubes, I like to imagine that something alive is running through its core, keeping things moving…

Suite irony: Anyone who didn’t read the program after they sat down at the Downtown Denver Partnership’s annual awards ceremony last week was in for a stunner later that evening. The DDP, whose black-tie shindig on March 1 attracted about 850 people, bestowed one of its awards on the Adam’s…

Finally, it has come to pass. On March 6, Texas’s Clear Channel Communications announced that 72 of the 125 or so radio stations it must divest as a result of its early-October merger with another Texas-based broadcasting colossus, AMFM, have been sold. Since that total includes five of the six…