Featured CO News Stories:
Under surveillance
Trevor Hughes
19 Nov 2006 12:00 am
Managers of a halfway house that will house a “sexually violent predator” promise that Michael Lee Gonzales will receive the closest supervision possible as he transitions from life from behind bars, including random surveillance and drug testing.
Gonzales has been in prison since a 2005 conviction for attempted sexual assault on a child. He will be released Monday to the custody of the Longmont Community Treatment Center at 2461/2 Main St.
Gonzales is the first offender labelled by the state as a “sexually violent predator” ever managed by LCTC and its parent company, Boulder-based Correctional Management Inc.
That’s not from lack of experience — LCTC has been in the city since 1986 — but because the designation was created only a few years ago by lawmakers.
Offenders are sent to LCTC after a review by the local community corrections board, which reviews and approves placements. If offenders deviate from the good behavior that’s earned them a community corrections sentence, they go back to jail.
While safety is LCTC’s primary concern, the halfway house’s role is to help inmates reintegrate into society. That means job training, substance abuse monitoring and counseling for inmates’ “crinimogenic needs.”
In a 2004 report, the Colorado Department of Public Safety concluded that sex offenders were less likely to re-offend if they were living in supportive living arrangements that included other sex offenders. The report said offenders create a “positive support system” for each other, essentially helping to keep each other straight.
On Monday, LCTC, state corrections officials and the Longmont Police Department will hold a public meeting to discuss Gonzales’ release, as required by a state law intended to let people know when dangerous sex offenders move into their neighborhood. Gonzales still has family in the city, and his crime was committed here, according to police.
Awareness aids sex crime prevention
Tara Miller
01 Nov 2006 12:00 am
With 31 sex crime incidents reported to the Boulder Police Department since school started this year, the need to be educated and aware is more important than ever.
Not all sex crimes are rapes. They can include exploitation of children, indecent exposure and groping.
"The number of sex crimes can be startling, but there is a wide variety that doesn't include rape," said Julie Brooks, Boulder PD public information officer.
Despite the different kinds of sex crimes, rape is still the one to worry about the most, said Moving to End Sexual Assault Director Janine D'Anniballe.
"Most of the time, about 85 percent, the victim and the perpetrator know each other, and is then called acquaintance rape," D'Anniballe said. "There is also some vulnerability for the younger ages. About 83 percent of the time, the victim is under the age of 25."
Not only is age a specific trend for rape, but so is race.
"Most sex assaults, 93 percent, are intra-racial, meaning white people are assaulting white people, and people of color are assaulting people of color," D'Anniballe said. "Since most cases are acquaintance related, and people tend to be around people of their same race, this is one reason why the number is so high."
Weather is another reason why rape numbers can fluctuate throughout the year.
"The numbers are high between spring break and October, and tend to decrease significantly during the winter months because less people are walking around and at parties," D'Anniballe said.
Education and determining the difference between myth and fact when dealing with sexual assault is key to ending these crimes, according to MESA.
"With sexual assaults there are so many myths, like that it only happens at night and by a stranger," D'Anniballe said. "As long as we believe these myths, we remain uneducated and in danger."
Sex predator being sent back to prison
Hector Gutierrez
27 Oct 2006 12:00 am
Nearly two months after College View residents were told that a sexually violent predator was living in their neighborhood, Denver police announced Thursday that the ex-convict was headed back to prison.
Denver police and parole officers from the Colorado Department of Corrections arrested Julian H. Revolie, 27, last Friday for violating the terms and conditions of his parole, police said.
Authorities did not disclose how Revolie violated his parole but said he was not taken into custody for any sexual offense.
Several restrictions had been placed on Revolie, including that he comply with intense supervision by his parole officer, wear an ankle monitor full time, avoid parks and schools frequented by children and avoid contact with anyone under 18.
While he was permitted to leave his parents' home in southwest Denver, he could do so only between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Sheriff: School shooter sent letter to say sorry
CNN
30 Sep 2006 1:19 am
The gunman who sexually assaulted hostages at a Colorado high school before killing a student and then himself wrote a 14-page letter to a relative that apologized for events to come, officials said on Friday.
Although the handwritten letter mentioned suicide and [Duane] Morrison's pending death many times, it said: "This is not a suicide note," Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener told reporters.
The letter appears to have been written over several days, he added.
In an exclusive interview with the Rocky Mountain News, Lynna Long, a 15-year-old sophomore, described being one of the six hostages.
"He told us to get up and line up against the blackboard, our faces toward the wall," the paper quoted her as saying. "Then he fired a shot. I think it's because some people weren't complying fast enough, and he was trying to scare us."
