Author: Julia Cardi
-
Oversight of parental evaluators has been lacking for decades
For decades, critics have urged Colorado’s judicial branch to do more to ensure the quality of court appointed evaluators, but the judiciary has been slow to regulate the profession. An investigation by The Gazette found dozens of cases of incompetent, inaccurate and biased custody evaluations by court-appointed evaluators, several of whom put children at serious,…
-
Pankey trial: Witnesses recall 1984 night when Jonelle Matthews disappeared
In the hours before 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews disappeared from her Greeley home in 1984 after a holiday choir concert, none of the last people to see her alive remember anything unusual. The seventh grader didn’t seem upset or scared, and the family friend who gave her a ride doesn’t remember any strange cars following them…
-
Colorado’s parenting evaluation industry profits as bitter child custody cases thrown into chaos
For Elizabeth, the moment still burns in her memory when the sexual trauma she suffered during her military service was thrown in her face during her children’s custody case. What was meant to be a seemingly straightforward evaluation of a 13-minute change in her kids’ commute time turned into a nightmarish scrutiny of her worst…
-
Two mothers share a mutual ex-partner and, now, a close friendship forged through criticism of parental evaluation industry
Mary and Anne are two mothers who share an ex-partner and are now close friends, bonded by troubled encounters with Colorado’s parental evaluation system and what they say is their mutual ex’s manipulation. Anne was with him when Mary went through a custody evaluation for her now 12-year-old son in 2016. Mary said a child…
-
Forensic pathologist: Elijah McClain died from ketamine injection, but manner of death undetermined
An amended autopsy report released Friday for Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died in 2019 after an encounter with Aurora police, confirms a forensic pathologist’s opinion that McClain died from “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint.” But the new report did not change his original determination that the manner of death — such…
-
Aurora chooses police chief finalists, one candidate withdraws after announcement
Hours after Aurora announced the city had chosen three finalists for the city’s next permanent police chief, one of them has withdrawn from consideration. Scott Booth, currently the chief of police in Danville, Virginia, is no longer in the running, according to a news release. The two remaining finalists are: Scott Ebner, retired lieutenant colonel…
-
Judge denies Denver’s request for new trial in 2020 protest lawsuit; agrees to reduce award against 1 officer
A federal judge in Denver has denied the city’s request for a new trial in the civil lawsuit that led to the first trial in the country over how police responded to the 2020 protests following he death of George Floyd, and won’t reduce the $13.75 million awarded to a group of protesters by a…
-
Grand jury indicts five people for auto thefts in Northern Colorado
A grand jury in Weld County indicted five people linked to the theft of more than 50 cars in Northern Colorado since April 2021, the 19th Judicial District Attorney’s office announced Monday. The defendants face accusations of violating Colorado’s Organized Crime Control Act, as well as counts of aggravated motor vehicle theft, identity theft, forgery,…
-
Alan Lee Phillips convicted of cold case killings near Breckenridge
Forty years after two young women disappeared from Breckenridge in a snowstorm, a local man has been convicted of their murders. A jury convicted Alan Lee Phillips, 71, Thursday after a two-and-a-half week trial and five hours of deliberation. Phillips was arrested last winter and charged with the killings of Bobbi Jo Oberholtzer, 29, and…
-
The battle for Denver’s Union Station: Co-response teams mix compassion with policing
DENVER • Mental health clinician Lara Cladny stands in Union Station’s downstairs bus terminal, trying to reason with a disheveled, barefoot woman. It’s a midday in early August. The middle-aged woman shouts at Cladny to get out of her face. Several RTD police officers now flank Cladny, as the encounter escalates. But she remains calmly persistent…