The Loveland man sought in the kidnapping of a former girlfriend on Saturday was well-known to Loveland police, who said he terrorized patrons of a Loveland bar in January and was considered a safety risk because of his irrational and unpredictable behavior.
The man, 32-year-old Travis John Kness, is being sought for the abduction at gunpoint of ex-girlfriend Rosanna Martinez as she left work at about 10 p.m. Saturday at the Dollar Tree store at 2721 S. College Ave. in Fort Collins.
Rita Davis, spokeswoman for the Fort Collins Police Department, said today that authorities have heard nothing from Kness or Martinez. Neither have contacted relatives or friends, she said.
“No one has heard anything,” said Davis. “We are looking for both.”
Kness goes by the nickname “Caveman” and has a love of the outdoors. Davis said Kness may have fled to the mountains but just as easily could have driven to rural areas of eastern Colorado.
Currently, a dozen Fort Collins detectives are looking for Kness and Martinez assisted by the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office and the Loveland Police Department.
Kness was last seen driving a late 1990s white Grand Jeep Cherokee with Colorado license plate FHX-5828.
Detective Tammy Tracy is the lead investigator, and a new tip line, 970-416-2825, has been established.
Kness has had numerous run-ins with police involving the stalking of another ex-girlfriend who gave birth to their child, fondling a young woman at a Fort Collins mall, impersonation and fraud.
The most recent incident prior to Saturday night’s abduction occurred at Scotty O’Brien’s Bar in Loveland on Jan. 11, when a strangely acting Kness, wearing a cowboy hat and leather gloves, suddenly pulled a gun, waved it in the air, and in a profanity-laced greeting wished everyone a “Happy New Year.”
The gun, police later discovered, was a BB gun.
But in the minutes prior to and after the BB gun was pulled, the bar patrons were frightened.
One patron said that before the incident, Kness had been asked to leave the bar and go outside while he smoked. Once back in the bar, he “began flipping his cowboy hat multiple times,” she said.
“Then I saw him take white leather gloves out and start hitting them on either side of him. After a couple of slaps, he put them on real dramatically and then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a black gun. Then he said, ‘Happy F—— New Year.’ ”
At that point, she said, he got up, marched to the door with his hat off and began looking at people “with huge eyes.
“I thought he was going to shoot everyone in the bar,” she said. “He was acting crazy.”
According to Loveland police, the bar incident occurred shortly after Kness was released from a mental-health hold. After his release, police noted his “odd and potentially dangerous behavior” and considered him a danger both to himself and Loveland officers.
Scott Miller, owner of the Loveland bar, locked Kness out of the establishment. When Loveland Officer Ben Eisentraut discovered Kness two blocks away, he asked Kness why he was carrying a gun.
“He said he was fighting crime. I asked him what crime he was fighting. He told me people were harassing him. I asked him who was harassing him, and he said, ‘No one.’ Then he told me there are a lot of drug dealers out there, and it costs a lot to have a police force, so he likes to help with criminals to save the city money,” said Eisentraut.
On March 6, Kness pleaded guilty to felony menacing, a Class 5 felony, and was given two years’ probation.
Kness’ alleged irritation at Rosanna Martinez was not the first time he was upset with a former girlfriend.
In 1998, according to court documents and police reports, a former girlfriend who lived in Loveland said that Kness, the father of her daughter, had abandoned them. But about a month after he found out that she had begun dating again, Kness threatened her, her father, her brother and her boyfriend, she said.
She said on different occasions, Kness stalked her, followed her to her new boyfriend’s home, called her repeatedly, confronted the new boyfriend at his place of business, and walked into her home and threatened her.
“He threatens me that he is going to take our daughter from me,” she said. “He harasses me about my family, saying they are evil and that he is going to beat up my brother and Dad if they’re talking bad about him,” she said. “He has a major temper, and he does drugs and everything else only God knows.”
At the place of her new boyfriend’s business, according to police reports, Kness asked the boyfriend if he knew who he was. When the boyfriend said he did, Kness told him “that he was going to have a problem (and) left saying he would be back.”
As a result, Kness pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal trespass and was granted a two-year deferred sentence.
However, that was revoked after Kness pleaded guilty to misdemeanor resisting arrest and possession of drug paraphernalia, a Class 2 petty offense. He was resentenced to three years’ probation.
That sentence was to run concurrently with the prison sentence of four years and six months that Kness received for defrauding First National Bank in Fort Collins, which had been trying to repossess Kness’ 1996 Dodge Neon, after he failed to make payments for seven months.
Kness eventually admitted to investigators that he was upset that the bank was repossessing the vehicle and drove it into a muddy field, where it became stuck. He said that he began shifting gears back and forth aggressively, spinning tires, and that the vehicle eventually caught fire and was completely engulfed in flames. He was sentenced in March 2001.
On July 23, 2003, a 17-year-old girl reported that while at the Foothills Fashion Mall in Fort Collins, Kness approached her, began rubbing her legs and eventually began to “hug” her legs, telling her how smooth and soft they were.
He also attempted to kiss her and asked her to go home with him and have sex with him. During the episode, he also approached a 12-year-old girl who rebuffed his advances.
He served 41 days in jail and was given 12 months probation.
He wrote an apology to the victim.
“I really want to apologize for the way I acted around you,” he said. “Our conversation certainly was not of a wholesome nature, and I haven’t been around females in 2½ years.”
He then told the victim she dressed “proakitively” (sic) and was wearing “daisy dukes so short that if theey were any shorter, it would be obsene.” (sic)
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