She said that Morrison had told the students he had enough explosives to blow up the whole school, made the rest of the males leave, and then sexually assaulted the girls as they faced the wall.
Authorities found a .357 Magnum and a Glock pistol on Morrison's body. U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had traced one of the guns to the Colorado relative who received the letter, Wegener said.
Before he took the girls hostage, Morrison had gone up to a male student and asked about the identities of "a list of female students," Wegener said. He didn't know which, if any, of the girls he held in a classroom were on that list.
Morrison killed Keyes with a single shot to the back of the head, Wegener said, as she tried to escape during the SWAT team's raid into the classroom where she and another student were being held. By then he had already released the other four students.
Wegener has said he ordered the classroom raid to end the three-hour standoff after hearing Keyes and the other hostage screaming.
Colo. school attack 'sexual in nature'
CATHERINE TSAI
28 Sep 2006 10:52 am
The gunman who killed himself after fatally shooting one of six girls he held in a high school classroom methodically selected his hostages and had sexually assaulted some of them, the sheriff and a witness said Thursday.
"He did traumatize and assault our children," Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said. "I'll only say that it's sexual in nature."
Wegener identified the suspect as Duane R. Morrison, 53, and said was he from the Denver area but had been living in his car. He said investigators had not established any previous connection between him and the hostages.
Authorities said Morrison had let four of the hostages go before a SWAT team stormed the Platte Canyon High School classroom where he had been cornered Wednesday.
The gunman fatally wounded one of the girls and killed himself as the deputies charged in. The other girl escaped.
The victim was identified by acquaintances and a co-worker as 16-year-old Emily Keyes, shown in a yearbook photo as a smiling blonde who played volleyball and was on the high school debate team.
Ordeal brings home access to kids
Jenny Deam
04 Sep 2006 12:07 am
If John Mark Karr's 12-day run of fame did nothing else, it forced parents to confront the ease in which strangers put themselves next to children.
"No one likes to think about it. That's why we count on these big cases to get parents' attention," says Parry Aftab, an Internet privacy lawyer considered one of the nation's leading experts on Internet safety for families.
Certainly, she says, most kids are safe from the murder, kidnapping and rape cases that parents fear most. Those crimes may grab headlines but remain extraordinarily rare.
That does not mean, however, that children today are insulated. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
Experts are deeply troubled by the easy access strangers, including pedophiles, have to children. They are equally concerned by the loopholes in the sex-offender registries and background checks designed to keep predators at bay.
Prosecutors drop case in Ramsey slaying
JON SARCHE
28 Aug 2006 7:52 pm
Prosecutors abruptly dropped their case Monday against John Mark Karr in the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, saying DNA tests failed to put him at the crime scene despite his insistence he sexually assaulted and strangled the 6-year-old beauty queen.
Just a week and a half after Karr's arrest in Thailand was seen as a remarkable break in the sensational, decade-old case, prosecutors suggested in court papers that he was just a man with a twisted fascination with JonBenet who confessed to a crime he didn't commit.
The 41-year-old schoolteacher will be kept in jail in Boulder until he can be sent to Sonoma County, Calif., to face child pornography charges dating to 2001.
Karr was never formally charged in the slaying. In court papers, [District Attorney Mary] Lacy defended the decision to arrest him and bring him back to the United States for further investigation, saying he might have otherwise fled and may have been targeting children in Thailand as well.
Also, Karr was about to start a teaching job in Thailand, and in his correspondence began to describe an interest in several girls "in much the same terms that he had described his interest in JonBenet," Lacy said in court papers. Authorities confirmed he was involved with at least one of the girls, Lacy said.
JonBenet suspect heads to U.S. in style
JOCELYN GECKER
20 Aug 2006 7:01 pm
John Mark Karr, the suspect in the death of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, sipped champagne and ate fried king prawns in business class Sunday after being put aboard a flight to Los Angeles to face charges in the United States.
The 41-year-old teacher sat in a business class window seat next to Mark Spray, an investigator with the Boulder County District Attorney's office. A U.S. Embassy official and an agent with "Homeland Security" on his T-shirt were also part of the escort party.
Before takeoff, Karr took a glass of champagne from a flight attendant and clinked glasses with Spray, who sipped orange juice.
"It seems odd to me. If there is an arrest warrant issued, he ought to be under arrest," said former Adams County District Attorney Bob Grant, who was involved in the Ramsey investigation. "It is very strange. Whoever is in control of him ought to make sure he isn't doing things like drinking champagne."
Other experts called the royal treatment a brilliant strategy.
If Karr says something incriminating that is challenged in court, the investigator who was sitting next to him simply says he was never in my custody, said Denver attorney Larry Pozner, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
"There is always a reason when the unusual happens," Pozner said.
