Conspiracy
A Texas Ranger’s report says a dozen members of a white supremacist gang plotted with parolee Evan Ebel to kill Colorado prisons director Tom Clements and escape to Texas.
New documents obtained by The Denver Post quote Texas law enforcement officials saying what Colorado authorities still will not: The assassination of prisons director Tom Clements was orchestrated by a white supremacist prison gang.
The Texas documents, obtained through an open-records request, reveal a spiderweb of phone calls between gunman Evan Ebel and fellow members of the 211 Crew in the days before and after Clements’ killing on March 19, 2013. Some of those calls came two days later while Ebel was leading Texas lawmen on a 100-mph chase that led to a crash and, ultimately, his death in a shootout.
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 three years later.
“At this stage, there is no person of interest” or suspects in the Clements case, El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder told The Post last year.
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.
Holland’s 77-page report identifies a dozen suspects or persons of interest who allegedly did everything from ordering Clements’ assassination to helping Ebel flee to Texas.
The report obtained from the Texas Rangers, interviews by The Post with witnesses and Colorado court documents offer the most complete picture yet of Ebel’s movements, activities and meetings in the days surrounding the Clements killing.
Although some people have questioned whether Ebel acted alone, all of the signs point to multiple dealings between Ebel and his fellow gang members — itself a parole violation because, as a parolee, Ebel was forbidden to associate with other felons and gang members. Among the report’s major findings: • James “Jimbo” Lohr, a general in the 211 Crew and the gang’s ranking leader in Colorado Springs, told a fellow gang member that he ordered Ebel to assassinate Clements. The gang member, who spoke to the Rangers as a confidential informant, said the killing was ordered after Ebel had a falling out with the 211 Crew’s founder, Ben Davis, and the murder was an attempt to redeem himself.
• The informant, JR, identified only as a 211 Crew soldier on parole in Texas, claimed Lohr also ordered him to help Ebel flee after Clements’ murder. JR told Texas Rangers that Ebel was “a stand-up guy.”
• The night before Ebel killed Commerce City father Nathan Leon and stole his Domino’s pizza uniform, Ebel paid $1,250 in cash on March 16, 2013, to an Aurora school teacher for her 1991 Cadillac DeVille. She told The Post that Ebel pulled out a thick roll of hundred dollar bills to pay her. She said she sought therapy after learning about the murders.
• Three days later — just hours before he killed Clements — Ebel sat down for brunch with 211 Crew Captain Christopher “Hog” Middleton and his wife at a southern Colorado diner and applied makeup to cover the Nazi tattoos on his hands. Posing as a pizza delivery man that night, Ebel shot Clements on the doorstep of his Monument home and sped away in the black Cadillac.
• Investigators examining the Cadillac after Ebel’s death found a fingerprint on the trunk that belonged to Middleton. Middleton acknowledges he touched the car the same day Ebel killed Clements, but he denies prior knowledge of the assassination.
• Investigators also found DNA on a galvanized steel pipe bomb in the Cadillac trunk that Texas Rangers say is tied to a previously unknown third murder in the case, in Colorado Springs. Texas authorities Thursday said the finding was shared with El Paso County sheriff’s investigators, but Colorado Springs police say they are unaware of any such evidence. Agents searching the car also found a hit list of other Colorado officials.
• Investigators traced hundreds of calls and text messages made by four different phones used by Ebel and a half dozen 211 Crew members up until April 4, 2013.
Distractions
The Clements case, perhaps the highestprofile murder in Colorado history, has been mired in conflict between prosecutors and an El Paso County Sheriff ’s Office distracted by office politics, sexual scandals and possible criminal wrongdoing.
The sheriff at the time, Terry Maketa — along with two fellow top officials — on Wednesday was indicted by a grand jury on various corruption charges. He stepped down in late 2014.
Much of the evidence noted in the Texas report, developed by scores of Texas, Colorado and federal law enforcement officers, was either funneled to Colorado authorities or developed by the lead investigative agency, the El Paso County Sheriff ’s Office.
John San Agustin, who led the department’s Clements investigation for 19 months before he resigned in 2014, has criticized the decision by Elder, the current sheriff, to reduce the number of investigators on the case to just one deputy.
San Agustin also criticized District Attorney Dan May’s decision to pull his most experienced homicide prosecutor, Jeffrey Lindsey, from the case after Lindsey worked intensively on the case for several months.
