Denver U.S. District Court Judge Robert Blackburn dismissed his “name-clearing” lawsuit on Friday for failing to state a sufficient legal claim.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Ann Tomsic, who prosecuted Homaidan al-Turki in 2006, said he, in effect, has had the keys to his own cell since 2011. “…it is his continued refusal to participate in the required sex-offender treatment that prevents his parole and deportation to Saudi Arabia.”

“Mr. Al-Turki needs to take responsibility for his own behavior and incarceration,” Tomsic said.

In 2013, al-Turki was identified as a person of interest in the murder of former Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements. He is serving an eight-years-to-life term for keeping his Indonesian housekeeper a virtual slave in Colorado and sexually assaulting her, prosecutors have said.

Parolee Evan Ebel is suspected of killing Clements, the director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, on March 19, 2013, and Nathan Leon, a Commerce City father of three girls, two days earlier.

One week before his death, Clements denied a petition by al-Turki to be sent back to Saudi Arabia to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Al-Turki, a well-known member of Denver’s Muslim community, has denied involvement in Clements’ death and maintained his innocence in his criminal case, claiming the charges were a result of anti-Muslim sentiment following the 9/11 attacks.

Al-Turki is currently housed at U.S. Penitentiary-Canaan in Waymart, Pa.

The gunman, Evan Ebel, died days later in a shootout with Texas lawmen, but the questions remain: Did he act alone? Did he have help from fellow members of the 211 Crew prison gang?

Only one person has faced justice in the case since the March 17, 2013, killing of Leon and the assassination two days later of Clements, the head of the Department of Corrections. That was to buying the gun that Ebel used. A federal judge in 2014 sentenced her to 27 months in prison.

El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder, who office oversees the investigation, said in an interview this week that he believes Ebel acted alone when he killed Leon for his Domino’s pizza uniform, and then shot  on the night of March 19, 2013.

Elder said he asked an investigator in 2016 to go over all the evidence for a third time, on the chance that new evidence could be uncovered pointing to possible conspirators. An investigator from Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman’s office also independently reviewed all the evidence over a span of nine months, he said.

“They’ve looked at everything and anything. To date (they) have not turned over any evidence that disproves that Evan Ebel acted alone,” Elder said. “I would love nothing more than to prove a conspiracy to the 211 Crew.” But so far the only things tying the case to others, he said, are suppositions not unlike conspiracy theories in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Ebel left behind many intriguing clues that point to a conspiracy, including a hit list that mentioned other Colorado officials, and he had contact with fellow members of the 211 Crew in the days before and after the shootings. Ebel called one 211 Crew member on March 21, 2013, just moments before he died in a chase and shootout on a Texas highway, according to Texas investigators.

The perception behind bars is that 211 Crew leaders, including gang general Daniel “Jimbo” Lohr, ordered Ebel to kill Clements, Lohr said in a telephone interview last year from a Pennsylvania federal prison. It doesn’t matter that Lohr denies involvement, or even that Elder believes otherwise — that is the widely held belief, Lohr acknowledged. That perception has increased the respect fellow prisoners have for the gang and helped swell its ranks, he said. But the consequences have been a mixed blessing, he added.

Texas Rangers and key Colorado investigators have said the gang’s leaders ordered Ebel to kill Clements. In fact, a confidential informant whose claims are partially confirmed by phone records claims that Lohr boasted that “I ordered that,” meaning the Clements hit, a report by the Texas Rangers says.

A Texas official familiar with the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation recently said all evidence points to a gang conspiracy. Colorado officials who previously led the Clements murder investigation, including John San Agustine, have also said they repeatedly recommended that District Attorney Dan May’s office file charges against co-conspirators including Lohr and other 211 Crew members. Lohr said he was surprised they didn’t charge him.

Prison gang merger

In an effort to diffuse the power base of the 211 Crew, Clements’ successor, executive director Rick Raemisch, moved the gang’s “inner circle” members with a rank of general — all with a vote when it comes time to order hits and beatings — outside Colorado’s prison system to state or federal prisons in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Kentucky, Colorado and Ohio.

But the 211 Crew has merged with other white supremacist prison gangs, including the Aryan Syndicate and the American Nazi Party. Leaders of the reconfigured gang have been charged with or accused of carrying out gang hits behind bars, court records indicate.

