NEW CHAPTER: Elizabeth High School celebrates graduation P4
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June 7, 2018
ELBERT COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
Judge clears way for trial in death of teacher Evidence, DNA don’t match confession, defense says BY DAVID GILBERT DGILBERT@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
One of the bulls stands in the corral awaiting his opportunity to challenge a rider during the June 1 Elizabeth Stampede Xtreme Bulls event. About 50 riders took part in the event. TOM MUNDS
Bulls are rocky rides Riders try to stay on animals for eight seconds BY TOM MUNDS TMUNDS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
The announcer at the June 1 Xtreme Bulls event at the Elizabeth Stampede told the crowd the riders would be tested because the stock contractors brought 50 of the hardest-bucking, badest bulls to the event. His prediction about the bulls came true. To receive a score the rider has to stay on the bull for eight seconds without his free hand touching the bull or his SEE RODEO, P7
Clayton Sellars stays on the back of the bull for eight seconds as the two bull fighters come close to protect him during the June 1 Elizabeth Stampede Xtreme Bulls event. Sellers was among about 50 riders who competed in the event.
In the months leading up to his December 2017 arrest, Dan Pesch, the man charged with murdering popular Kiowa High School teacher Randy Wilson in 2010, confessed to the crime many times — including through letters left in a shopping mall and writings scrawled on windows of his Littleton-area apartment. But his confession doesn’t match physical evidence in the case, his DNA is nowhere to be found at the scene of the crime, and a logbook places him halfway across Colorado on the day of Wilson’s death, according to testimony from investi- Pesch gators and the suspect’s father. Pesch’s public defenders, Elizabeth Orton and Matthew Schoettle, worked to cast doubt on the validity of their client’s confession during a two-day preliminary hearing that concluded on May 25 at the Elbert County Courthouse in Kiowa. The prosecution’s case, they argued, rests solely on Pesch’s repeated but Wilson ever-changing confessions, none of which reference details about Wilson’s death that weren’t reported in news stories. Prosecutors argued that while there are inconsistencies in Pesch’s narrative, much of SEE PESCH, P10
THE BOTTOM LINE PERIODICAL
“A professional football game is a game, not an occasion of solemnity or a function that generally or specifically pertains to anyone’s vigorous support of the United States.” Craig Marshall Smith, columnist | PAGE 12 INSIDE
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VOLUME 123 | ISSUE 19