Dead Reckoning

On the day Peyton was born -- February 6, 1975 -- Pat Tuthill cuddled her sleeping daughter, promising to protect her and keep her safe. "And I will love you forever," she whispered.

Peyton was a child any parent would be proud of: loving, intelligent, athletic, talented, adventurous -- but not entirely angelic. She had a mischievous streak, exhibited the day her sister, Cara, two years younger, ran into the house crying. Seven-year-old Peyton had found a dead frog and told Cara that if she kissed it, it would turn into a handsome prince. Of course, all Cara got out of the deal was a taste of dead frog, but Peyton got a good laugh.

In high school in Florida, Peyton was a good student, a cheerleader, athlete and lifeguard who belonged to community-service organizations and church youth groups. At Charleston College in South Carolina, she continued to display her giving spirit, working as a drug and alcohol peer counselor and taking four underprivileged children under her wing for the four years she was there. As a senior, she volunteered at a convalescence home for the elderly, accompanying herself on the piano as she sang old songs -- "Shine On, Harvest Moon," "A Bicycle Built for Two," "Over the Rainbow" -- that calmed even the crankiest patient.

For a graduation present, Peyton's parents, who'd divorced several years earlier, offered their eldest daughter a trip to Europe. But Peyton asked instead to use the money on a four-week course at the Wyoming Outdoor Leadership School.

Peyton made the right choice: Pat knew that whenever she looked at the photograph of her daughter at the wilderness school. In the picture, Peyton was on horseback, wearing a beat-up cowboy hat and a yellow slicker in the falling snow. The weather hadn't dampened her smile. Few things did.

Back home, Peyton decided that she wanted to move to Denver and attend the Colorado Institute of Art. Her father was against her living so far from Florida, and Pat initially was wary of the move, too. "Why don't you wait until spring?" she asked, pointing out that ice and snow could make it dangerous getting around.

But Peyton was adamant that she wanted to go -- and soon. So she and Heather, her college roommate, and Maggie, the small springer spaniel Peyton had gotten freshman year, packed up and moved west in the fall of 1998.

They didn't have jobs or even a place to stay. Peyton solved the first problem by signing up with a temporary-services agency, and the second when she located a duplex in the 1600 block of Gaylord Street. It was an old part of town that reminded her of similar neighborhoods in Charleston, she told her mother, right down to the racial mix of residents. Since Peyton didn't have money coming in yet, Pat talked to the landlord and said she'd be responsible for the rent. She asked the landlord if the neighborhood was safe. This was the first time she hadn't checked out a place where Peyton would live, hadn't installed extra locks. She was relieved to hear that there'd never been any problems.

Peyton loved Denver, and she soon met a nice young man. Over the holidays, they went to Florida to see her parents. Although the couple was already talking about marriage, Peyton assured her mother that they were a year away from making any firm plans. But Peyton had always dreamed of getting married, of having kids of her own as well as a career; she'd even found a photograph of the wedding dress she wanted in a magazine and stashed it in a small wooden box that contained her "treasures." She was full of plans.

During one conversation -- Peyton talked to her mother almost every day -- she said that she might volunteer at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, the Stout Street Foundation, which was just a couple of houses down the block. She'd already talked to Stout Street administrators; she said she was told that the residents were there voluntarily. "They said if I ever had any trouble to just give them a call and they'd be right over to help," Peyton reassured her mother.

Before she started volunteering, though, Peyton wanted to get a real job. And on February 23, she told her mother that she had an interview the next day with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Peyton promised to call her mother and tell her how it went.

When she hadn't heard from Peyton by 6:30 p.m. the next evening, Pat called her daughter. No one answered, so she left a message. Four hours later, when Pat was heading to bed, she still hadn't gotten a call from Peyton. She must be out doing something, she thought. Maybe celebrating her new job.

---

Twenty-two-year-old Donta Page wasn't in Denver because he wanted to live here. He'd been raised in the Washington, D.C., area, partly by his mother -- who'd given birth to him at the age of sixteen, after first trying to abort the pregnancy -- and partly by his grandmother. He'd never met his father.

But mostly Page had grown up surrounded by violence on the streets, sometimes sleeping in abandoned buildings to avoid the abuse at home. He'd been shot once and had seen two of his teenaged friends killed, but he'd also been an active participant in the violence. In 1996, during a convenience-store robbery, he'd punched a female clerk and then struck her on the head with the butt end of a large knife, threatening to kill her. The assault ended when a customer entered the store and Page fled. But the police caught up with him, and in November of that year, he was convicted of aggravated robbery and burglary and sentenced to ten years with the Maryland Department of Corrections.

In the fall of 1998, a Maryland judge reconsidered his sentence and let Page out of jail on probation, on the condition that he enroll in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. The Maryland probation department allowed him to seek treatment at the Stout Street Foundation in Denver -- but failed to notify Colorado authorities of the state's new resident, as required by an interstate compact.

Page didn't last long at Stout Street, where other residents complained that he assaulted them physically and sexually. On February 23, 1999, after only half a year with the program, he was kicked out. Put out on the street with no money, Page was told he could return the next day to pick up his personal belongings and a one-way ticket back to Maryland. That night, as he strolled along Colfax Avenue with a friend who'd also left Stout Street, Page pointed out a pharmacy where he'd robbed a customer at gunpoint.

The next morning, Page returned to Stout Street, where officials told him he could get a ride to the bus station at 1:30 p.m. With a couple of hours to spare, Page decided to make use of his time. Earlier, he'd seen a young woman leave a duplex a couple of houses away; now he headed over there to burgle the home.

Page first tried to get in through a basement window. When that didn't work, he used his massive body to break down the back door. In the kitchen, he helped himself to a bottle of beer, wrapping a paper towel around the bottle to avoid leaving fingerprints. He then grabbed a knife, also wrapping its handle in a towel. He was standing near the back door when he heard the young woman return.

After her interview at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation -- she'd gotten the position on the spot -- Peyton wanted to change her clothes and let Maggie out of the upstairs bedroom before she went off to her temporary job. She parked in front of the duplex, went in the front door, headed for the stairs and saw him: a huge black man brandishing a kitchen knife and demanding to know where she kept her money.