CBI – La Plata County, CO – At the request of the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sent investigative agents to the area of Middle Mountain Road (near the Vallecito Reservoir) on the discovery of human skeletal remains.
CBI agents went to the area to process the scene on Monday morning (September 26). The remains are unidentified, but appear to be those of an adult. The La Plata County Coroner will make official identification and notify next of kin.
Hikers in the area discovered the remains and contacted law enforcement officials.
This is an active investigation with few details available at this time.
CENTENNIAL – Arapahoe Sheriff Investigators are looking for two car thieves who they believe are armed and dangerous. The victim, a 23-year-old male, interrupted a man and woman stealing his blue Dodge Ram pick-up truck from the driveway of his home. It happened on September 25 at 2:30 a.m. in the 18000 block of E. Caley Pl. in Centennial.
The suspects arrived in a white sedan and parked in front of the victim’s home. The victim confronted the suspects at which time they pointed a weapon at him. The victim then fired at the suspects with his own weapon potentially hitting one of them. The suspects fled the scene.
Investigators are asking for the public’s help in identifying the two suspects and locating the 2017 white Hyundai Sonata 4-door sedan, License #LLDOLPH. If you have information that can help them, please contact our Investigations Tipline at 720-874-8477. All information can be confidential, and you can remain anonymous.
WELD COUNTY – Investigators with the Colorado State Patrol are requesting assistance from the public to locate Octavio Gonzales-Garcia after his suspected involvement in a crash that left another party dead.
At approximately 5:31 PM on Sunday, September 18, troopers responded to a two-vehicle crash located at the intersections of Weld County Road 37 and AA Street. Initial investigations show a 2006 Ford van was westbound on AA street; a 2021 Kawasaki motorcycle, driven by a 24 year old female from Windsor, CO, was southbound on CR 37. The Ford Van proceeded from a stop sign at the intersection into the path of the motorcycle; the motorcycle collided its front with the passenger side of the van, causing the motorcycle to catch fire. The female motorcycle rider was declared deceased on scene. No other parties were on or in either vehicle. The identity of the deceased is being withheld while notifications are being made.
Investigators believe Mr. Octavio Gonzalez-Garcia, DOB 5/25/86, was operating the Ford van and fled the scene on foot after the crash. A search was conducted in the area but Mr. Gonzalez-Garcia was not located. Mr. Gonzalez-Garcia is wanted for questioning related to the crash. He is described as a Latino male, 5’7”, heavier build, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a blue shirt, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes. He is last known to have resided in the Greeley area Mr. Gonzalez-Garcia is encouraged to turn himself into the authorities. Anyone with information to the whereabouts of Mr. Gonzalez-Garcia is asked to contact investigators at: 303-239-4501, reference case # 3A221639. You can remain anonymous.
(ADAMS COUNTY, COLO) – Colorado State Patrol is requesting assistance in identifying a driver and vehicle involved in a fatal crash where a pedestrian died.
The Colorado State Patrol responded and investigated the crash near West 72nd Avenue and Pecos Street just before 6AM on Wednesday morning August 31, 2022. One of the driver’s involved stayed on scene initially but left prior to providing his information and involvement. Colorado State Patrol investigators are interested in talking with this individual about this crash but are not seeking charges against this individual.
Surveillance footage of the driver and vehicle were obtained from a Circle K Gas Station near the scene. The vehicle is believed to be a dark colored Chevrolet Suburban, GMC Yukon or similar vehicle with a lift, after-market wheels, and dark tint. The driver is a black male with short hair and a green polo-style shirt. Please see the attached photos to help with identification.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Colorado State Patrol Dispatch Center at 303-239-4501. Please reference Case: 1D222814
Ten years is not long enough.
A decade after James Holmes unleashed a new kind of horror on July 20, 2012 in Aurora, when he killed 12 people and physically maimed dozens more in the Aurora theater shooting, the anguish simmers just under the surface, surprising me still.
Time, as it turns out, does not heal all wounds.
That became apparent over the past few days as we collected our thoughts, memories and interviews into a package of material marking 10 years after the massacre. Calling it an “anniversary” seems obscene to me, like so many things have become after that day and the years since.
This recollection marks the 1,413th story filed by The Sentinel about the shooting, since that day. It’s been mountains of words and photographs that never seem to suffice.
I didn’t realize how close to the surface those July 20 emotions remain for me until I was talking with Heather Dearman last week about events planned for the decade commemoration. Neither of us made it through our brief conversation before we tried to keep on in choked-up voices.
Dearman’s cousin, Ashley Moser, was gravely injured during the shooting. Her daughter, Veronica, just 6, was killed. Since the shooting, Dearman has been an iconic force in creating the city’s stunning memorial to the shooting victims. She helps orchestrate events each year that focus on allowing everyone to heal in their own way, or in any way possible.
I don’t think that’s possible for me.