On Aug. 11, 2014, gang members Robert “Nugs” Sprowles and Thomas “Frosty” Johns allegedly stabbed gang member Cody Gray at Sterling Correctional Facility at the behest of Aryan Empire generals Vernon Templeman, John Dehmer and Brandon “Creeper” Cox, according to court records.

District Attorney Brittny Lewton charged Sprowls and Johns with first-degree murder in 2014. But she didn’t charge Templeman and Cox until the summer of 2017 when Templeman agreed to testify about how the hit was ordered. Templeman agreed to turn over evidence in Gray’s slaying in exchange for a transfer from a federal prison in Ohio populated with a large number of black gang members to a prison more friendly to white supremacist gang generals, Lewton said. Dehmer has not been charged.

On June 6, 2015, William Pettigrew, an Aryan Empire soldier, entered the cell of rival gang member Joshua Edmunds at Limon Correctional Facility and stabbed him to death with a shank, according to court and coroner’s records and a former 211 Crew member.

Pettigrew was ordered to kill Edmunds for stealing food from the gang’s store at Limon, according to the former 211 Crew member who spoke to The Denver Post on condition of anonymity because a hit has been ordered on him for snitching on the gang. According to court records, Pettigrew, 33, was charged with first-degree murder after deliberation, second-degree murder, possession of contraband (a shank) and six counts of being a habitual criminal.

Since Clements’ murder, the Aryan Empire has grown more brazen because it believes that if it can kill the executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, it can get away with anything, the former gang member said.

A founder of the 211 Crew, Benjamin Davis — a man some investigators and even those inside the gang have speculated ordered Ebel to kill Clements — killed himself in a Wyoming prison last year.

Following the assassination of Colorado’s former prison chief Tom Clements, his successor , a form of punishment Clement’s killer cited as a motive for the murder.

On Monday, the Association of State Correctional Administrators awarded Rick Raemisch the Tom Clements Award, which was created in 2015 to honor Clements’ innovative approach to corrections.

White supremacist parolee at his Monument home on March 19, 2013, while dressed in the uniform of a pizza delivery driver he murdered two days earlier.

“I have always felt that the recipient of the Clements Award reflects the great work accomplished by his/her department,” Raemisch said in a written statement. “I would never have received this award if it hadn’t been for the dedication and great work done by the men and women of the Colorado Department of Corrections. I thank them for this great honor.”

In 2011, when , more than 1,500 offenders or 7 percent of the prison population in the Colorado Department of Corrections was assigned to Administrative Segregation, according to a news release by Mark Fairbairn, CDOC spokesman.

Under Raemisch, the department implemented further segregation reforms and was able to reduce this number to less than 200 offenders, Fairbairn said.

Raemisch eliminated administrative segregation and extended restrictive housing altogether, Fairbairn said. Even high-security offenders are offered at least four hours per day out of their cells. By comparison, under administrative segregation rules, offenders only were allowed to be outside their cells for one hour to shower and exercise.

During the four hours outside their cells, prisoners participate in outdoor recreation, cognitive rehabilitation and education in groups. It’s an effort to help them make positive behavioral changes, Fairbairn said.

Raemisch has also established a program in which parole officers meet with offenders while they are still locked up to prepare them for the outside world. He has shared his philosophies at the United Nations and testified before a U.S. subcommittee on segregation reform and assisted the U.S. Justice Department Presidents’ Committee in setting forth reforms.

“There is nobody else in this industry more deserving of the award that honors the man that he has proudly and passionately succeeded,” Deputy Executive Director Kellie Wasko said in a statement.

Homaidan al-Turki, who was   had accused the agency of illegally denying the information following numerous requests for documents through through the federal Freedom of Information Act.

U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel declined to release the names, ruling late last month that doing so could “irretrievably harm a very important means for the FBI to collect information and hamper its law enforcement efforts to detect and apprehend criminals.”

But Faisal Salahuddin, al-Turki’s attorney, said the lawsuit forced the FBI to release nearly 500 pages of information that the agency previously refused to release.

“Our lawsuit was successful because before we filed suit, the FBI refused to release anything. After we filed suit, they released two binders full of documents,” Salahuddin said in a written reply to the newspaper’s request for comment.

Once Salahuddin sued, the FBI changed their position 180 degrees, he wrote.

“It was in this context that the federal judge granted summary judgment for the FBI in our FOIA case on the remaining exemptions that they had claimed,” Salahuddin added.

Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler, claiming false statements made by him, his staff and federal agents slandered him and thwarted his attempt to be transferred to Saudi Arabia for the remainder of his sentence.

