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While Donald got out after only three months, Anne Schweikert was involved in the International Church of Christ for almost seven years. More than twelve years after she left the church, she’s still deeply bothered by what she experienced. Schweikert, who became a member after she graduated from college in…

Every night before Donald goes to sleep, he says a prayer for his family. He asks God to protect his parents, his six siblings and his grandparents. And he tries to block out all the things he was told would happen to his family, all the images of hell with…

A steaming Blackjack pizza with mushrooms and pepperoni will not be delivered to the Pink Palace, aka cell block 22C, inside Denver County Jail. The cell block’s basketball team had been the heavy favorite to win the jail’s tenth annual basketball tournament, but after team captain Mark Skipper was transferred…

Jasper Carlton tends to follow every one of his rapid-fire questions with an equally quick answer. “How many acres of grassland ecosystem do you think this country has saved since we began?” he asks without taking a breath. “Zero. “The trend of the Clinton administration is to split up the…

Wednesday, May 6, 1998 4:45 p.m. It’s hot outside when Stan Israel arrives at his Lakewood apartment. He takes off his shoes, sits down, turns on the TV and unwinds. He calls his girlfriend, Patricia, and they make a dinner date. She loves to cook, so later on he’ll drive…

Rebecca Rivera is a diminutive blue-eyed lady with fine features, teased blond hair and a sweet, almost naive voice that makes her sound younger than she is. So the guys at John Elway Ford West must have been salivating when Rivera called on April 2 to ask about the pickup…

Beef it up: The most recent anti-meat campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has hit stumbling blocks–or, perhaps more appropriately, cattle guards–in several beef-producing Western states, where outdoor-advertising companies have refused to rent billboards to PETA for its “Eating meat can cause impotence” messages (pictured here). “I…

For 28 years, Carol Porter lived with the knowledge that her father was dead. He had walked out one day in 1964–when Carol was two years old–and simply disappeared. Although Porter’s mother rarely spoke of him after that, in 1971 she told her daughter that he had been declared dead…

The Boob Tube Hey, Dan: For the last eight years, I’ve been taping myself naked and jacking off solo with a camcorder. Nothing too far out–I just thought it would be fun. Here’s the problem: I’m 21 now and don’t know what to do with these old vids of myself…

Society’s Child I actually was relieved to finally read the last chapter of Steve Jackson’s “Dealing with the Devil,” in the June 3 issue. I am a member of the local media as well, and I must say I’ve never seen a story so in-depth and detailed. I must also…

It’s a long way from Centennial Airport to Altoona, Pennsylvania. The miles would pass quickly if you could hop a plane and fly there, of course–but Centennial doesn’t have any commercial flights. Not to Altoona, and not to anywhere else. These days, the airport doesn’t even have FAA funding. But…

Jay Balano thought it was strange when a woman from the Colorado Department of Transportation walked into his Print Stop store last winter, asking for him by name. He thought it was even stranger when the woman offered to arrange a printing contract with the state worth close to $20,000,…

In the only game Mark Skipper plays at Madison Square Garden, the cathedral of basketball, the seventeen-year-old sees an apparition of sorts. The godlike images of Walt Frazier, Earl “the Pearl” Monroe and Bill Bradley dribble through his mind. “Here I am,” Skipper says to himself, “playing on the same…

Sloan Shoemaker never guessed that getting hitched would be such a headache. All he wanted was to give his fiancee the fairy-tale wedding of her dreams; he even backed his vow with a down payment–$6,700, to be exact. In January, the groom-to-be called the stately Redstone Castle, where he wanted…

Erotic dancers in Lakewood must now apply for and purchase a $25 entertainer license. They may not dance within six feet of their customers; they may not perform on a stage that moves, rolls, raises or shakes, and the stage itself must be at least eighteen inches off the ground,…

Mr. Brown goes to Washington–not!: Brooks Brown, the Columbine student who was the subject of Eric Harris’s online threats–“All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you pricks as I can, especially a few people. Like Brooks,” read one Harris rant–was all set to join in…

It happened in a place where the land rises and falls like ocean swells, and what the earth didn’t claim, souvenir-hunters did, until all that remained were trail fragments, faded memories and the restless winds of the prairie. And in this way, a killing ground was lost. May 1999: Metal…

A Matter of Life and Death We would like to make some comments regarding Steve Jackson’s “Dealing with the Devil” series, which concluded in the June 3 issue. First of all, the Warren brothers are not related to Francisco “Pancho” Martinez. Second, we feel that the justice system has failed…

Earlier this year, Detective John Incampo quit the Lakewood Police Department after a quarter-century of working as a cop–the last half of it as a detective–to begin a new career in corporate security. As his last day approached, he wrapped up his loose ends, handing over pending cases to his…

May 10, 1999 “Now that the facts have been determined, the presumption of innocence is gone, and Francisco Martinez Jr. sits before you a convicted rapist and murderer.” Deputy District Attorney Ingrid Bakke catches the people gathered in the courtroom in mid-murmur, like a play’s narrator just before the curtain…

When they tore it down on January 25, most people didn’t even know. Bob Hooley knew, of course, but he tried to ignore it. Mister Twister–the best ride of his life, number one on his list–had finally been reduced to a pile of lumber. “For every year that you live,…