I first realized that during a journalism conference several years ago. I was on a panel focusing on how newsrooms handle disaster stories. Sadly, Colorado newsrooms have had plenty of experience with calamities over the years. Things like wildfires and other disasters seem to regularly turn a host of Colorado newsrooms into something akin to war rooms.
My fellow journalists talked about the grueling hours that follow disasters. This, in an industry that already mercilessly blurs the professional and personal lives of all its disciples.
As disaster unfolds, reporters deal with information blockades, unrelenting tension and in some cases, fear. Colorado journalists are a storied lot, regularly involved in the kind of events that make reporters’ hearts quicken and people draw near.
On July 20, 2012, as the police scanner was crackling in the dark newsroom when I shuffled in, I knew the drill.
In the almost 30 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve had too many occasions to wallow in the funk of death. Traffic deaths. Shooting deaths. Deaths from disease. Death from weird accidents. Deaths from war. The stench of death hangs on people and places like mildew. It never ceases to be offensive or less shocking.
In time, it fades but never completely goes away.
Dealing with death as a journalist is like being part of a show. I couldn’t possibly pose questions to a parent who’s lost their son in battle or a lake drowning — for the sake of a story. But I have often portrayed a reporter who could and did.
Many times I have played the journalist horrified by the details of a calamity but still write a story or flesh out details, like with the Aurora Chuck E. Cheese’s shootings, or the 1998 Labor Day massacre and the Columbine massacre.
I’ve raced around death unfazed to make changes in style, in fact, and on time. Sometimes, after playing the part of the stolid reporter, I’ve made morbid banter about the situation or simply looked past the grisly reality, only to toss around tough talk later on.
July 20 was like nothing I’ve ever encountered in so many ways. The shocking proximity and sheer gruesomeness of the massacre came close to being overwhelming, but it wasn’t. That came later.
The newsroom that day wasn’t a cacophony of commands and movie cliches. It was fearsomely silent. With clenched jaws and darting eyes, about 15 of us scrambled to relay layers of horror as they unfolded at the theater, at Holmes’ apartment and his former school on Anschutz.
Despite the complexity of covering the event, the chaos, the magnitude of the horror, and the endlessly ringing phones, we all stayed in character. Staffers at The Sentinel gave flawless performances of journalists under the gun.
No doubt we all carried off mountains of anguish from the task of wallowing in the stench of so much atrocity and death for so long, but relief in the form of a few stolen sobs, a lot of deep breaths and a little restless dozing made the show possible for endless hours when no one left.
And then days went by. Victims’ stories turned into obituaries. Then weeks passed and the details about guns, insanity, donations and the crime scene turned into another court story. Time, so it seemed, had grown over the raw fear and pain from my role as a newspaper editor in one of those places where these kinds of things happen. We spend every day for months covering the gruesome and grueling trial.
I confused being numb with being healed.
So I was taken aback when I picked up my cue at a conference and launched into my lines about what happened in Aurora, in our newsroom.
Without warning, it was July 20 again. It was kids we knew crawling away from a ferocious gunman across dead bodies and pools of blood in a smoky dark theater just steps from our newsroom. It was cops I knew who dragged dying kids the same age as my daughter to chaotic emergency rooms in a scene reserved for wars or terrorist attacks.
It was Tom Sullivan’s face at Gateway High School, just hours after the shooting. He and his family raced to the front of the school, choked with people sent there by police and families desperate to find their loved ones. Tom was frantically waving around a photo of his son, Alex. He was near hysteria with fear and agony, begging anyone in the crowd who recognized Alex to tell him where he was and if he was alive.
He wasn’t.
When people talk about how awful mass shootings are, you will never know how truly ghastly these calamities are unless you’re a victim of the atrocity, or you encounter someone like Tom Sullivan as it unfolds. He was nearly destroyed that day when confronted with having lost a child to such an atrocity. Tom was among the courageous from that day and went on to become a state lawmaker. He’s worked tirelessly to stop more days like July 20.
Tom’s face, the crowd of petrified people, the makeshift memorial, it all just reappears. It’s too much, too close, too fast.
I couldn’t stay in character, and I had to frequently stop talking to keep it together as I relayed the oppressive grief, anger and horror each of us here at The Sentinel endured for days, then weeks and now years. Even as I write this, I still can’t play the journalist part for this scene. I don’t want to.
Ten years later, it’s the same.
I can’t tell you how disheartening it’s been to discover that my fail safe, the one thing I think we’ve all counted on, is a myth. Time does not heal all wounds. Not this one. Not yet.
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Follow @EditorDavePerry on Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or
WELD COUNTY – Investigators with the Colorado State Patrol responded to two crashes on Interstate 25 in Weld County on June 13, 2022, which resulted in six lives lost. They are requesting assistance for any witnesses that have not yet contacted law enforcement regarding the second crash to come forward with any information.