Al-Turki is seeking an injunction ordering the defendants to refrain from making false statements about him, including saying he had terrorist ties or was involved in .

Defendants in that ongoing case had denied making defamatory remarks and conspiring to stop al-Turki’s transfer to Saudi Arabia.

Al-Turki is currently being held at a high-security U.S. Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.

That diaspora of shot callers — those who can order gang murders — is why Benjamin Davis was at the Wyoming State Penitentiary, south of Rawlins,  Davis was a founder and leader of the 211 Crew and was

Clements’ successor, executive director Rick Raemisch, has moved 211 Crew “inner circle” members with a rank of general — all with a vote when it comes time to order hits and beatings — outside Colorado’s prison system to state or federal prisons in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Kentucky, Colorado and Ohio, according to inmate interviews and prison records reviewed by The Post.

“The Interstate Compact agreement is one of the most influential tools available to us in corrections. It allows the Colorado Department of Corrections and corrections departments across the United States to ensure the safety of their staff, safety of their offender population, and maintain safety and security in their facilities” Raemisch wrote in a prepared statement in response to questions from The Post.

Raemisch and other DOC officials declined to discuss the whereabouts of the 211 Crew leaders.

Experts on prison gang culture say inmate swapping through the Interstate Corrections Compact is routine and can be effective in disrupting communications between gang leaders and their soldiers and enforcers. But it can also spread gang ideology, particularly for a gang such as 211 Crew, which has name recognition across the country. Charismatic gang leaders spread their racist dogma and internal gang leadership strategies to other prison systems, they say.

“When you move them, they are going to re-create themselves like seeds in another state,” said Damarcus Woods, of D. Woods Consultants, a gang expert who has testified in trials. “What makes this gang so popular was the murder of Tom Clements.”

Their leaders have instant name recognition and respect with convicts wherever they go, he added.

Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, agreed that 211 Crew leaders pose a particular threat of spreading their ideology because “of the murder they committed.”

“That killing,” she said, “was extraordinary.”

Evan Ebel, a 211 Crew member, shot Clements on the doorstep of his Monument home in March 2013. Documents show a  in the days before and after Clements’ slaying.

Prison-gang experts also said it is virtually impossible to cut off all communications among criminals regardless of how far away prison officials send them.

Prisoners pass gang orders hidden in prison library books. Davis sent letters, known behind bars as “kites,” to gang leaders using elaborate coding. Last fall, Colorado became the first prison system in the country to approve a policy in which most inmates will have free computer tablets in their cells, allowing them to send emails virtually anywhere.

of being involved in the , said when he was moved to the New Hampshire State Prison for Men, he was effectively cut off from 211 Crew members. In reply to several requests, Lohr called The Post multiple times and gave a lengthy description of gang and prison politics.

“I didn’t retire. We keep our status,” said Lohr, confirming that he keeps his rank of general in the militaristic 211 Crew. “But I don’t have anything to do with (day-to-day) operations anymore. When they moved me to New Hampshire, there was a giant weight that was lifted off of me. I don’t have to worry about what hundreds of guys are doing. … For the most part, I don’t know what is going on right now.”

Lohr also vehemently denied any involvement either by Davis or himself in Clements’ murder, an event he acknowledges was the most significant in the history of 211 Crew.

“(Ebel) did a horrible, evil thing that affected a lot of (211 Crew members). Ebel was a lunatic that did that all on his own. He’s gone. He’s dead. He went out like a lunatic. The Texas Rangers killed him like a lunatic animal,” Lohr said. “If it was an orchestrated thing, don’t you think they would have charged us?”

 Thomas Guolee and Chris Middleton, who were in constant contact with Ebel in the days before and after Ebel, wearing a Domino’s pizza uniform, shot Clements on March 19, 2013. Ebel had also kidnapped and  to get Leon’s pizza uniform. Texas police gunned Ebel down the same week.

A confidential informant who is a 211 Crew member told Texas Rangers that Lohr told him during a phone interview a few days after Clements’ murder that “I had him do that” and asked the informant — identified only as “JR” — to look after Ebel while he was on the run in Texas, Texas investigative records indicate.

But Lohr said the informant was ratting to keep himself out of trouble. No one has ever been arrested directly for Clements’ murder, but a criminal conspiracy investigation continues, El Paso County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jacqueline Kirby told The Post.

“I never talked to (Ebel) before (he shot Clements) or after that,” Lohr said.

