Colored Red

On August 11, 1912, 32 year old SIgne Carlzen finished up teaching a music lesson in the  Montclair neighborhood of Denver. At around 8PM she walked towards the streetcar line to take it back to her parent's home where she lived. At 9AM the next day, a farmer discovered her axed and mutilated body on the road towards the streetcar line. Police would arrest and question some 25 suspects, including many of the stranger people to ever walk in Denver. 

On July 28, 2015, Susan Hernandez's daughter Katrina cannot reach her mom on the phone, and she gets a gut feeling that something is wrong. She drives over to her mom's house and finds a horrific scene, her mother is on fire in the basement. Detectives unravel a callous and obvious plot that originates inside the Hernandez family. 

On December 9, 1919, a butler for a Denver Apartment-Hotel discovered 38 year old Emily Powell despondent in a blood splattered room, her 10 year old daughter Jacqueline had been dead on the bed for hours. In their investigation, police find peculiar notes left behind by Emily that shed light on some of the delusional thoughts that haunted her.

In the early morning hours of July 1st, 1975, a woman was found dead on the porch steps of a trailer in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A blood trail 50 yards long marked the area where she crawled to the steps, and bloody marks on the door marked her futile attempts to ring the bell before dying. Her name was Karen Grammer, sister of famous actor Kelsey Grammer. It wasn't long before investigators discovered that all three murders over the course of 2 weeks were committed by the same suspects. Daniel Van Lone had been shot to death and robbed of 50 cents only days prior. Then Winfred Proffitt was stabbed with a bayonet during a staged drug deal. Police were on the hunt for three men on a rampage, and then, one of them cracked. 

Grand Lake, CO sits nestled next to the largest and deepest lake in Colorado. It's full of rich log cabin architecture and charming shops and restaurants, but it has a surprisingly dark past. One of the more amazing houses in the area is nearly 150 years old and is called The Spider House, due to the intricate latticework of wood that decorate this two story log home. This home was built by Warren Greggs for his wife Mary and large family, but it would not bring them happiness.

In 1992, Grand Junction was rocked with three horrifying explosions. Pipe bombs were being planted in random places around the city and targeting no one in particular. Anyone could be the next victim by simply getting into their car or walking in the wrong place. The mystery seemed to life as investigators and ATF agents honed in on one suspect, a loner and electronics enthusiast named James Genrich. James had an interesting story of his own and also had tools in his home that investigators claimed made the bombs. But did they? I review some of the issues with older forensics technique in this no-so-closed case.

On August 27, 1958, 11 year old Lester Gordon Brown Jr headed alone to the circus that was in town and being exhibited at the Denver Coliseum. Lester was particularly interested in elephants and he caught the eye of a 27 year old animal trainer named Walter J Hammil. Hammil offered him a ride on an elephant after hours and this would be the last time anyone saw Lester alive. 

This episode is  a continuation of the earlier historical episode about the murder of Joe Roma. Hear about the Smaldone family, leaders of the Denver, CO mob for many decades. The two brothers Clyde and Eugene "Checkers" were undisputed family leaders and were at the front of many bizarre and brazen criminal acts over the years and used their money for a lot of good in the community and a lot of mischief. 

Bitter rivalry between the mafia controlled North and South territories of Colorado came to a breaking point in the deadliest 15 years of mafia crime in Colorado's history. The era between 1919 and 1933 was Prohibition Era and bootlegging took off, controlled by Colorado's warring mafia gangs. Joe Roma, aka "Little Caesar" the pint sized Boss, found himself at the center of it and in control of a bootlegging operation that served out of his North Denver grocery stores and home. That is, until he was murdered in his Highland Neighborhood bungalow. A new family then took over, the Smaldone family, and the topic of my next episode. 

On December 15, 1917, in a rural farmhouse around 4 miles from Olathe, Colorado, a young boy's body was boiled in lye to make a human soap. His father, too, would supposedly suffer the same fate. The woman at the center of the murders is Mrs. Mary Bush, a spiteful woman who accused her grandson, the boy in the soap kettle, of stealing $1.35 from her pocketbook. 

