Dead Center. Frank J. Daniels
hold.”
More time passed while the disappointment of the two men at the delay grew.
The Delta County operator next called State Patrol Dispatch in Grand Junction. They told her this was not a State-Patrol-type situation since it was not a traffic accident. So, she hung up and called the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department main line and they put her through to Mesa County Dispatch.
“This is Mesa County Dispatch. May I help you?”
The Delta County 911 operator still seemed confused. “I have a couple of reports of a man who shot himself. I guess it’s going to be in Mesa County, just past the Coal Springs forest station.”
“Cold Springs ranger station?”
“I guess it’s Coal, C-O-A-L, like a coal mine.”
“Okay.”
“Have you guys heard of this?”
“Not that I’m aware of. We’re not aware of it here.”
“Apparently, a man has shot himself this morning. He is dead. Don’t know how it happened ... if he committed suicide or what. I have the two guys on hold on the other line now. The vehicle comes back to John Bruce Dodson out of Cedaredge. This is apparently the guy who shot himself.”
Do not ask how the 911 operator determined from these conversations that the death was a suicide. In addition, it was “Cold Springs” Ranger Station, not “Coal Springs.” At any rate, she spoke again to Captain Branchwater on George Wright’s cell phone. Captain Branchwater once again offered to meet the responding police officers out on Divide Road. In what seemed a very long delay to the two men trying to do their duties and report a crime, an officer finally came.
Deputy Kevin Patrick, a fit, handsome man in his mid-forties who has an adventurous streak and races stock cars in his spare time, walked up to the two men. Patrick followed Branchwater back to the camps. Once things settled down a bit, Deputy Patrick asked him a few questions, then a few more later and even more later.
Deputy Patrick followed Captain Branchwater in Bruce Dodson’s Bronco to the death scene, where he found a young man with the woman Branchwater called Denise, who appeared to be lending her comfort and support. After enough backup officers arrived so that someone could look after the victim’s wife, Deputy Patrick had the opportunity to take a statement from the genial twenty-five year old whose name was Larry Coller.
Larry told Deputy Patrick that he and his younger brother were visiting from Wisconsin. They had been hunting up on Snipe Mountain that morning and, on their way back to camp after an unsuccessful hunt, they saw a woman heading up a hill toward them. Their truck was headed west and was just up the road about two hundred yards from the turnoff to the campsite when they saw her. When they got closer, they could see that she was out of breath. Her sandals had slipped off her feet and were hanging around her ankles as if she had run right out of them. Larry said, “The lady was hysterical, waving her arms and yelling, ‘My husband’s been shot! My husband’s been shot!’” They stopped, put her into the truck and she showed them the way. After driving a short distance farther west, the distraught woman gestured to a track off the road to the north towards the camps. As they traversed the rough trail and the crest of a small hill, Larry could see the body in the distance. They drove down to get a bit closer.
Larry told the deputy, “The woman and I got out of the truck and my younger brother, Fred, left to find a man who had been talking on a cell phone in a red and white Bronco we had passed down the road.” Larry went on, “When I got to the victim the man was lying kind of on his right side, but face down with his right arm underneath him.” He paused and shook his head. “I felt his wrist and couldn’t find a pulse. The man’s cheeks were white and his ears and forehead were somewhat blue. The eyes were open and the pupils dilated.” Larry said that after he’d finished he just attempted to keep the woman calm, because he knew the man was dead. He tried to make small talk with her to get her mind off her husband. She told him her name was Janice and that she and her husband had separated while hunting that morning. He was hunting the ridge and she was hunting the valley. They had agreed to meet back in camp at 9:30 for breakfast. When she returned to camp and was not joined by her husband, she went looking for him. According to Janice, they had been married for three months and today was their anniversary. Moreover, this was her husband’s first time deer hunting. Larry went on, “I rolled the body over onto its back while checking for a pulse.” He saw Janice replace her husband’s right glove, which was rolled inside out and was right next to the body. He noticed a rifle about four feet from the body that looked as though it were placed there, rather than being dropped. The bolt was open and resting on the ground. There were three spent shell casings in a pile near the rifle. He also noticed a blaze orange vest and hat.
Larry recalled that it was exactly ten on the clock in his truck when he saw the man by the Bronco on the cell phone. He also told the deputy what Janice had told him. “She was elk hunting and Bruce was deer hunting. She said that Bruce was looking forward to the hunt and wanted to get a bigger buck than the big twenty-nine inch buck she had once shot. Clearly agitated, the woman talked on and on. She said Bruce insisted that it was love at first sight when they met.” Janice had also told Larry that she refused to live with Bruce before they were married because she was old fashioned. She referred to Bruce as her “little honey bunny.”
Larry, obviously drained by his own ordeal, continued telling his story to Deputy Patrick. “As we waited for help, Janice straightened out Bruce’s glasses and wiped some dirt from his face. She covered him with a down vest that had been lying by the body. She removed her gray sweatshirt and put it over Bruce. After a while, Fred returned with the truck and Janice suggested that they put Bruce into the truck to try to find help.” Knowing that nothing could be done, Larry discouraged this idea. Nevertheless, Janice still seemed to feel Bruce was unconscious but not gone. She took a multicolored blanket from the truck and spread it over Bruce’s body.
= chapter 2 =
The original 911 call about Bruce’s death had gone to a dispatcher in Delta County who spent a considerable amount of time trying to determine which county sheriff’s department had jurisdiction. The death occurred on the Uncompahgre Plateau in the Uncompahgre National Forest. Uncompahgre, pronounced “Un-come-pah-gray,” is a Ute Indian word meaning “Dirty Water.” The place is located at one of the farthest southern reaches of my jurisdiction and just a few miles from the Delta and Montrose County lines. The Uncompahgre River flows from the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado as mineral-laden waters from myriad small streams draining old mining districts and odoriferous, sulfur-rich hot springs water from near the town of Ouray. It is a beautiful, remote location at an elevation of 9,000 feet on the slopes of Snipe Mountain and is in an area with good-sized herds of deer and elk.
To reach the scene from Grand Junction, one travels about forty minutes on paved roads before turning onto a dirt service road that pretty much bisects the plateau, called Divide Road. One then climbs tight switchbacks for several miles before topping out on the plateau, a rolling landscape of mountains, creeks and canyons where ranchers run cattle from spring to fall. It is populated by a wide array of flora, with meadow grass, sagebrush, gambel oak, pinion, juniper and trees like ponderosa pine, aspen and spruce. It is peaceful and bucolic—at least most of the time.
The shooting had occurred just after sunrise on Sunday, the second day of the hunting season. At 12:45 P.M., Investigator Nick Armand, a twenty-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department and an officer with considerable crime scene experience arrived on the scene. Armand is a big red-haired man who carries his considerable excess weight effortlessly. He has a gentle manner which is disarming. He quickly scanned the area to get his bearings and to take note of whom and what was present. The rolling terrain was dotted intermittently with sagebrush, mountain mahogany, serviceberry, and other low shrubbery surrounding patches of gambel oak and larger open grassy meadows. Spruce trees grew in the higher areas and north facing slopes. By this time of the day, the mostly