GREELEY — The Police Department’s biggest investigation wrapped up last week with a conviction of the prime suspect and generous praise from prosecutors in the case.
“I think the Greeley Police Department did a helluva job investigating this case,” Larimer County Assistant District Attorney Cliff Riedel said last Monday.
But a cloud remains over the officers and detectives in Greeley in the wake of the first-degree murder conviction of Shawna Nelson, police and city officials concede. And it’s going to take some hard work to remove the blemishes on the department produced by the Nelson case, they say.
“I think there has been a climate where some people there were not held accountable for their actions,” said Greeley Mayor Ed Clark, who served as a Greeley police officer for 10 years.
As far as the Nelson case, Clark said, “I don’t think it was an aberration.”
Even with Nelson’s conviction and sentence to life in prison for the shooting death of Heather Garraus — a Greeley police officer’s wife — more allegations about bed-hopping among Greeley’s finest may again emerge in court.
Ignacio Garraus — Heather Garraus’ husband — filed an intent-to-sue notice in May. In the two-page document, his lawyers claim local officials knew of Nelson’s “violent propensities” and failed to tell Ignacio and his family.
Jurors in Nelson’s trial heard testimony that the former police dispatcher had a fairly open three-year affair with Ignacio that produced a son. Nelson at the time was married to Ken Nelson, a then-Weld County sheriff’s investigator, with two children of their own.
When Ignacio tried to break off the affair, Shawna Nelson sent threatening messages to both him and Heather Garraus and eventually hatched an elaborate plot that ended in Heather’s murder, witnesses said.
In pretrial hearings, prosecutors alluded to at least one other affair Nelson had with a police officer that led to her threatening that officer’s wife.
So far, no suit has been filed. But some soul-searching by police officials has already begun, Police Chief Jerry Garner said.
Garner, who wrote a guest opinion column for the Greeley Tribune, said the trial included embarrassing revelations for local law enforcement.
“No matter how isolated the bizarre Nelson affair may have been, it has damaged principled, dedicated professionals,” Garner wrote.
Garner, who took over the department two years ago, said officer applicants face a battery of tests including polygraphs, psychological exams and in-depth background checks. But more importantly, the department has developed a culture where peer pressure doesn’t tolerate immoral or inappropriate behavior.
Meanwhile, the probe leading up to Nelson’s capture and conviction showed the professionalism of Greeley officers, he said.
“It pleases me that we proved wrong the so-called police experts who said we shouldn’t have handled the investigation,” Garner said.
“The department has a strong leader in Jerry Garner,” Mayor Clark said, “and he is ready to hold the rest of the department accountable for what they do.”
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
