Stepdad sought in child kidnapping kills self

The 47-year-old man suspected of kidnapping his 12year-old stepdaughter in Grand Junction this week shot himself dead Friday morning in Rifle as police were closing in.

At the time of the suicide, police were hunting for Jody Haskin, who allegedly kidnapped his stepdaughter, Raeanna Rosencrans. The child was found safe in a store in Rifle on Thursday night.

The Garfield County coroner’s office identified Haskin on Friday as the man who shot himself.

An autopsy was performed, but the coroner’s office is awaiting toxicology test results to finalize a report. The coroner’s office identified “the cause of death as a gunshot wound of the head and the manner of death as suicide.”

When authorities located Haskin, about 3:30 a.m., there were reports that he was ill. “He was really not on the move,” said Robin Steffen, a Rifle Police Department spokeswoman Friday morning. “He’s no longer a danger to the public.”

Haskin had a criminal history of child molestation and was a registered sex offender. On Thursday, police issued a warrant for his arrest for suspicion of second-degree kidnapping. There also was an arrest warrant, out of Grand Junction, for sex assault on a child.

Shortly before 10 p.m. Thursday law enforcement officers found Raeanna at the Walmart in Rifle, according to a Grand Junction news release. Thursday evening police described the girl as developmentally delayed and dependent on medication.

“She appears to be physically unharmed but was transported to a local hospital to be checked out,” the news release said.

Police issued an Amber alert Wednesday after Raeanna was abducted by a man in a car as she walked home from school in Grand Junction with a friend about 3 p.m. She was seen getting into a boxy green car with a man who called out her name, police said. The green car was recovered in Rifle in a Walmart parking lot.