A California couple involved in a weekend gun battle with police had told people they were on the run and would not be taken alive, according to a court document released Tuesday.
That revelation comes near the end of the three-page affidavit in support of a warrantless arrest of Nicholas Vovos, whose wife was killed in the Sunday morning gun battle in Lochbuie.
Vovos, 22, is being held in the Weld County jail on suspicion of attempted murder of a peace officer and vehicular eluding, following a chase that spanned 22 miles, hit speeds of 120 mph and ended in the shootout at a gas station.
California authorities suspect Vovos and his wife, Deborah Miller Vovos, 39, were involved in the disappearance of a 62-year-old woman in Orange County.
The affidavit gives a detailed summary of the events leading up to Sunday morning’s chase. Authorities in Orange County had called the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office and said that Vovos and his wife were possibly at the Stubs Gas and Oil company in Wiggins.
Wiggins Police Chief Leroy Dilka went to check it out and spotted a blue Honda Accord that officials later determined belonged to the missing woman, Carolyn Avdeef. Dilka followed the car and then, along with other officers, gave chase when the vehicle sped away. At one point, according to the affidavit, Vovos leaned out the driver’s side window of the Honda and fired a shotgun at a pursuing sheriff’s deputy.
The affidavit says Miller Vovos was found dead inside the Honda from a gunshot wound but gives no indication whether the wound was self-inflicted or from a police officer’s bullet.
The affidavit also includes information from California authorities that implicates the Vovoses in Avdeef’s disappearance. The two were caught on video surveillance using Avdeef’s credit card and driving her car.
When investigators searched the home Avdeef shared with the Vovoses, they found a note “indicating to clean the carpet and the trunk,” according to the affidavit.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
