The first person Becky Due ever called a bitch was her mother. She caught a whuppin’ for it, and since then, Due says, she’s never called anyone a bitch again. Almost thirty years later, Due was on an airplane and heard a grown man call a young girl a bitch…

Samantha Peters kicks up dirt as she chases the boys around the track. She’s the only girl in this race of about a dozen seven-year-olds riding mini-dirt bikes. Neil Peters bought the $2,900 mini for his daughter’s third birthday, riding it right into her party. “You did?” Samantha asks her…

They rode north on I-25. Two dozen riders lined up in pairs, rolling side by side, bent low — very low — over engines hissing high-pitched whines. One of the riders was 27-year-old Rashad “Rumble” Mims. They were all headed for I-70, and when Rumble saw a fellow rider veer…

“If anything, I’m the underdog in this fight,” Denver tattoo artist Mike Nickels said to the Spike TV cameras before his June 1 bout for The Ultimate Fighter. “If I topple the giant, then I’m the hero of the show.” The “giant” Nickels was referring to is Matt Hamill, a…

Nobody wants to talk about Jennifer Marcum. Not the girls who stripped with her at Shotgun Willie’s. Not the man with whom she was living. Not the men she may have testified against. Not the father of her child. Not her incarcerated ex-boyfriend, who was the last man to see…

For several years, life was one long, lovely road trip for Sandy and Joann Bush, as the retired couple cruised from state to state in their RV. But while they were on the road in Iowa in the summer of 2004, Sandy’s leg suddenly swelled to twice its normal size…

Let’s Get It On! The season’s winding down for Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter 3. And when two men step into the ring to beat the shit out of each other in the episode airing at 8 p.m. Thursday, June 1, one will be representing Denver. Mike Nickels, a mixed…

There was no reason to delay Timothy Kemp’s sentencing after he was convicted of first-degree murder on May 1. On that point, both the prosecution and defense agreed, since judges in Colorado have no discretion when sentencing first-degree-murder cases. Life without parole is the only option. Kemp was eighteen when…

No one but Dr. Phillip Mallory himself will ever know why he wanted to buy a Bushmaster AR-15 so bad that he lied about a felony when he filled out the required purchase forms a year ago. But his guilty plea to that federal charge will spare him a potentially…

“Kick his ass! I want to see some blood!” a woman shouted from her front-row seat at the two men circling inside a cage. “Fight like a man, not like a bitch!” “Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight,” chanted the crowd gathered for the American Championship Fighting bout at the Denver Coliseum…

Mike Nickels was closing up shop when he saw a crack deal going down right outside the door. “I can’t have drug deals going on out there,” says Nickels, owner of the Twisted Sol tattoo shop at 1405 Ogden Street. “I’ve got soccer moms bringing their sixteen-year-old daughters down here…

On a folding chair along the sidelines is where soft-spoken Denver Nugget DerMarr Johnson spent most of his season. But with the playoffs under way, Johnson, who can surprise with explosive off-the-bench performances when it matters most, says he’s hoping for some big minutes against the Clippers. The road from…

Jon Vaupel had been cooling his heels in a federal immigration detention facility in Aurora for three months when the guards finally told him to pack it up, that he was being released. What they didn’t tell him was that he was being released to deputies from Adams County, where…

Instead of cake and candles on her 28th birthday, Baby Girl got khakis and handcuffs, courtesy of the Denver County jail. Just a couple of months after graduating from the Chrysalis Project, a twelve-month drug-treatment program for crack hos (“Lost and Found,” June 2, 2005), Baby Girl was already back…

Larysa Maslenko was depressed when her first marriage failed after just six months, but instead of posting a profile on Match.com, the Ukrainian woman signed up for a free service that promised introductions to marriage-minded American men. “I didn’t know what to do. All the time I was crying,” says…

Last April, Mike Lynch moved to Thailand because he loved the women’s asses. The only things he misses from his ten years in Colorado are skiing and singing in the church choir. He certainly doesn’t miss his former Highlands Ranch neighbors, who never smiled, never said hello. Divorced in 1984…

Five balding white men and a sixth wearing a hearing aid sit around a bamboo table in a Bangkok bar, under swaying fans and a neon Johnnie Walker sign that casts a faint red light over the group. The six, all Americans, are waiting for Richard Beals. Each have paid…

For the past eight years, I’ve been completely faithful to my snowboard. Addicted to it, actually. I could never see a reason to go back to skis, although the convenience of poles was something I envied every time my board got stuck on the flat stuff. But when I strapped…

Red was the only color that seventeen-year-old Contrell Townsend couldn’t wear. Contrell’s parents had pulled him out of Montbello High School in the fall of 2003 because he was rolling with a crew of known gang members, full-fledged Bloods. Against their better instincts, they allowed Contrell to return to Montbello…

On March 28, 2005, toothpaste was Eli Harris Ashby’s top priority as he cruised toward home on his crotch rocket to pick up his girlfriend, Carly Drienka. The two were planning to go to Target so they could use a gift card to pick up some items — toothpaste, first…