part 1 of 2 In a two-week period beginning in mid-October 1993, Spencer Day went on a crime tear that was as remarkable for its workaday brazenness as it was for its repugnance. On October 19 he pulled an eleven-year-old boy off Wood Street in Fort Collins and forced him…
part 2 of 2 Most people know of aversion therapy through Anthony Burgess’s book, or Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 movie by the same name, A Clockwork Orange. In both, the leader of a gang of violent thugs is conditioned to become physically ill at the sight, or even the thought, of…
Timothy Wacker represents perfectly the conflict that mental-health professionals continue to face over the treatment of sex offenders. He started raping his sister when he was twelve, an activity he continued for several years. “The only time it was really hard was the first time,” he says. “After that, rationalizing…
The white stuff: Denver is no better at predicting blizzards than it is at predicting airport openings. After the flurry of prognostications that called for a big dump last weekend, the city canceled the first official flight into Denver International Airport–a United Airlines Stapleton-to-DIA charity deal that was set for…
As Bill McCartney can tell you, if you’ve ever been to a football game in Texas–any football game–it’s like full immersion at the river bend. Texans take their football as seriously as their cattle, or their oil wells, or their ancient dislike of Oklahoma. If you don’t walk the walk…
Bully Button This letter is in response to the November 16 column by Patricia Calhoun, “Benson’s Bully Pulpit,” about the media and Bruce Benson’s loss. I think the media is just too damn nosey, not just about Bruce Benson but about the entire public. The media went on and on…
City work crews are unearthing hundreds of century-old paving stones as part of street resurfacing projects in booming lower downtown. They’re also digging up trouble. Area merchants and residents accuse the city of going back on a promise to save the “pavers,” which advocates say were handcut by stonemasons in…
Conflicts between Boulder street people and police on the Pearl Street Mall are sparking attempts to set up a watchdog panel to review allegations of police misconduct. The Boulder chapter of the ACLU and the Colorado Legal Eagles, a Nederland group affiliated with the modern-day-hippie Rainbow Family, plan to bring…
Earlier this year, when Boulder attorney Peter Rogers lost a routine child-support case for client Richard Kosnar, he appeared to go out of his way to make amends. Not only did Rogers write Kosnar a profuse letter of apology, according to court records, but he even offered to make Kosnar’s…
Park Hill businessman and his wife have received a six-figure, low-interest loan from the City of Denver even though they have a long history of financial problems and until recently owed the city treasury almost $60,000 in delinquent real estate taxes. Johnny and Bernice Copeland, owners of the Holly Shopping…
Richard Iannacito sells nothing but tomatoes at his family business on Cook Street. After years in the trade, he still answers his own phone and scrambles to stay competitive in the volatile produce industry. So when he learned in the spring of 1989 that one of his largest customers was…
part 2 of 2 The Clinic, Politics, and Wes Kennedy By the late Eighties it was clear that the AIDS epidemic could not be dealt with as other epidemics had been in the past. Polio and tuberculosis, for example, affected people in specific ways that could be addressed by a…
part 1 of 2 Dr. Adam Myers arrived at Denver General Hospital in 1974, following a residency program at the University of Colorado in which he specialized in hematology, the study of blood diseases such as anemia and leukemia. He was soon appointed DGH’s director of ambulatory services. But he…
Local boy makes bad: Since former Denverite JT Colfax assumed the name of his favorite strip and hit the road for New York City three years ago, he’s been painting the town red–and now it’s seeing red over his efforts. The street artist’s preferred medium is the photocopier, which he…
Last week the only news trickling out of the moribund women’s tennis tour concerned the return of Jennifer Capriati, the eighteen-year-old burnout who is justifiably more famous for her adolescent misdeeds than for any real prowess on the court. Before her mug shots were plastered all over the front pages…
Denver filmmaker Ronnie Cramer is worried. “I’m not going to wind up looking like Ed Wood, am I?” he asks. Comparisons to the late Wood, a cross-dresser and anti-auteur who’s the subject of a new biopic called, appropriately, Ed Wood, are a real concern for Cramer (“Framed!” October 27, 1993)…
The Straight and Marrow Regarding “Courting Disaster,” in the November 2 issue: I read with interest Eric Dexheimer’s feature on the biopolitical plight of women with advanced-stage breast cancer struggling to get insurance coverage for bone marrow transplants. Dexheimer explored not just the issues but their history, and he gave…
A popular nurse at the Denver General Hospital AIDS clinic was forced to resign last week–under the threat of being fired–for bending the city’s residency rule. The rule requires that city employees, including those at the hospital, live within the city and county of Denver. However, nurse Georgia Caven contends…
Crime is on the rise these days, although not necessarily on the streets. Television programs such as Cops show real-life alleged perpetrators (their faces tastefully obscured) being busted by real-life cops. Others, such as America’s Most Wanted, reenact crimes and ask viewers with information to call the appropriate law enforcement…
One thing’s certain about reporter Steve Paulson’s recent news stories about Denver International Airport for the Associated Press: They could hardly be getting better play. One of them–charging that expansive soils are causing the widespread cracking of runways at the new airport–went out on the AP’s national wire in August…
part 2 of 2 There’s not much sense lecturing someone in an HIV clinic about the long-term hazards of smoking, although Myers suspects a link between smoking and Kaposi’s ability to attack the lungs of people with AIDS. Sam has a more immediate concern. At first, the Daunoxome reduced the…
part 1 of 2 September 15, 1994–Denver General Hospital Dr. Adam Myers picks a surgical mask off the wall outside an isolation room on the ninth floor. Placing it over his mouth and nose and smoothing his short, silver-gray hair, he knocks on the door and enters. The mask is…
