Intruder shot dead at home of rural Colorado prosecutor

http://reut.rs/11jz3Iy


Intruder shot dead at home of rural Colorado prosecutor


By Keith Coffman

DENVER | Tue Apr 2, 2013 9:06pm EDT

(Reuters) - An intruder who forced his way into the mountain home of a
Colorado deputy district attorney was shot dead by either the prosecutor or
her police officer husband, authorities said on Tuesday.

The shooting, shortly before midnight Monday, comes two weeks after
Colorado's prisons director was slain as he answered the front door to his
home, and two days after the district attorney of Kaufman County in Texas
was found shot to death with his wife.


An assistant prosecutor in the Kaufman County district attorney's office was
shot to death on January 31, and authorities have said both Texas murders
and the March 19 slaying of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements appeared to
be targeted killings rather than random acts of violence.

In light of the three previous cases, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation
is leading the probe into the latest shooting, which occurred in Hot Sulphur
Springs, about 95 miles northwest of Denver.

"There are no apparent ties to recent shootings; however, investigators
continue to pursue all possible leads and background information on this
(dead) person," the bureau said in a written statement.

Authorities did not immediately release the names of the deputy prosecutor
and her husband in connection with Monday night's shooting.

The deputy district attorney made a 911 emergency call and reported that a
man was at her door "behaving very erratically," police said.

The prosecutor then told dispatchers that the stranger forced his way into
her home. An altercation ensued inside and shots were fired, leaving the
unidentified man dead, police said.

A spokeswoman for one of the agencies investigating the incident told
Reuters that the prosecutor and her husband, himself a sheriff's deputy,
both fired at the intruder, but it is too early in the probe to know who
fired the fatal shot.

The Colorado prosecutor and her husband both suffered minor injuries and
have been placed on paid leave pending the results of the investigation.

Clements, the state's prisons chief, was shot to death on March 19 when he
answered the front door of his home near Monument, Colorado, about 45 miles
south of Denver.

Authorities have matched the handgun used in Clements' slaying to the weapon
used by a recent Colorado parolee, 28-year-old Evan Spencer Ebel, in a gun
battle with police following a high-speed chase through Decatur, Texas, last
month.

Investigators have named Ebel, a member of a white supremacist prison gang,
as a suspect in the killing of Clements and in the death of pizza delivery
man Nathan Leon, 27, who was found dead in suburban Denver two days earlier.

Ebel was killed in the shootout with Texas police. A search of his car
turned up a pizza deliverer's shirt, visor, pizza box and heat bag.