Robert Alurac was eager to return to Alaska. He missed hunting walrus and caribou on snowmobiles and fishing for salmon.
He called his brother, James Alurac, 48, in Anchorage and asked if he could stay with him for a while.
But Robert Alurac was slain, possibly within days.
His body was discovered July 23 by a real estate agent near a $380,000 home outside Morrison.
“He wanted to come up and get back to work,” James Alurac said of his younger brother, an automobile mechanic.
Jefferson County homicide investigators believe Robert Alurac’s girlfriend, Colleen Barrett, 46, may know something that could help solve the case.
But Barrett has disappeared and authorities are worried about her welfare, said Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators believed Ronald Talmage, 45, also may have had valuable information about Alurac’s death, but when Douglas County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team members approached him at a Parker hotel Saturday, he brandished a weapon and was fatally shot by authorities, officials said.
As investigators attempt to solve the mystery of Alurac’s slaying, family and friends have not seen Barrett for three weeks, Kelley said.
Barrett’s former husband, George Barrett, and her former mother-in-law describe her as fiery and free-spirited.
“You would have never caught her in a business suit,” said George Barrett, a former Denver police officer who divorced Colleen Barrett in 1987.
The talented seamstress and mother of a teenage daughter also is streetwise and not easy to manipulate, said a woman who identified herself only as Colleen Barrett’s mother-in- law.
“She is a fighter,” she said. “A lot of people dislike her because she has a strong opinion. If she didn’t like you, she would tell you.”
Kelley said investigators are concerned about Barrett’s welfare because she disappeared about the time Alurac was killed.
Alurac had nine brothers and sisters and was well-schooled in the customs of his Eskimo ancestors.
His brother said Alurac grew up in Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Alurac often took lengthy hunting trips with his friends, on which he harpooned walrus or seals, James Alurac said.
Robert Alurac moved to Oklahoma to be with his wife. The couple moved to Florida and soon divorced. He later moved to Denver.
He wanted to return home and was planning to go to North Pole, Alaska – where his brother Joseph lives – to go hunting in the fall, James Alurac said.
His brother never mentioned his girlfriend Barrett, he said.
Robert Alurac had a good sense of humor and when friends and family called him “Eskimo,” he just laughed, his former mother-in-law, Dora Mollica, said.
Sometimes, though, he would drink heavily and get violent, Mollica said.
That wouldn’t have gone over well with Barrett, her former husband said. She wouldn’t hesitate to report abuse to authorities, George Barrett said.
Jefferson County sheriff’s investigators do not consider her a suspect in her boyfriend’s slaying, Kelley said.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
