An Aurora man described as a “person of interest” in the death of his housemate was ordered held without bail Friday for violating terms of his prison release in a separate case.
John Reed, 35, went on a cocaine binge after he left federal prison on Jan. 8, and even bragged about it to his probation officer, according to court documents. A warrant for his arrest was issued Feb. 9 after the results of a series of drug tests came back positive.
On Monday, Reed tried to flee a traffic stop in Park County and crashed the car he was driving.
The car belonged to Reed’s housemate, 42-year- old Corazon Parry, the homicide victim, said Shannon Lucy, Aurora police spokeswoman.
Parry’s body was found by family members in her apartment in the 1800 block of South Pitkin Street the same day Reed crashed her car. The autopsy has been sealed and the cause of Parry’s death has not been released.
Reed, in handcuffs and jail clothes, made a brief appearance Friday in U.S. District Court in Denver, where he waived his right to a preliminary hearing on his prison-release violation.
His original federal charges were conspiracy to defraud the United States. Reed and others stole money from banks through checking and credit schemes in 1999, according to court documents.
After his release from prison in early January, Reed submitted to drug urinalysis tests three times, on Jan. 11 and 24 and Feb. 1. When the results came back, they showed he tested positive for cocaine all three times.
On Jan. 31, Reed told his probation officer, Doug las Randolph, and a therapist that he’d been injecting large amounts of cocaine since his release, court documents said.
Reed told Randolph, according to court documents, that he was buying large amounts of cocaine – up to half an ounce – at a time and injecting the drug every 20 minutes over two- to three-day periods.
“The defendant expressed his preference in purchasing larger quantities of cocaine in order to avert the risk and inconvenience involved in acquiring smaller amounts every time he desired to ingest the drug,” according to the court petition.
Reed also tested positive for amphetamines on the Jan. 24 test. The urine specimens were sent to Albuquerque and Louisiana to be tested and confirmed.
On Feb. 8, Reed was being driven by his father to a probation department office to give another urine sample when he told his father to swing through an Aurora neighborhood so he could buy cocaine, court documents said.
When his father refused, Reed got out of the car. His father drove off and Reed failed to show up for the appointment.
The next day, Feb. 9, Randolph petitioned the court to issue a warrant for Reed’s arrest.
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
