Thompson, girlfriend return to home
Aaroné Thompson’s father has apparently moved back into the home that was briefly seized by police in November during a search for the missing girl, according to a family spokesman.
The Rev. Acen Phillips said Aaron Thompson and Shelley Lowe recently moved back into the Section 8 rental home on East Kepner Place.
“It’s something that they had to do because of economics,” Phillips said. “They already have the lease. To get their children back, they needed the larger space than where they were living. It was challenging because they didn’t have the dollars to (pay the back rent). They had to do that by leaning heavily on family and friends.”
Phillips said the couple are unemployed and that his church is helping them look for jobs.
Aaroné Thompson, who would be 7 years old, was reported missing by her father Nov. 14.
Police called off the search Nov. 17 and changed the case into a homicide investigation. Lowe and Thompson are labeled as “persons of interest.” The other children under their care were removed and placed in foster care.
Lowe and Thompson are seeking through the courts to have those eight children, including a 2-month-old baby, returned. Police say they will fight to keep the children from being returned.
State seeking bids for women’s prison
With a burgeoning number of Colorado women going to prison, the state is asking private companies to submit bids for a new women’s prison that will house up to 750 inmates, state officials say.
The company with the winning bid will build the prison and then be paid for each inmate, said Dave Schouweiler, purchasing agent for the Department of Corrections.
The number of women in Colorado prisons more than doubled from 768 in 1998 to 1,560 in 2004, according to department statistics.
Two Colorado prisons for women, in Denver and Cañon City, are already at capacity, and one in Pueblo is near capacity, Schouweiler said.
The state prefers that the prison be built along Interstate 25. The deadline for initial bids is in April.
Transit planners asked to reconsider I-70 rail
A coalition of environmental groups said Thursday they want state and federal officials to reconsider rail transit as a solution for relieving traffic congestion on Interstate 70 in the mountains west of metro Denver. An environmental study that has spent years and millions of dollars looking at the I-70 mountain corridor has determined in preliminary reports that rail transit, including a monorail option, would be too expensive.
The study’s findings have favored a less-expensive alternative – widening I-70 at critical bottlenecks along the corridor. That proposal, in turn, has angered some communities along I-70, especially in Clear Creek County.
“Rail construction will be less of a problem in relation to traffic and delays compared to road construction,” said Gregg Cassarini of the Colorado Environmental Coalition.
Council to weigh fee for sex offenders
A Denver City Council committee on Wednesday approved charging a $75 fee to people who must register as sex offenders when they move to the city.
There currently is no registration fee, meaning the entire $190,000 cost of registering about 1,300 sex offenders living in the city comes out of the general fund.
Councilwoman Judy Montero said she was concerned that so many sex offenders end up in Denver. Jefferson County has 225 registered sex offenders, and Colorado Springs has 1,000.
The Safety Committee forwarded the proposal to the full council for final consideration.
Colo.-built spacecraft picked up comet ice
Scientists were able to detect ice on the surface of a comet for the first time as the Colorado- built Deep Impact spacecraft streaked toward Comet Tempel 1 just before its July 3 impact.
The spacecraft’s instruments picked up scattered bits of ice on the comet’s surface, in very small amounts, a team of researchers reported in today’s Science.
That means the water known to escape from comets in jets and cometary tails most likely comes from ice particles tucked below the surface, said Deep Impact principal investigator Michael A’Hearn of the University of Maryland.
Scientists believe comet impacts with early Earth delivered much of the planet’s water, thought to be essential for life.
Engineers with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder built and operated Deep Impact for NASA.