Lohr said Clements’ death directed unwanted attention to 211 Crew, disrupting gang business such as drug deals. Prison intelligence officers threatened 211 Crew leaders with punishment — including solitary confinement — if there was a whiff of trouble caused by their soldiers, he said.

“They told all of us: ‘You get caught doing shot-caller stuff on the yard, we’re going to come down hard. Don’t be murdering people and getting into fights.’ They wanted me to debrief or rat. That’s not my style.” Lohr said. “That’s why they sent us out (to other states). … We’re just like trading cards. They trade us from one facility to the next. Divide and conquer.”

DOC officials immediately placed Davis and Lohr in isolation following Clements’ murder, on the justification they wanted to protect them from backlash from rival gangs, Lohr said.

“They put me in the box. I caught time over it,” he said.

Lohr, who completes his sentence for multiple crimes in 2021, said he has turned to his religious roots, knows the Bible inside and out, and has no intention of trying to indoctrinate New Hampshire prisoners about the 211 Crew’s brand of white supremacist ideology.

But Lohr also readily rattled off a list of names of 211 Crew generals who have all been moved out of Colorado prisons after Clements’ murder, and he knew the states where they had been sent. The same leaders are not on the DOC’s online database offering the locations of thousands of other Colorado prisoners.

DOC spokesman Mark Fairbairn said he could not comment on the 211 Crew leaders.

The Post verified Lohr’s information about the 211 Crew leaders’ whereabouts through federal and state prison records searches. Cop killer Vernon Wayne Templeman is now in West Virigina; convicted killer Raymond Cain is in Pennsylvania; 211 Crew co-founder Danny Shea is in Ohio; and Justin Barkley was first moved to Kentucky but is now at the Colorado’s federal Administrative Maximum U.S. Penitentiary in Florence.

In many ways, Lohr followed the same strategy of his close friend and ideological brother, Benjamin Davis, by repeatedly denying any ongoing involvement in 211 Crew. Davis made a public proclamation that he was no longer affiliated with the gang in a 2002 advertisement in the Rocky Mountain News.

But after Davis’ unusual declaration, Denver prosecutors in 2006 that Davis effectively orchestrated beatings and murders from solitary confinement cells at various high-security prisons across Colorado and from as far away as the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel.

Sometimes when a gang leader is murdered or dies, gangs disband or divide. There could be a power struggle to replace Davis, Woods said.

After Davis’ suicide, “the question,” Woods said, “is what is going to happen now?”

When George Jackson, a founder of the Black Guerilla Family in California, was killed at San Quentin Prison in 1971, there was rioting in multiple California prisons in a battle for power, Woods said.

“It erupted into a major disturbance,” Woods said. “A lot of people got hurt.”

Woods predicted that 211 Crew members will claim that Davis was actually murdered in Wyoming instead of committing suicide.

“His ideology is cemented in death. That’s not the end of the 211 Crew. They’ll raise him up and exalt him.They’ll not just follow him but put their lives on the line for him. They’re going to make his death into a conspiracy to promote their gang. What they write in their book will be different than what others write in theirs,” Woods said.

Carson County Coroner Paul Zamora said Thursday that Davis died of asphyxiation by hanging in his cell and that the manner of death was suicide. Zamora said Davis had been in the cell alone and his body was found early Aug. 27.

But Lohr, indeed, questioned whether Davis committed suicide, and he said 211 Crew will not crumble after Davis’ death.

“No. Absolutely not,” Lohr said. “People are staying the (expletive) away from us because we are the most respected gang in DOC. (Clements’ shooting) was the biggest murder in Colorado history. We have a hierarchy just like you guys say. … We’ve got a real tight rein.”

He added that 211 Crew has a membership of around 1,000 members, who are in and out of prison across the country. Davis had read textbooks about leadership skills used at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Lohr said. The “crew” is founded on solid, white supremacist ideology, not like many prison gangs that have a “dope-scene mentality,” he said. For example, the 211 Crew punishes its own for violations of its bylaws, Lohr said.

“We have a code of honor,” he said. “It’s an ideology. You can’t stop an ideology.”

An autopsy of Benjamin L. Davis has been ordered, according to a news release Monday by Mark Fairbairn, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Corrections.

Wyoming correctional authorities discovered Davis’ body Saturday morning, the news release says. The news release does not indicate the manner of death. Davis was serving his sentence in Wyoming under an Interstate Corrections Compact Agreement which allows inmates to be transferred between states.

