Two men, one woman killed
Victims, believed to be homeless, found in parking lot off Broadway near I-25
Two men and a woman who appear to have been homeless were found dead Thursday morning in a triple homicide in a parking lot near the Washington Park West neighborhood, according to Denver police.
The killings occurred just east of Interstate 25 near the intersection of South Broadway and East Ohio Avenue.
Police said the three died between Wednesday night and 11 a.m. Thursday, but did not have a specific time or cause of death. Police had not identified the victims and hadn’t moved the bodies from the scene as of 3 p.m. Thursday.
A passerby first noticed the bodies near some bushes and trees along the north side of the parking lot and called police about 11 a.m. Thursday. Officers arrived at the lot, adjacent to a vacant building in the 460 block of South Broadway Street, a few minutes later.
Police say there is no suspect in the slayings, and they are asking for the public’s help.
“The investigation is just as thorough for them as it would be for anyone in this city,” Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen said.
No weapon was found at the scene, and Division Chief Joe Montoya said it’s too soon to say whether the victims were targeted because they lived on the street.
He said there are no specific threats to the community.
Montoya didn’t say how the three people died, but said the deaths were “suspicious in nature.” He did tell reporters that the department has no evidence to suggest the deaths are related to a stabbing that took place shortly after 4:30 a.m. Thursday morning about 500 feet from the homicide scene, though investigators are not ruling out a connection.
The victim in the stabbing case is in critical condition at a nearby hospital. Officers arrested Kyle Cuffe, 20, in connection to that attack. He was being held without bond in Denver’s Downtown Detention Center, according to Denver Sheriff Department records.
Anyone with information about the homicides is asked to call the department’s tip line at 720-913STOP (7867). Callers can remain anonymous and could be eligible for a cash award.
Officers are reaching out to organizations that work with the homeless population and are ramping up security in the area, which is largely industrial with multiple vacant buildings. On the other side of the interstate, to the south, developers are building
brightly colored apartments and condos on the former Gates Rubber Co. site.
An employee at a yoga studio across the street from the crime scene said that transients often pass through the area, but she wasn’t aware of any established camps.
She said none of the employees or students at the studio saw anything out of the ordinary until the police cars arrived.
It can be difficult to find a safe, legal place to sleep if you are homeless, said Scott B., who has been living on the streets in Denver for about a month.
He did not want his last name to be used because he didn’t want to hurt his chances at a job in the future.
He was sleeping behind a dumpster Wednesday night about six blocks from the spot where the three people were killed.
“It’s scary to know what can happen,” he said.
On one day in January 2018, volunteers counted more than 5,300 people in the seven-county Denver metro area who were homeless.
The population has hovered between 5,100 and 6,000 people since 2015. The count is part of an attempt by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development to track homeless populations across the country.
Including the three killings Thursday, Denver police have investigated 44 homicides so far this year, police spokesman Sonny Jackson said.
Police investigated 40 cases in the same time period last year.
The last triple-homicide case in Denver was in 2016 when a man shot three people inside a Park Hill neighborhood home.
Police at the time described that case as a “drug deal gone extremely bad.”