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Crime Briefs: Unstable man threatens dad’s life

Ryan Summerlin
rsummerlin@postindependent.com

Garfield County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched April 28 in Battlement Mesa, where a 72-year-old man reported that his 34-year-old son had threatened him with a paring knife.

Authorities found the son had three different restraining orders that were supposed to protect the father from him.

Sheriff’s personnel were also informed that the son suffers from mental illness and that he’d threatened to kill his father by cutting his jugular, according to an arrest report. Fearing for his life, the father fled the residence.



Authorities went into the house and found that the son was in a bathroom. After they announced themselves, the son opened the door and told them that his father was dead, that his family had been murdered.

He denied having threatened anyone and said that he does not have schizophrenia, according to an affidavit. He was arrested without further incident on charges of felony menacing, along with misdemeanors of violating a restraining order and violating bail bond conditions.



meth and 8 pounds of pot

Garfield County Sheriff’s Office on April 23 received reports of a black car driving east in westbound lanes of Interstate 70 near Parachute and nearly hitting another vehicle.

Authorities came across a Chevrolet Spark parked on the interstate shoulder, but facing the wrong direction. When deputies asked if the driver was OK, at first he just stared at them with a confused look, according to an affidavit.

He was continuously and rapidly moving his hands on his lap. When asked if he was on any drugs, he said that he’d done about $20 worth of methamphetamine about an hour before.

The driver said he was traveling from Illinois to California in a rental car. When asked if he knew what state he was in, he looked around and finally said “Denver.”

Going through roadside sobriety testing, he appeared “extremely anxious” and he “mumbled to himself through the test,” a deputy wrote in his report.

In the vehicle, sheriff’s personnel found two syringes, four syringe caps, a couple baggies containing about 1.2 grams of methamphetamine and “two wrapped cardboard boxes, (at a total weight of about 8.7 pounds) each containing multiple vacuum sealed clear baggies containing suspected marijuana.”

He was arrested on charges of possession with intent to distribute between 5 and 50 pounds of marijuana and possession of a schedule II controlled substance, both drug felonies. Additionally his arresting charges included driving under the influence and reckless driving, both misdemeanors.

Man takeS car, eludes authorities

Garfield County deputies responded to a trespassing incident April 21, when a woman said that a man had come onto her family’s property and cut a barbed wire fence to retrieve his car.

A 39-year-old man later arrested in the incidents told police that he’d stored his vehicle, a silver Audi station wagon, at the property of his employer’s family, which was on Garfield County Road 306 near Parachute.

However, his employers then claimed that he owed them money, and they refused to hand over the vehicle, he told authorities.

The 39-year-old said he first went and knocked on the door first but didn’t get a response. Then he went to get the car. He tried to untwist the barbed wire fence at first, but when he couldn’t, he ended up cutting the wire. He said one of his employers then tried to run him off the road.

Authorities later spotted him driving on Stone Quarry Road. When a sheriff’s sergeant tried to stop the vehicle, he sped away, eventually losing the sergeant. The vehicle was observed traveling more than 60 mph in a 20 mph zone.

Sheriff’s personnel later fond the vehicle parked and unoccupied, with a tan pit bull mix inside. In the vehicle they also found a wallet containing the 39-year-old’s Colorado Department of Corrections inmate ID. His driving status was also found to be revoked following a DUI conviction.

He was arrested on charges of felony vehicular eluding, as well as misdemeanors of criminal mischief, second-degree criminal trespass, reckless driving and driving under revocation for an alcohol conviction.

59-year-old woman found with meth

Garfield County’s Threat Assessment Group investigators were executing a search warrant at a residence on Hidden Valley Drive near New Castle on the afternoon of April 26 when they discovered methamphetamine.

This order was specifically to search for firearms, but authorities found a small amount of methamphetamine in a 59-year-old woman’s room in the process. They found the “white crystalline substance” on a picture frame.

“The methamphetamine was found in a manner in which is consistent with the preparation for consumption,” according to the affidavit.

She was arrested on a drug felony of unlawful possession of a controlled substance.


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