DA Reveals Little In JonBenet Case
Catherine Tsai
17 Aug 2006 10:34 am
The prosecutor in the JonBenet Ramsey slaying urged the public not to "jump to conclusions" Thursday, hours after an expatriate school teacher in custody in Thailand claimed he accidentally killed the girl a decade ago.
Mary Lacy, who has led the investigation for Boulder County, did not disclose details about evidence against John Mark Karr, 41, who was arrested on Wednesday, a day after he began teaching second grade in Bangkok.
"I'm asking you this morning, let us do our job thoroughly and carefully. The analysis of the evidence in this case continues on a day-by-day, on an hour-by-hour basis as we speak," she said, adding that "there is much more work to be done now that the suspect is in custody."
"We should all heed the poignant advice of John Ramsey yesterday," she said, referring to JonBenet's father. "He said do not jump to conclusions, do not rush to judgment, do not speculate, let the justice system take its course."
Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of Thailand's immigration police, said by telephone that he was told Karr claimed he had drugged the child and sexually assaulted her. Karr said he then realized he had "accidentally" killed her, according to the general. Suwat did not say who briefed him on the questioning conducted by U.S. law enforcement officials.
An autopsy done a day after her body was found showed no drugs or alcohol in her system but said she had vaginal abrasions.
Karr's ex-wife, Lara Karr, was quoted by KGO-TV in California that she was with her former husband in Alabama at the time of JonBenet's killing and she does not believe he was involved in the homicide.
Investigators said at one point that JonBenet's parents were under an "umbrella of suspicion" in the slaying, and some news accounts cast suspicion on JonBenet's older brother, Burke. But the Ramseys insisted an intruder killed their daughter, and no one was ever charged.
In a statement, John Ramsey said that if his wife had lived to see Karr's arrest, she "would no doubt have been as pleased as I am with today's development almost 10 years after our daughter's murder."
Offender Wanted In Weld County Caught In Canada
CBS4
16 Aug 2006 8:56 am
A man featured on Weld County's most wanted Web site was returned to the United States from Canada this month, according to the sheriff.
Levi Payne, 25, was returned to Colorado on Aug. 8 after he was caught in Canada on June 7.
Payne was wanted for failure to register as a sex offender and a probation violation of attempted sex assault on a child.
Missing Kids Could Be With Convicted Sex Offender
11 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Colorado detectives say two children are in extreme danger after a convicted sex offender kidnapped them. Police in Avon, Colorado say that Pedro Mata Rodriguez abducted 11-year-old Jose Lewis Cerrato and his 15-year-old sister Jessica Marbella Garcia . Rodriguez was living with the children's mother in Avon -- a Colorado resort community.
When Cerrato and Garcia's mother got home from work on Friday, she was faced with every parent's worst nightmare. The children were gone, along with most of their belongings. Police issued an AMBER Alert, which has since expired. But the kids are still missing and cops are racing to find them.
One of the biggest concerns is Rodriguez's trouble with the law. The 31-one-year-old was convicted in Florida of fondling a child. Police say he did time in prison and was deported back to Mexico. But he didn't learn his lesson. He allegedly crossed the border illegally, breaking the law yet again.
Police are trying to get Jose and Jessica back in safe hands as soon as possible. Cops say Rodriguez is 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 145 pounds, has brown eyes and black short hair. He has been known to wear a mustache, but may have shaved it off recently.
Jose is 4 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 98 pounds and has brown hair and brown eyes. Jessica is 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes.
Resident gets 58 years in child sex assault case
Amanda Arthur
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
The Longmont man convicted in March of kidnapping and raping a family friend’s daughter will serve 58 years in prison.
Stephen Carrillo was convicted of sexually assaulting his 11-year-old victim over a seven-hour period in January 2005. The girl told police Carrillo kidnapped her as she walked to school and took her to his apartment, where he bound her with duct tape before raping her.
In a statement her mother read in court, the young victim said she still has nightmares about what happened to her and is constantly afraid Carrillo will return and kill her.
“I want justice to be done,” the girl wrote. “I want to feel safe again and just lay there in my bed and not wait for him to come snatch me away again.”
Judge Carol Glowinsky praised the girl for her bravery in coming forward with what happened to her, saying the girl is a fighter who “is singlehandedly protecting children from Mr. Carrillo’s risk.”
Sex abuse bill on a roll
The least controversial of three proposed sex abuse bills, HB 1088 passed the House in February. If it passes the Senate, it must be reconciled with the House version.
Starting July 1, when the bill would take effect, it would eliminate the 10-year statute of limitations for prosecuting felony sex abuse crimes against children, including crimes that date back to July 1, 1996.
