Two days before Billy Newson took a bullet to the head on a grimy Denver street corner, his cousin John Bradshaw tried to persuade him to confront his demons.
“He was telling me he just woke up from a crack coma. He said he was in a hotel or something, and I was trying to get him to go back home to his mom or his brother,” said Bradshaw.
Bradshaw, 35, and a recovering alcoholic, wanted Newson to join Alcoholics Anonymous, or another organization for addicts, go to meetings and seek the support of someone else who had pulled out of a drug-fueled tailspin, someone whose story was similar to his own.
But Newson, then 29, was too far gone. On March 18, he and at least one other man allegedly beat and robbed Anthony Escobedo, 41, of his wallet, cellphone and pants. Police believe Escobedo retaliated, killing Newson as he stood at the corner of East Colfax Avenue and Pearl Street.
Escobedo faces a murder charge in the death.
Newson’s death came about 19 months after the murder of his lover, Matias Mondragon.
It isn’t clear that crack cocaine, Newson’s drug of choice, played any role in his death. This much is certain: He lived with a raging addiction that led to frequent brushes with the law, most for drug violations.
“He would actually cry and say, ‘I want to quit,’ ” said Newson’s brother, Gene.
During an out-of-control life that saw Newson arrested 32 times, he avoided prison until 2008, when he was sentenced to five years and served time at both Crowley and Trinidad state prisons, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections.
His homosexuality added to the difficulty of prison life.
“He said he had to get in a lot of fights because of the gay stuff. He said, ‘Junior, I won them,’ ” Bradshaw said. “They would call him gay or something, and he would invite them into the cell and they would fight.”
Met in Albuquerque
Newson met Mondragon in Albuquerque in approximately 2006. Both were veterans of rough times.
Newson had been brought up by his mother, Emily, whose children were sent to foster care for a short period when she was drinking.
Mondragon’s father had little contact with his kids. Mondragon didn’t get along with his mother. He was raised by a grandmother.
“Matias came into (Newson’s) life, and he was very happy,” said Gene Newson. “He had no lover until he met Matias. They were pretty much first-love types of people.”
Mondragon, from Rancho de Taos, N.M., had a drug problem, too, said Nataniel Mondragon, 29, his brother. Matias was bright and outgoing, an artistic kid, a little effeminate, but tough, not one to back down from a fight.
“I guess you could say he hung out with homies up until he came out,” Nataniel Mondragon said. “That was a shock for everybody because he always had pretty girls with him. I was pretty sad about it. I dealt with a lot of controversy. Old friends that had been close would talk about him and put him down. They would talk behind his back.”
Like Newson, who started taking drugs at about 13, Mondragon got involved with drugs when he was in his teens.
“It started just smoking weed and gradually increased to cocaine,” Nataniel Mondragon said. “He got real bad here because of his addiction. That is why he left here — because of the influences.”
His relationship with Newson was marred by drugs.
“They influenced each other in a negative way. The drugs gradually increased,” Nataniel Mondragon said.
The crack pipe was put aside
At least for a time, they put the crack pipe aside. They were both clean when Newson called Bradshaw and asked if he and Mondragon could stay with him and his family in Las Vegas.
Mondragon, who planned to study nursing at the College of Southern Nevada, needed a place to stay while he and Newson looked for an apartment.
Bradshaw agreed, and the two moved in. Newson did laundry, helped care for two children, one Bradshaw’s, the other his girlfriend’s.
“They moved out here, and my girlfriend fell in love with Billy. She really liked him a lot. He is just a free spirit, he’s honest, he is funny, he is gay, and she really got along with him,” Bradshaw said.
Newson got a job at a McDonald’s and Mondragon hit the books — hard.
He was closing in on his goal when something changed, said Gene Newson.
“He was almost there, a fingernail away,” Gene Newson said. “They obviously met someone in Las Vegas, and they relapsed.”
The relapse ended an idyllic period for the pair.
“Life with them was awesome, but toward the end they got back into drugs,” Bradshaw said. “There is a place out here called Naked City, a drug area. We had a party one day, and someone came over and he introduced them to that part of town.
“Life then was not so pleasant.”
Return to Denver
Newson returned to Denver, where he was busted and sentenced to five years for manufacturing and distributing drugs in 2010.
“When he went to court that May 14, I had my sister write a note asking the judge to give Billy treatment because if he goes to prison he is going to get out and do it all over again, and that’s what he did,” said his mother, Emily.
Mondragon stayed with Bradshaw and his girlfriend, but the living arrangement ended when he robbed them, returning items that the couple had purchased at a Walmart to the store and pocketing the refund, Bradshaw said.
Mondragon was later pinched for attempted burglary, according to documents in the Clark County District Court. The documents don’t explain the charge, but Bradshaw said he thinks Mondragon snatched cash from a casino patron.
Mondragon was found guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary and sentenced to six months in Clark County jail.
When he got out, he returned to Rancho de Taos.
“This town influenced him in the wrong way. He wasn’t doing good here, he was really skinny and out of it. Billy was in prison at the time, and he ran up the phone bill pretty good accepting calls from Billy,” said Nataniel Mondragon.
Matias Mondragon eventually came back to Denver to wait for Newson’s release, spending a week or so with Gene Newson and his mother, before going to visit a friend in Broomfield.
“I’m in bed and I get a phone call. Matias calls and says, ‘I’m just calling to tell you I am in a bar in Broomfield, I’m having a good time. They’re having karaoke, so I’m going to sing this song for Billy. I’ll come see you tomorrow,’ ” said Emily Newson, 57.
A confrontation
He didn’t make it back. A confrontation between Mondragon and Matt Joe Weber and a friend, Mathew Bufe, 37, escalated into violence outside the bar.
It isn’t clear who started the trouble. Weber, 31, who in June was sentenced to 15 years for Mondragon’s death, told police that Mondragon picked a fight, calling him and his companion “fags.”
A woman who went to the bar with Mondragon said Weber and Bufe began name-calling when they realized he was gay.
Outside the bar witnesses saw the two arguing with Mondragon.
He hit Bufe with a bottle, police said. Weber chased and stabbed him to death and later lied to police, telling them Mondragon had pointed a gun at him.
Newson’s mother called her son with the bad news.
“I called him on the phone, and he just screamed bloody murder, he said, ‘No, Mom, no!’ ” she recalled.
Newson was paroled Sept. 20, 2011, and returned to Denver.
Gene Newson, who overcame a crack habit himself, doesn’t make excuses for his brother’s and Mondragon’s behavior. Mondragon and “my brother did drugs. That don’t justify some of the things they did,” he said. “Obviously, jail did no good. I said, ‘There you go, Billy, the penitentiary. You better do this and you better do that.’ He said, ‘Can’t no one make me stop but me. I will quit one day, God is going to make me quit.’ ”
Despite all those faults, the deaths left a hole in the lives of those who cared for them.
“I just miss them to death, both of them,” Bradshaw said. “They were great people.”
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
