Archive Search Results
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News
Hiding in Plain Sight
Are Columbine's remaining secrets too dangerous for the public to know -- or too embarrassing for officials to reveal?
By Alan Prendergast
Published: April 13, 2006
Cradling a sawed-off shotgun in his lap, Eric Harris glares into the video camera. He takes a pull from a bottle of Jack Daniel's and winces. Then he talks smack about the...
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Feature
Over and Over Again
Spending half a billion dollars on new prisons won't solve the state's biggest crime problem: the staggering failure rate of parole.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: April 6, 2006
Having been deep in it most of his life, John "Jake" Johnson can smell trouble coming. So last year, when the fifty-year-old inmate found out he would be paroling from a...
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News
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A Man Out of Time
By Alan Prendergast
Published: March 16, 2006
Tony Shane Francis had his share of breaks. He pulled off bank robberies in Oregon and Idaho, escaped from jail in Arizona, made the scene on America's Most Wanted and the...
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Feature
Caught Mapping
How MapQuest helps the lost generation find itself.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: February 2, 2006
Here's how you get from the center of Denver -- the intersection of Colfax and Broadway -- to the center of the mapping universe: Start out going SOUTH on Broadway. Turn...
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Feature
Throw It All Down
Michael Lanahan's life was a puzzle, his death a mystery wrapped in a song.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: January 5, 2006
That was a crazy game of poker I lost it all But someday I'll be back again And I'm never to fall Never to fall never to fall. 'Crazy Game of Poker,' OAR The Messenger...
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Feature
Catch-16
Slipping through the safety net for juveniles.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: December 8, 2005
It was only late October, but a kind of holiday excitement coursed through the Altvater household in southeast Aurora. Kaeleigh had called. Kaeleigh was coming home. Her...
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Checking Out of Lockdown
Inmate suicides put the spotlight on medical care at Colorado's supermax.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: November 24, 2005
What passes for life inside the Colorado State Penitentiary didn't suit Kevin Fears and Timothy Russell. So both inmates put an abrupt end to their long sentences -- by killing...
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News
Dog Days
Feuds, forgery and the Zinna Factor in Jeffco.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: November 10, 2005
Sprinting through a light agenda in a matter of minutes, the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners seems eager to adjourn its weekly meeting. But first there's the...
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Feature
Carbon Loading
Xcel’s solution to rising energy prices includes a lot of coal. Is that a bad thing?
By Alan Prendergast
Published: October 27, 2005
It's an annual rite of fall, right up there with hot cider, Columbus Day trash-talking and Mike Shanahan's vow to take one game at a time. Between the time the first aspen...
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Sidebar
A Mighty Wind
The results of Xcel's wind-power program are still in the air.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: October 27, 2005
The drive for wind power in Colorado got an unexpected boost this month after Xcel Energy announced it was seeking 30 percent hikes in electricity rates because of higher...
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Feature
A Really Big Shoe
Colorado's Croc craze is conquering the world. But does it have legs?
By Alan Prendergast
Published: October 13, 2005
I am surrounded by hundreds of plastic shoes. They are big and absurd and vaguely sinister, like boxing gloves designed by Crayola. They come in a riot of brutally cheerful...
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News
Duke of Oil
He took on big energy companies and won. So why did the feds fire him?
By Alan Prendergast
Published: September 8, 2005
For 28 years, Bobby Maxwell crunched big numbers for the government. He wielded a calculator with patience and determination for the Minerals Management Service, a branch of...
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Feature
What Lies Beneath
The effort to reclaim a historic mining district has consumed years and millions of dollars. But will it hold water?
By Alan Prendergast
Published: September 1, 2005
Todd Hennis is not the sort of man to underestimate the dangers of wandering solo through an abandoned mine. The first time he went into the Mogul, a once-thriving gold mine...
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News
"What You Deserve"
A lawsuit claims brutal treatment of prisoners after last year's riot.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: August 25, 2005
When all hell broke loose last year at the Crowley County Correctional Facility, a private prison on Colorado's eastern plains, Vance Adams stayed very, very quiet. From his...
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Feature
Waltz of the Cannibals
How to demolish the telecom industry, in six easy steps.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: July 21, 2005
1. FORGET THE PAST They laid Ma Bell to rest in Denver last month, on the last day of the second quarter of the fiscal year. She was a sick old gal, but nobody could agree on...
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Sidebar
Getting Their Bell Rung
Tim Wirth dials in on the telecom wars.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: July 21, 2005
In 1975, Colorado freshman congressman Tim Wirth got it into his head to seek a seat on the House Telecommunications Subcommittee. It wasn't considered a glamorous assignment,...
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News
Paved With Good Intentions
Golden residents battle over a developer's gift to the city -- and the city's efforts to put a road through it.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: June 30, 2005
When postal carrier Tim Ramsey bought his home on Ford Street in north Golden nine years ago, he knew he was acquiring a special slice of local history. The house had once...
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News
Welcome to America
He came looking for work. A week in the Park County Jail changed everything.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: June 23, 2005
Here is something Moises Carranza-Reyes wants you to know right off: He has never been charged with a crime, in this country or in his native Mexico. Yes, he did enter the...
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Feature
Speaking for the Dead
A Denver coroner's investigator tracks down the families of the forgotten.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: June 16, 2005
1. BORN ON THE MOON On mourra seul, Pascal wrote. We shall die alone. But some die more alone than others. In Denver, if you die unexpectedly, unattended by doctors or...
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News
If the Shoe Fits
Did prison officials look the other way while a guard's fetish turned violent?
By Alan Prendergast
Published: May 12, 2005
Suppose you're the warden of a women's prison. Among your valued employees is a correctional officer named Dave, whose job puts him in charge of dozens of female inmates for...
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