A Brighton woman missing since Tuesday was found safe in a Laramie, Wyo., hotel Friday morning, and a man believed to be her ex-fiancee was shot Friday afternoon in a later confrontation with police in Fort Collins.
A man fitting the description of Dennis Gene Cox, 50, was critically wounded after he pointed a pistol at police officers who recognized him near a bus station at 243 North College Ave. at 4 p.m.
He was rushed to Poudre Valley Hospital, where he died, 9News reported, citing unnamed law enforcement sources.
At about 10 a.m., Cox’s former fiancee, Julie Ann Kilgore, 48, was found safe at a Ramada Inn along Interstate 80 in Laramie. A clerk there called police to say the “Colorado kidnapping victim was with her,” according to Brighton police spokesman John Bradley.
Laramie Police Commander Mitchell Cushman said Kilgore fled when Cox left the hotel room Friday morning. Cox never returned to the motel and ditched his 1993 Ford Taurus about a mile away in downtown Laramie.
“We didn’t have buses leaving Laramie today, so there’s a question as to how he got out,” Cushman said.
When police arrived, Kilgore was hiding under a desk in the lobby, Cushman said.
Ray Kilgore spoke with his daughter only briefly, once she was free. She told him she’d been held at gunpoint since Tuesday, but she’d managed to escape.
She was checked out at a local hospital and was uninjured, police said. Friday evening, she was still being interviewed by Brighton and Laramie police, as well as agents with the FBI, Cushman said.
Authorities in Wyoming and Colorado had warned that Cox was armed and dangerous. His extensive criminal history — 41 charges in Colorado since 1986 — includes kidnapping and sexual assault.
Brighton police have not yet released details from their interviews with Kilgore about her time with Cox and her escape.
Authorities have been looking for the pair since Kilgore disappeared Tuesday afternoon, when she left home and told her family she would be back in a few minutes. Her car was found abandoned in a shopping center parking lot a little more than a block from her home.
The three Fort Collins officers involved in the shooting were not injured, but were placed on administrative leave while the shooting is being investigated, a standard procedure, according to the department.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
