A recently obtained affidavit alleges a gruesome killing by a man who is said to have later caused a major crash in a stolen police car on Interstate 25 in Colorado Springs last weekend.

Osemeke Uwadibie, 31, was arrested after he was allegedly involved in a multiple-vehicle crash that closed the interstate for several hours. He was later booked into the El Paso County jail without bond on suspicion of first-degree murder, court records show.

It all started just before 10 p.m. Friday, police said, when Uwadibie approached a man in a parking lot of an apartment complex on the 200 block of East Arvada Street and asked for a ride, police said. When the man refused, Uwadibie allegedly grabbed him and brandished a knife. The man was able to pull away and subsequently called 911.

While officers responded to the call, Uwadibie allegedly went into an apartment on the same block, police said. Court documents say a woman living in the apartment saw Uwadibie enter through a living room window after breaking it.

The court documents state Uwadibie asked the woman for a gun before he entered a bedroom in the apartment. She told him she did not have a weapon and fled to get help. She found a neighbor, who, in turn, grabbed his ax from his apartment nearby, the affidavit states.

Looking through the bedroom window of the woman’s apartment, the neighbor with the ax later told police he saw a man on the floor with serious injuries to his stomach, neck and head, the affidavit states.

The victim was later identified as 59-year-old Charles Slabaugh, who, police said, died from “multiple sharp force injuries.” His death is the city’s 19th homicide in 2022; at this time last year, the city had 17 such deaths.

The neighbor told police  he saw Uwadibie pick up a cane in the apartment to break a different window and escaped.

The neighbor then confronted Uwadibie in the street and struck him with the flat part of his ax, the affidavit states.

Police said Uwadibie fled from the neighbor, then attacked a police officer who had responded to the disturbance with a cane and stole his police car. The officer fired several rounds as Uwadibie drove away, the affidavit states.

Police said Uwadibie struck and damaged four vehicles before the stolen police car became disabled on a center median on southbound I-25 near South Academy Boulevard. Four people — two adults, two juveniles — suffered minor injuries in the crashes, police added.

Uwadibie was taken into custody before being treated at a local hospital with at least one gunshot wound to his arm.

His first court appearance is May 26.

The El Paso County Sheriff’s office is leading the investigation into the officer-involved shooting, per statute, while Colorado Springs police are investigating the homicide and crash.

The scene of a murder investigation was still under investigation at an apartment complex at Arvada and Nevada Ave. on Saturday morning, May 14, 2022.

Jerilee Bennett