Wife held after reporting husband stabbed to death
A 52-year-old woman stabbed her husband to death Friday night and then called to report a domestic violence incident to Denver police, authorities said.
Debra Evans was arrested for investigation of first-degree murder in the death of her 51-year-old husband, whose name was not released. It occurred in the 1900 block of East 17th Avenue.
The victim was taken to Denver Health Medical Center following the 7 p.m. call and was pronounced dead, said Virginia Quiñones, Denver police spokeswoman.
CHEYENNE
PETA billboard rejected in Wyoming
Two outdoor advertising companies refused to post billboards in Cheyenne showing a digitally manipulated image of a dog caught on a fish hook, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said.
PETA spokeswoman Karen Robertson said Friday that Young Electric Sign Co. of Salt Lake City and Next Media of Fort Collins had rejected PETA’s attempts to rent billboard space for the ads, which aim to draw attention to what PETA says is the cruelty of fishing.
The companies could not be reached Friday.
“We’re just astonished that fishers would even be upset seeing a dog with a hook through its mouth,” Robertson said. “It does show that there’s potential for them to realize that fishing is cruelty to animals.”
Robertson said PETA had successfully posted identical billboards in Alabama, Florida and Missouri, but that the billboards have been rejected in other areas.
BOULDER
Brown set to visit CU’s four campuses
University of Colorado interim president Hank Brown, named April 5 as the sole finalist for the permanent job, will visit each of CU’s four campuses this month for interviews with administrators, faculty, staff and students.
Brown will visit the Health Sciences Center at East Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in Denver on Monday, the Colorado Springs campus Tuesday, the Denver campus Wednesday and the Boulder campus April 24.
CU regents will review evaluations from the campus interviews before voting on the permanent job.
DENVER
Metro State hires provost, academic VP
A former University of Texas-Pan American dean and history professor was named Wednesday as provost and vice president for academic affairs for Metropolitan State College of Denver.
Rodolfo Rocha will start in June, pending approval of the board of trustees, Metro State president Stephen Jordan said.
Rocha, who was arts and humanities dean at UT-Pan American from 1999 to 2005, will earn $175,000 per year at Metro State. He will be the chief academic officer, overseeing the schools of letters, arts and sciences, business and professional studies.
Rocha is an expert on the history of Chicanos in Texas and other aspects of Mexican-Americans, Metro State said.
DENVER
Council chief’s office marked with an X
The outside of Denver City Council president Rosemary Rodriguez’s district office was marked with a big X in duct tape last week while she was in Washington, D.C.
Denver police are investigating the incident as an attempt to harass a public official, but they had no suspects at week’s end, said Detective Virginia Quinones.
Quinones said the incident could be in retaliation for Rodriguez’s strong stance against graffiti.
“Someone tried to intimidate me,” Rodriguez said. “I was scared to go home last night, but they’re not going to make me back down.”
Rodriguez said gangs put X’s on places that are targets.
The perpetrators also taped threatening words and a gang name to the outside wall of the building. Rodriguez said she didn’t want to mention the name to avoid giving the gang any publicity.
DENVER
Xcel seeks rate hike for electricity in 2007
Xcel Energy filed for an increase in electric rates Friday that would boost a typical residential customer bill by 6 percent, or $3.57 a month, beginning next year.
A typical small business customer would pay an additional 5.4 percent, or $5.14 a month.
The increase must be approved by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, which will hold hearings.
The rate hike would generate an extra $210 million for Xcel from its 1.3 million Colorado electric customers.
Xcel on Friday also requested a reduction in the amount it charges its customers for natural gas used to generate electricity. That cost is a direct pass-through to customers and would reduce rates by $165 million for the rest of this year.
DENVER
Replacement sought for retiring judge
Judge Jeffrey Bayless of the Second Judicial District announced his retirement Friday.
A nominating commission will meet June 6 to interview and select nominees for the judgeship, which serves the city and county of Denver.
Gov. Bill Owens will then appoint one of the nominees to fill the vacancy for a provisional term of two years. After that, the judge would have to be approved by the voters for a term of six years.
Bayless will work until June 30.
ENID, Okla.
Youths seek hearing over show lambs
A lawyer representing five Oklahoma junior stock show exhibitors whose prize-winning lambs were disqualified for tampering will seek a hearing for the youths, according to a published report.
Attorney Stephen Jones agreed to represent Lane Daniel, 15, of Hollis; Kasey Harmon, 17, of Glencoe; Weston Wayne Hill, 12, of Cameron; Kelby John Reed, 10, of Boise City; and Kashen Urban, 19, of Roosevelt after a day-long meeting with their parents,The Oklahoman reported.
Eighteen lambs at the National Western Stock Show’s junior market lamb show in Denver had been injected with a substance that caused swelling and inflammation, making the animals appear more muscular, stock show officials said.
Denver prosecutors began investigating Urban and Kaylee Turner, 17, of Elgin, whose black-faced lambs earned grand champion and reserve grand champion awards in the Junior Market division and prizes of $28,000 and $21,000, respectively.
But officials withheld all purses when Colorado State University pathologists discovered “needle tracks” and “lesions” on 18 of the show’s top 34 lambs.
Fourteen of those 18 lambs belonged to Oklahoma exhibitors.
“The National Western Stock Show has handled this very poorly,” Jones said. “We’re going to challenge it.”
