Today the Colorado Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of James Denman, the former prison guard who stalked his wife from Idaho to Colorado and wears a tattoo of his wife’s face with a diagonal line drawn across it.
At one point, Denman vowed to kill his wife, Nicole, bury her in the desert and wear her teeth as a necklace. Denman claimed the threat was simply “dark humor.”
Denman, 35, had asked the Colorado Supreme Court to overturn a Colorado Court of Appeals decision that held that stalking incidents can be legally recognized across state lines. Denman had argued that a stalking conviction required “repeated” acts and that hadn’t occurred in Colorado.
On April 11, 2001, Grand County deputies were called after Denman showed up in Grand Lake behind his mother-in-law’s home. In his rented SUV, they found a rifle, ammunition, duct tape, a machete, pepper spray, handcuffs, a BB pistol and binoculars. In his van, left in Fort Collins, they found a passport in his deceased brother’s name bearing Denman’s photo, a blank passport application and European guidebooks.
Denman was was convicted of stalking and sentenced to six years in prison. His wife had fled to Grand Lake after Denman broke into her apartment in Boise, wrote accusatory messages on a door, smashed numerous items and smeared mustard around the apartment, court records show.
While the the Court of Appeals upheld the stalking sentence, it said that because of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the most Denman could serve was four years. Denman was released from prison and began serving intensive supervised probation on June 20 out of Westminster, wearing a monitoring device that tracked his every move.
Nicole Denman, who claims she was physically and emotionally abused by her former husband in several states, has now fled Colorado with her two children and is in hiding, her mother Cathy Richards said today.
Richards said that she was happy that the Colorado Supreme Court declined to hear Denman’s appeal but said she and Nicole are concerned because they don’t know where Denman is.
Shortly after his release from the Colorado prison system, he was extradited to Florida on a 1999 case where Denman allegedly pointed a gun at Nicole Denman’s sister. According to Richard Ripplinger, assistant state attorney for Pinellas County, Fla., Denman – who is charged with one count of aggravated assault with a firearm and two misdemeanor battery counts there – made a $5,000 bond in Florida on Aug. 18.
Colorado authorities said the monitoring device would not have gone with Denman to Florida. Ripplinger said that Denman is to appear at a Nov. 18 hearing and if he doesn’t, a warrant will be issued for his arrest.
“We have no idea where he is,” Cathy Richards said. “They don’t know where he is.”
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
