Gunnison police have closed their investigation into the death of a Western State Colorado University wrestler whose more than six months ago.
The investigation that includes 45 interviews with friends and acquaintances of Dammion Heard and spans 187 pages of investigative reports concludes that Heard took his own life after a house party where numerous other college students described Heard fighting and being intoxicated and high on alcohol, marijuana and LSD.
Some of the partygoers described Heard as being “bummed out.”
“He was not acting normal,” one friend told investigators.
“I’m a ****ed up person,” the 20-year-old Heard texted a long-time friend late on the last night of his life.
Heard’s family in Fort Worth, Tex., , saying that investigators decided Heard’s death was suicide as soon as he was found and that they glossed over evidence that hinted of foul play and ignored a private lab’s toxicology test that didn’t show drugs in Heard’s body. The release of the full report did not change their minds.
“I read enough of the report to realize how much crap is in it,” said Dammion’s father, Gary Heard, who has not been swayed by the final line of the report: “Case closed noncriminal.”
Gary Heard vowed to continue his own investigation after the end of an official investigation “until we feel like we have investigated every avenue possible.”
Dammion Heard was last seen at the party in the early morning of March 30. His body was found April 2 after his father reported him missing and his vehicle was spotted parked at a highway pullout eight miles from this Western Colorado town.
The lengthy report — that included interviews done as late as last week — contained jumbled accounts of what happened in Heard’s last night. Many of the witnesses were drinking and roaming among several different parties so some of the accounts were conflicting.
Many accounts corroborated the fact that Heard was in a fight at a party with another student who was with Heard’s former girlfriend. Heard’s wrestling teammates then physically restrained Heard and angrily told him he shouldn’t be fighting because it would reflect badly on the team.
Some of the partygoers said Heard had consumed LSD and had mentioned that he was “tripping.” Several described him laying on a bedroom floor with a blanket over his head while he spoke to them. No one saw him leave the party.
The Gunnison Police Department said in a news release Tuesday that the long investigation was “due to the lack of a suicide note, the lack of clear indications (Heard) had a suicidal mindset at the time of his death and out of respect for his family.”
Numerous friends and acquaintances of Dammion Heard said he had been selling and using marijuana during his time at Western. On the night he disappeared, he was texting friends about obtaining drugs.
“Do you have the kid’s number that has acid??” he texted one person.
Other friends said that Heard had been drinking heavily and smoking a lot more marijuana than normal in the two months prior to his death.
Two female friends said they weren’t as surprised about his suicide as others because they knew he was sad underneath his happy exterior. One said he had made a statement not long before he died that “he did not know what he was doing on this earth.”
Heard’s body was found hanging from the positive red cable taken from a set of jumper cables that were in his vehicle. He was wearing a camouflage jacket with the hood pulled up. No notes were found in his dorm room or vehicle. The vehicle contained, among other things, a bong for smoking pot, an empty Bud Light bottle, peanut butter-flavored breakfast cereal and playing cards.
The cell phone that he had used so regularly to communicate with friends and to talk to his father twice a day was dismantled on the front seat.
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm contributed to this report.
