DENVER — Ballistics tests may shed new light on a bizarre unsolved stalking-and-shooting case that unfolded on a dark, rainy Sunday morning last May.
The incident began shortly before 3 a.m. May 14, when someone began following a Denver coroner’s investigator headed back to the office after responding to a death scene in Montbello. It ended when the pursuer opened fire on the investigator and two Denver police officers before speeding away and eluding capture.
No one was injured.
Steve Castro, manager of operations at the Denver Medical Examiner’s Office, declined to discuss the case because the investigation is ongoing.
Denver police did not respond to a request for comment.
Court documents obtained by 9NEWS show that the big break in the investigation came in March, when cell tower data led Denver police detectives to a possible suspect. That suspect, it turned out, had surrendered eight guns to Denver police in September – four months after the incident involving the coroner’s investigator – in the wake of a report from family members that he was heavily armed and acting erratically.
Detectives then obtained a search warrant allowing them to conduct ballistics tests on the weapons to see if any match a shell casing believed to have been left behind by the shooter.
Those test results are pending.
On that Sunday morning more than 10 months ago, the trouble started shortly after the coroner’s investigator left a home where an elderly woman had died of natural causes.
A short distance later, a surveillance camera captured a small sedan following the investigator at 46th Avenue and Chambers Road. Other cameras captured similar images as the investigator headed toward Interstate 70 and then drove west.
The following car tracked the investigator so closely that it was hard to see the vehicle, according to court documents.
About 10 minutes into the incident, the investigator called 911. The investigator was asked to drive around for a few minutes so officers could get in position.
The investigator took I-25 to Sixth Avenue, headed east, then went down Broadway before eventually heading back north on Santa Fe.
Told that officers were in place at the medical examiner’s office, located at 500 Quivas St., the investigator led the pursuer there, turning into the parking lot at 3:23 a.m.
The small sedan drove past – then someone in the car opened fire. The police officers ducked behind their cars while the investigator dove onto the floorboard.
Officers tried to pursue the driver, but they got away. They found a single 9mm shell casing believed to have been left by the shooter.
Despite locating numerous surveillance images of the car pursuing the coroner’s investigator, detectives could not identify the vehicle.
Then in March, a crime analyst poring over cell phone data found that one phone had pinged 22 times along the route the coroner’s investigator had driven. The number for that phone led police to a 19-year-old man whose mother owned a small sedan that looks like the one seen in surveillance images.
Detectives quickly discovered that man had been the subject of a “red flag” petition – an effort to remove guns from a person believed to be dangerous. That came after a family member called police and reported concerns about his mental state and access to weapons.
During the process, the man voluntarily gave his guns to Denver police for safekeeping, and they were booked into the evidence vault at department headquarters, located at 1331 Cherokee St.
The man has not been arrested, and 9NEWS is not naming him.
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