When Denver police went to Room 2005 of the Adam’s Mark Hotel in February, they found hair embedded in the carpet at the foot of the bed, the stem of a broken wine glass on the nightstand and shards of glass on the bed and floor.
They also found blood – on the edge of the nightstand, on the heating vent by the window and on the bathroom door.
The ravaged room, Denver prosecutors allege, was the aftermath of the most recent rampage against a woman by Jimmie Wellman. They believe Wellman – a strapping, 195- pound, 6-foot-4-inch man – has brutalized at least four other women.
Court records say Wellman initially lures women as a charmer, a “sweet and caring man,” but then he emerges as a sadist who demands his female targets call him “Daddy” and become his “slaves.”
He has 12 felony convictions on unrelated charges.
“The defendant has a practice of engaging in brutal and vicious attacks against women,” prosecutor Maggie Conboy said in court filings. “Each of these women suffered vicious and often repeated torture.”
Wellman, 39, is in Denver County Jail awaiting trial on a charge of attempted murder in the latest case. He is representing himself and declined to be interviewed.
His alleged victim – 5 feet, 3 inches and 105 pounds – was no match for Wellman, whom she was financially supporting, when he went into a rage because she used money from her job to pay their hotel bill, prosecutors allege.
They claim that Wellman wanted to use the woman’s pay for gas so they could leave, skipping out on the hotel bill.
Prosecutors allege in court filings that Wellman threw the woman around the room by her hair. He cut her with a broken wine glass, hit her, bit her and pressed a lit cigarette against her eyelid.
He held her under water in the bathtub and finally choked her until she passed out.
The Denver incident isn’t isolated, prosecutors say, adding that Wellman has attacked other women around the country. They say he has often left his victims terrorized by threatening them and their families and stalking them when they’ve fled.
Wellman doesn’t trust anybody, according to court records. He fired his public defender and is at odds with the lawyer who is now acting in an advisory capacity while Wellman defends himself.
Prosecutors want to use four other women they say are past victims as witnesses against Wellman in his upcoming attempted-murder trial.
“(Wellman) tends to choke, pull hair, brand with cigarettes, break glass and throw his victims around the room,” prosecutor Julie Hamel said.
But according to prosecutors, Wellman doesn’t want the four other women to testify against him. Wellman, prosecutors say, has repeatedly called one of the alleged past victims from jail in an effort to intimidate her into not testifying, while seeking her help in contacting the other women.
They say he continued to use the jail phone after Denver District Judge Herbert Stern ordered him not to, so Wellman now faces a contempt hearing in January.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