Shortly before 1:31 PM on I-25 near mile marker 243 a four vehicle crash took place in the northbound lanes, resulting in five fatalities from one vehicle and minor injuries to the driver of another vehicle. The vehicles involved are:
Vehicle 1: 1999 Kenworth semi-truck
Vehicle 2: 2015 Ford Edge
Vehicle 3: 2013 Ford Focus
Vehicle 4: 2021 Mitsubishi Outlander
Investigators believe vehicles 2-4 were in the left lane of I-25, slowed for traffic in the area. The Kenworth semi was also northbound in the left lane and rear-ended the Ford Edge at an unknown speed, pushing it off the left side of the roadway into the center median. The Kenworth rear-ended the Ford Focus, pushing the Focus into the Mitsubishi. It is believed the Kenworth struck the Ford Edge a second time before the Kenworth hit the cable rail in the median, coming to a stop. I-25 was closed with traffic diverted at exit 243. The interstate remained closed as on scene personnel conducted the investigation, including the use of drones. All five occupants from the Ford Edge were ultimately declared deceased. Occupants from each vehicle include:
Vehicle 1: a 26-year-old male from Denver, CO, not injured.
Vehicle 2: a 20-year-old male driver from Gillette, WY, declared deceased at Medical Center of the Rockies.
Vehicle 2: a 20-year-old female passenger from Gillette, WY, declared deceased on scene.
Vehicle 2: a 47-year-old female passenger from Gillette, WY, declared deceased on scene.
Vehicle 2: a 3-month-old female passenger from Gillette, WY, declared deceased on scene.
Vehicle 2: a 51-year-old male passenger from Gillette, WY, declared deceased on scene.
Vehicle 3: a 45-year-old male driver from Greely, CO, transported to Medical Center of the Rockies with minor injuries.
Vehicle 4: a 30-year-old female driver from Denver, CO, not injured.
Vehicle 4: a 30-year-old male passenger from Palmdale, CA, not injured.
Vehicle 4: a 7-year-old unknown passenger from Brentwood, CA, no injured.
Identification of all parties is not being released to allow extended next of kin to be notified. Relationships between occupants of any vehicles is not known.
Investigators do not believe drugs or alcohol, nor speed are factors in the crash. The investigation is open. No charges have been filed at this time.
At approximately 2:22 PM on Interstate 25 near mile marker 235 northbound, a three vehicle crash resulting in one fatality took place. A 2021 Kawasaki motorcycle was northbound in the left lane. An unknown semi truck and trailer were northbound in the center lane; a 2001 International semi-truck and trailer were northbound in the right lane. The Kawasaki changed lanes multiple times and struck the unknown semi-truck’s trailer followed by striking the International’s trailer. The motorcycle rolled, slid into the middle lane, and was run over by the International semi. The unknown semi did not stop at the scene; the International came to a controlled stop on the right shoulder of the roadway.
The rider of the motorcycle, a 30 year old male from Northglenn, CO, was declared deceased on scene. The driver of the International semi, a 50 year old male from Denver, CO, was not injured. Drugs and alcohol are not considered factors in the crash but investigators believe the motorcycle was traveling at an unknown but high rate of speed at the time of the incident.
Investigators are requesting anyone that has not yet contacted law enforcement but is a witness, has information, or dash cam footage related to the motorcycle and semi crash to please reach out. Witnesses may contact Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Winsett at: 970-506-4999 or Dispatch at: 303-239-4501, reference case number #3A221000.
Brighton, CO — Today, 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason is announcing the At-Risk Theft conviction of Hilario Morehouse, 42. An Adams County Jury found Morehouse guilty on Friday, May 13, 2022, after five days of trial.
In 2008, Hilario Morehouse became the legal guardian and power of attorney for his disabled aunt who was in a care facility due to multiple sclerosis, dementia, and other health issues. As a result of the guardianship, Morehouse was in control of his aunt’s finances which included monies from a pension, a previous settlement, and funds owed to her minor daughter.
Between 2008 and 2019, Morehouse stole more than $100,000 from his disabled aunt who is non-verbal and is completely dependent on facility staff for all of her care. Morehouse claimed that his non-verbal aunt said he could use her $848 a month pension for himself. Morehouse also said that he spent some of the money on his minor cousin but was unable to provide any documentation or receipts to corroborate his claim. The defendant stole the majority of a $75,000 settlement which was intended to be used for the care of the at-risk victim’s minor daughter.
On Friday, May 13, 2022, Morehouse was convicted of:
Theft–At Risk Victim (F3)
Theft (F4)
Morehouse will be sentenced on July 19, 2022, at 8:30am in Division M.
“The actions of this defendant are truly abhorrent. Mr. Morehouse preyed on a vulnerable, at-risk adult – his own aunt – and stole over $100,000 of her money, undoubtedly believing he would never be caught. We will not tolerate this criminal behavior. Individuals, like Mr. Morehouse, who prey on the vulnerabilities of our elderly and at-riskwill be prosecuted and held accountable,” said District Attorney Brian Mason..”
The prosecution of this case was led by Chief Deputy District Attorney Alex Baker and Deputy District Attorney Danny Paulson of the Financial Crimes Unit in the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.