On May 23, 1928, four masked robbers entered a bank in Lamar, Colorado and stole $200,000 in cash and gold bonds. In the process they shot the owner of the bank, Amos Parrish and and his son John Parrish. They took two hostages as well and drove off with guns blazing in a high speed chase with the Lamar County sheriff. By the end of the story, four men would be murdered and a two year chase would span multiple states across the United States and involve a number of bizarre aliases. The legend of the Fleagle gang would go down in history and inspire a folk song by Bud Billings, featured at the end of the episode. 

On the morning of February 9, 1960, Adolph "Ad" Coors drove his car to his family's business, the Coors Brewery in Golden, Colorado. Only a couple of hours later his car was found running with the doors open on the Turkey Creek Bridge. Ad Coors was nowhere to be found. A ransom note arrived the next day demanding money in exchange for his safe return, but the kidnapper mysteriously disappeared without collecting the money and without returning Ad Coors. In a massive manhunt that stretched all the way to New Jersey and Vancouver, the FBI uncovered a sinister plot.

On December 21, 1919, a quiet farm house in Weld County, Colorado was much quieter than usual. A family member discovered the entire family of 6 shot to death within the home, including 4 children under the age of 10. An investigation would reveal bad blood between the family patriarch Adam Schenk and Alex Miller, the farm hand who was known to be a violent drunk. The root of the problem would turn out to be the root of many people's problems; money. 

In 2004, ER doctors were stumped. Two people had now been admitted to the ER with severe complications from treatments delivered by a naturopathic "doctor" named Brian O'Connell. One of the patients had died. When they look into Brian O'Connell's past, they discover he has a long history of taking substantial amounts of money for treatments he claimed would cure cancer. One of his final victims was 19 year old Sean Flanagan and his case was what sent O'Connell to trial for manslaughter. 

In this episode I change gears to talk about a deadly and fearsome mythological creature unique to Colorado, the Slide Rock Bolter. Miners and mountain folk, forever enraged by tourists romping into their towns, conceived this "cryptid" that swings down from high cliffs to gobble up unknowing tourists who wonder into the path of its gaping maw. 

On September 17, 1991, thirteen year old Heather Dawn Church disappeared with few clues from her home in the distanced and quiet neighborhood of Black Forest near Colorado Springs. For years her case sat in mystery, as if she simply stepped out of the front door and vanished. A dedicated fingerprint expert would open up pandora's box with a fresh look at the only clue found at the scene and investigators would uncover a serial killer lurking under our noses. 

34 year old Paige Birgfeld went missing on Thursday, June 28, 2007. She left behind three children, a large home and several tumultuous relationships. Amongst Paige's scattered possessions along a highway were clues to a secret life that Paige lived to pay the bills. Her burned out car, her violent previous marriage, it all led to many suspects in a case with many twists and turns. 

Brawls, riots, shootings and other drunken buffoonery are only a small part of this once large and bustling town of the Rocky Mountains. Victor, CO once boasted over 15 saloons and theaters and was home to around 20,000 people in its prime. The town and surrounding mountains are still dotted with hundreds of old mines, some of which you can see and explore. A rich history keep this town moving into the future and new owners and renovators plan on making it a creepy destination for true crime and victorian horror lovers.

In 1987, Tom Young went missing after closing down his bookstore in Silver Plume, Colorado and walking off into the wilderness with his dog. Months later, in 1988, Keith Reinhard would rent the same shop space for his antique store and become obsessed with the mystery of what happened to Tom Young. Then one day Reinhard closed his shop and walked off into the mountains and was never seen again. What happened to Keith and Tom, and what mysteries, if any, does Silver Plume hide?

The 1920's saw the takeover of Colorado by the KKK, from politics to local businesses, they had their stranglehold in the state. Colorado was also brought into the 20th Century by a barbaric lynching of a 16 year old boy named Preston Porter Jr. Learn about the brief history of the KKK in Colorado, including the infiltration of them in the 1970's by Ron Stallworth, the first black investigator for the Colorado Springs Police Department.