Woman hospitalized after fire

AURORA | A woman was hospitalized after an early morning fire Thursday at an Aurora apartment complex. 
 
According to a Channel 7 report, firefighters first responded around 3:30 a.m. to the blaze on South Dearborn Street, near East Mississippi Avenue and South Sable Boulevard.

When fire crews arrived, they found the woman unconscious and rushed her to  a hospital. The woman, whose name has not been released, is in serious condition.

The cause of the blze remains under investigation.

Cops search for bank robbers

Surveillance image of one of the robbers.

AURORA | Police are searching for four suspects who robbed an Aurora bank Wednesday morning. 

The robbery happened around 10 a.m. at the Wells Fargo Bank at 999 S. Sable Blvd., police said. 

Four robbers pulled up to the bank in a dark colored jeep and three went inside while a driver waited inside the vehicle. 

The masked suspects fled the bank with an undisclosed amount of money, police said. 

Witnesses did not see any weapons. 

The suspects are described as three black males and a black woman.

In surveillance images released Wednesday, it appeared at least one suspect was wearing camouflage pants. 

Police later found the getaway car a few blocks away in the 1000 block of South Blackhawk Street. 

Police are asking anyone with information about the robbery to call police the FBI Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force at 303-629-7171. Callers can also remain anonymous and earn up to $2,000 by calling CRIMESTOPPERS at 720-913-STOP (7867).


Click below for surveillance images courtesy of APD. 

Supreme Court says witnesses in Ray case still need protection

Robert Ray

AURORA | The Colorado Supreme Court ruled last week that prosecutors could continue to withhold from Robert Ray’s defense team the addresses of witnesses who testified against the reputed drug dealer who now sits on Death Row. 

In an opinion handed down April 25, the high court ruled that Ray still posed a threat to the witnesses and that details about the witnesses should be protected during the appeals phase of his case. 

Arapahoe County prosecutors announced the ruling Wednesday morning.

With the ruling, the high court overruled a decision by a district court judge that said the information should be shared with Ray’s defense team. 

Ray was convicted in 2009 of ordering the killing of Javad Marshall-Fields in June 2005 to stop Marshall-Fields from testifying against Ray in a 2004 murder case. Marshall-Fields’ fiancee, Vivian Wolfe, was also killed when Ray’s friend, Sir Mario Owens, fired several rounds into Marshall-Fields’ car. 

Like Ray, Owens was also sentenced to death. 

Both men are appealing their sentences. 

Perish Carter, the man police say drove Owens the night of the slayings, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder last year and sentenced to 70 years in prison. 

Click below for a timeline of events in the case. 

Robinson trial bumped to August

AURORA | The trial of a man charged with murder after a fatal liquor store robbery last spring has been delayed until August, according to court records. 

Elon Raynell Wynn Robinson, 22, was set to go on trial yesterday in Arapahoe County District Court in Centennial. 

But according to records, the trial is now scheduled to start Aug. 29. It wasn’t clear from the records why the trial was delayed. 

Robinson was arrested a short time after the April 9 robbery at Sixth Avenue Liquors that left Benigno Morales-Ramirez, 24, dead. Robinson was also wounded by gunfire during the robbery.

A second man, Anthony Gillespie, 24, was arrested in August in connection with the robbery and murder.

According to the arrest affidavit filed against Robinson, he was shot in the arm and hip during the robbery and later arrested at an area hospital. He has been in jail since.

Gillespie, who is being held in the Arapahoe County Jail without bail, is set to go on trial in July, according to court records.

Missing woman found

AURORA | A 60-year-old woman with dementia who disappeared from her north Aurora home last week has been found, police said.  

Lucy Rasberry Orji went missing around 2:30 p.m. April 26 when she walked away from her home near East Colfax Avenue and Havana Street, according to a bulletin from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. 

An Aurora police spokesman said this afternoon that police found Orji in Aurora on April 28. 

She was later turned over to her son and the case was closed, the spokesman said. 

Vehicle smashes townhouse Tues. afternoon

AURORA | A vehicle crashed into a townhouse Tuesday near East Yale Avenue and South Peoria Street, police said, severing a gas line and forcing police to briefly close area streets. 

The crash happened around 3:10 p.m., said Lt. Chuck DeShazer, a spokesman for the Aurora police traffic section. Only the driver was injured and they sustained minor injuries, DeShazer said. 

The crash broke a gas line inside the townhouse and police blocked off area traffic for about 15 minutes before the scene was under control, DeSHazer said. 

Details including the driver’s gender and the type of vehicle involved were not immediately available Tuesday afternoon. 

It wasn’t immediately clear why the driver crashed into the home, DeShazer said, and the crash remains under investigation. 

DeLeon convicted of lesser murder charge

Marcos DeLeon

AURORA | A man who police say killed his girlfriend last spring was convicted of second-degree murder Friday afternoon, a spokeswoman for prosecutors said. 

The jury returned the guilty verdict against Marcos Antonio DeLeon, 23, around 4:45 p.m. Friday, according to Krista Flannigan, a spokeswoman for the Adams County district attorney’s office. 

DeLeon was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the April 12, 2010, slaying of 19-year-old Dakota Fresh at the couple’s apartment near East Montview Boulevard Fulton Street. 

Had the jury convicted DeLeon of first-degree murder, he would have faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Instead, DeLeon will likely face a prison term of up to 48 years at his sentencing hearing next month. 

During opening statements last week, DeLeon’s lawyer, public defender Christian Earle, said Deleon did not mean to kill Fresh that night and may not have been the person who pulled the trigger. Fresh grabbed a gun from the coffee table that night and held it to her head, threatening suicide, Earle said. And when DeLeon reached for the pistol, it went off.