Davis allegedly ordered Evan Ebel to kill Clements, according to investigative documents provided by the Texas Rangers. Ebel shot Clements at his front door on April 21, 2013.

Jacqueline Kirby, spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department, said the Department of Corrections is continuing to investigate Clements’ murder.

Other Colorado inmates, including Aurora theater killer James Holmes, are serving prison sentences outside of Colorado. Holmes was moved after a fellow inmate assaulted him at the  just east of Cañon City. It’s the highest-security state prison in Colorado.

Corrections staff found Davis, 42, dead Saturday. He was serving a virtual life sentence for 211 Crew gang activities behind bars. His death is under investigation by the DOC’s inspector general.

“We’re not confirming any location,” said Department of Corrections public information officer Mark Fairbairn.

“You have a high-ranking member of 211, and issues his death could cause in our facilities — it could cause disruptions for us,” Fairbairn said, specifying fights. “That’s what we are trying to avoid.”

It was unclear whether Davis was being held alone in a cell.

In 2013, Clements was gunned down on the doorstep of his home in Monument, north of Colorado Springs, by parolee Evan Ebel, who also killed 27-year-old Commerce City father Nathan Leon.

Ebel was a member of the 211 Crew, a violent prison gang that Davis founded and led. Authorities from 211 Crew leaders, including Davis, who was a “shot caller” for the gang.

had named possible co-conspirators in Clements’ murder. The report also tied numerous members of the 211 Crew by text messages and phone records to the case, and indicated DNA from a third murder victim from Colorado Springs was found on a pipe bomb taken from Ebel’s car trunk. Ebel was killed in a shootout with Texas lawmen on March 21, 2013.

After investigators retrieved phone numbers from the phones Ebel had been using, authorities in Texas and Colorado made six arrests, half of them never previously reported.

The arrests stemmed from the gang members’ dealings with Ebel, but none was directly linked to Clements’ killing, which remains officially unsolved more than four years later.

El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder told reporters last year that the Clements investigation was coming to a conclusion, but he backtracked on that after other law enforcement agencies expressed concerns.

Elder has previously said “Evan Ebel stood on the doorstep and killed Tom Clements alone,” and added that making the leap that there was a conspiracy is not supported by evidence.

But a May 28, 2013, report of investigation by Texas Ranger James Holland could not have been more clear about investigators’ theory on the case.

“The murder of the Colorado Department of Corrections director was ordered by hierarchy of the 211 prison crew,” the report says.

Some law enforcement officials have suggested that .

for violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act and an additional 12 years in prison for conspiracy and solicitation to commit second-degree assault.

He was one of 19 people indicted for their roles in the 211 Crew. The indictment details the gang’s elaborate communication through coded notes and secret slang.

Davis used LSD more than 100 times, huffed gas and tried methamphetamine, according to court records. At age 19, he started using cocaine and went on a robbery spree.

In November 1994, he donned a ski mask and brandished a gun, robbing a Subway store and then an Ace Hardware store in Denver. On Nov. 30, 1994, he shot a man in the butt while robbing a Bennigan’s Restaurant, also in Denver. Davis was arrested at a Las Vegas bus terminal after his father alerted authorities.

, Davis and Danny Charles Shea founded the 211 Crew in the Denver jail after a black inmate broke Davis’ jaw.

“His perception was that the Hispanic jail population and the African-American jail population were well enough organized that they could protect each other against assault or homicide attempts by other race members,” a psychologist wrote in court documents. “He became convinced that if he was going to make it in prison, he would need to organize enough people of similar beliefs that they could protect each other from the Black and Hispanic gangs.”

The 211 Crew, apparently named after the California penal code for robbery, “a 211,” took on Irish, Nazi and Viking identities. Members often tattoo themselves with shamrocks, Nazi swastikas or Viking horns. By 2005, state officials said the gang had 300 members.

The judge who resentenced Davis to 108 years in prison for gang activities behind bars cited his activities with the 211 Crew.

“Mr. Davis over the last 20 years has endeavored to make himself a thoroughly dangerous individual,” said Judge William D. Robbins, who didn’t oversee Davis’ trial in the 2007 case. The judge added, “The long and the short of it is you don’t need to be out on the streets in 40 or 50 years.”

Clements was murdered, at his Monument home on March 19, 2013.

On Monday, Gov. John Hickenlooper honored Clements’ work and memory by recognizing state employees for exceptional service and bestowing on them the Tom Clements Better Government Awards.

