FORT MORGAN
West Nile death is state’s first this year
A Morgan County resident has died from the West Nile virus, the state’s first reported death this year from the mosquito- borne virus, officials with the Northeast Colorado Health Department announced Monday.
Details of the death – such as age, gender and where the virus may have been contracted – were not immediately available. A spokeswoman for the six- county health department did not immediately return a phone call left after business hours.
The virus, which can cause serious neurological problems and affects mostly the elderly and very young, first appeared in the United States in New York City in 1999 and spread West. Since then, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted at least 16,800 human cases and 659 deaths nationwide.
COLORADO
Teen’s death leads
to arrest in liquor buy
Steamboat Springs police have arrested a 20-year-old man on suspicion of buying a bottle of rum believed to have contributed to the death of a 17-year-old high school student.
Kevin Miller Neuwirth turned himself in after investigators contacted him about Adele Dombrowski, a high school senior found dead in bed Saturday morning.
“Through their initial investigation, they were able to come up with Mr. Neuwirth’s name and, after contacting him, he admitted or confessed to purchasing the alcohol for her,” said Sgt. Nick Bosick of the Steamboat Springs Police Department.
Neuwirth was charged with providing alcohol to an underage person and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He posted $5,000 bond and was released.
DENVER
Grandfather sought
in molestation of kids
Authorities are seeking a 64-year-old man they say sexually molested his four grandchildren.
Police have issued an arrest warrant for Juan Alberto Melo-Zuleta, who lives in Colorado and California. The children, who live in Denver, range in age from 5 to 11. They related that their grandfather said what he was doing was a “game.” The female victims, according to an arrest warrant affidavit, said Melo-Zuleta engaged in a variety of sexual activity from removing their clothes and performing oral sex to penetrating them with his fingers. The children say they were assaulted late last year and early this year.
METRO AREA
Clergy Coalition sends help to Miss.
Members of the newly formed Clergy Coalition on Tuesday loaded more than 80,000 pounds of clothing, canned food, water and other items into a truck bound for Jackson, Miss.
The coalition of more than 200 churches, including the Greater Metropolitan Denver Ministerial Alliance, Mount Gilead Baptist Church and other pastoral groups, responded to a distress call last week from Genesis Food Bank in Jackson after the recent hurricanes had depleted supplies.
The coalition was formed to address the needs of Hurricane Katrina evacuees in the Denver area.