The Great Customer Service Award recognized Colorado Department of Human Services employees for increasing reports of child abuse and neglect via a statewide hotline, according to a governor’s news release. The Great Results Award was given to Department of Regulatory Affairs employees for reducing the time required to process an application and issue a license to pharmacists and mental health practitioners by up to 78 percent.

“Tom believed that public service was an honor. He modeled this through his daily commitment to quality services for Coloradans,” Hickenlooper said. “The teams honored today provide exceptional value to the people we serve. Their work does more than honor Tom’s memory. It ensures his spirit lives on.”

The awards were judged by a panel of business leaders with expertise in customer service.

“I feel like (his children) have been in prison with me for the last 12 years,” Homaidan al-Turki said in a telephonic parole hearing Tuesday morning. “My imprisonment has affected my family. The growth of my children has been unnatural. They have undergone trauma.”

But parole board member Brandon Mathews kept bringing al-Turki back to the topic of his , questioning why the Colorado convict, who is currently being held in a federal prison in Pennsylvania, hasn’t enrolled in required programming for sex offenders.

Al-Turki, whose name came up as a person of interest in connection with the 2013 murder of former prisons chief Tom Clements, is serving a term of eight years to life on numerous felony counts of sexual contact and a misdemeanor count of false imprisonment.

Mathews explained to al-Turki that he could only be paroled after a hearing before the full, seven-member parole board. Before that can happen Mathews needs to refer him for such a hearing. Mathews will decide whether to make that recommendation in a few days.

Al-Turki told Mathews that he has repeatedly asked to be admitted into a sex offender treatment program but he has been rejected each time.

Mathews replied that al-Turki was rejected for treatment because he has been in denial.

Al-Turki continues to maintain his innocence. He has two appeals in progress, including one in which he is seeking standing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Al-Turki said he is a devout Muslim and it would violate his religion to speak with female therapists about sexual matters or to view nude pictures of women as required in treatment. He also said confessing to crimes he did not commit would be lying.

to complete his term. Al-Turki was considered a person of interest in the Clements murder. Clements wrote a March 12, 2013, letter to al-Turki announcing his transfer request was denied. Clements was murdered a week later. with members of the prison gang 211 Crew to have Clements killed.

Al-Turki said that he has diligently taken every self-improvement course available, and has helped other inmates deal with mental health issues. If he is allowed to return to Saudi Arabia, he vowed he would be a productive member of society.

El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder told reporters last year that the but he backtracked on that after other law enforcement agencies expressed concerns.

“The case is still open. We follow up on leads as we get them,” Elder’s spokeswoman Jacqueline Kirby said Monday.

Elder told a group of journalists on Aug. 3: “I’m confident we will come to a conclusion soon.”

Friday marks the fourth anniversary of the March 17, 2013 murder by parolee Evan Ebel of 27-year-old Commerce City father Nathan Leon. Ebel used Leon’s pizza uniform as a disguise to kill Clements at his Monument home two days later. Authorities investigated the possibility that Ebel was acting on orders from a white supremacist prison gang, the 211 Crew.

Elder has previously said “Evan Ebel stood on the doorstep and ,” and added that making the leap that there was a conspiracy is not supported by evidence.

Elder’s comments have been in contrast to statements by and his predecessors in the sheriff’s office.

The Denver Post reported in May 2016 that Texas Rangers had named possible co-conspirators in Clements’ murder. The report also tied numerous members of the 211 Crew by text messages and phone records to the case, and indicated DNA from a third murder victim from Colorado Springs was found on a pipe bomb taken from Ebel’s car trunk. Ebel was killed in a shootout with Texas lawmen on March 21, 2013.

The Rangers’ investigation concluded that the hierarchy of the 211 Crew ordered Ebel to kill Clements. The Texas Rangers, U.S. Secret Service and the FBI linked hundreds of phone calls between Ebel and 211 Crew leaders in the days before and after the killings. Several members of the 211 Crew subsequently were incarcerated on parole violations for being in contact with Ebel in the days before and after the murder.

Two weeks after the newspaper report, that he was in the process of closing the Clements investigation. Gov. John Hickenlooper declared shortly afterward that he and other state investigators had met with Elder and that for the time being the investigation was going forward.

Officials from two or three agencies expressed concern about Elder’s decision to close the murder investigation.

On Monday, Kirby said that is why the murder investigation remains open.