San Agustin and Maketa said requests for criminal charges were repeatedly made to May’s office. May has denied that such requests were made.
San Agustin and a former undersheriff were the two other officials indicted Wednesday.
Elder and May have declined multiple requests for interviews because the Clements investigation is ongoing. Shortly after he took office in 2015, Elder said there were no suspects or persons of interest in the Clements homicide and promised a new top-to-bottom investigation of the case. Elder’s spokeswoman, Jacqueline Kirby, said only one sheriff ’s investigator remains on the case.
Too late?
It is possible prosecutors have already missed their opportunity to hold some of the conspirators accountable for lesser roles in the murder and escape. The Colorado statute of limitations for “accessory after the fact, murder” is three years, said Kris McDaniel-Miccio, a law professor at the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver.
“By not charging people who harbor or help killers, you send a message that it’s appropriate,” McDaniel-Miccio said. “If they are not held accountable, there is the fear that they could commit other crimes.”
Accessory after the fact, murder, is a felony offense with a penalty range of one to six years in prison, depending on the circumstances, McDaniel-Miccio said.
“If that person had a violent criminal history, I would ask for the maximum,” said McDaniel-Miccio, who was a New York state prosecutor in the Bronx.
Although possible co-conspirators deny prior knowledge of the murders of Leon and Clements, extensive phone records appear to corroborate allegations they had roles in assisting Ebel while he was fleeing Colorado.
According to the Texas Ranger’s report, it is clear that investigators were pursuing a possible conspiracy early on.
JR, the 211 Crew member who spoke to Holland on condition of immunity from prosecution, told the Ranger that Ebel was ordered to kill Clements to make amends to Davis, the gang’s founder and caller of the shots.
JR said Davis had been angered by criticism from Ebel of the way gang members were communicating with one another, the report says.
Ebel had been demoted from “soldier” to “prospect,” and told JR while both were still behind bars that Ebel would have to do some “wild (expletive) for Davis on the outside to redeem himself,” the report says.
Davis was touchy about such criticism after sloppy communications among gang members had resulted in racketeering convictions and life prison sentences against him and other top 211 Crew leaders in 2008.
Days after Ebel’s release on parole in January 2013, 211 Crew member Dennis Simonton, then an inmate at Sterling Correctional Facility, called his wife, Crystal, and gave her instructions to help Ebel, Crystal Simonton said in an interview at her home. He gave her Ebel’s phone number, she said. She was never told Ebel was planning to kill Clements, but she ran daily errands for him and drove him across the Denver metro area, she said.
She said she later refused to buy a gun for Ebel and that she was afraid he planned to kill her. Crystal told The Post that the 211 Crew founder had nothing to do with Clements’ killing.
Many phone calls
The Texas report details hundreds of phone calls between various 211 Crew members in the months after Ebel’s release from prison, either to or from him or made on his behalf.
Ebel called JR, who then asked Christopher Middleton to help find Ebel a place to stay on the night of March 18, 2013 — the day after Leon was killed and the day before Clements was killed, the report says. Ebel also called another 211 Crew gang member, whose name was redacted from the Texas report, and a prison associate then on parole in Texas named Rueben Sustaita, an admitted member of the Sureños street gang who was enrolled in a culinary arts school in Austin.
In a recent phone interview, Middleton acknowledged speaking with Ebel by phone. Middleton’s wife, Jacqueline, said he arranged for Ebel to stay at the home of a close friend, Thomas Schuler, who lived in Fountain. Schuler was referred to as Middleton’s brother in the Texas report.
Ebel arrived at Schuler’s house late on March 18. Schuler told authorities he had no idea why Ebel was staying at his home, documents indicate.
The next morning, Christopher and Jacqueline Middleton met Ebel in Fountain at Coke’s Diner, a 1950s-style restaurant with posters of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley and across the street from the Fountain Police Department. The owner of the restaurant confirmed the meeting.
Jacqueline recalled Ebel applying women’s makeup to cover gang tattoos on his hands while waiting for his meal of chicken-fried chicken smothered in pepper gravy, eggs, hash browns and toast. She later realized this was part of Ebel’s pizza-delivery disguise. Ebel talked about making his way to Costa Rica, where his mother lived.
Ebel had a wad of cash and tipped the waitress $100, Christopher Middleton said.
Christopher Middleton, a construction worker, said Ebel told him he was in Fountain to hang out. He said he didn’t know about any plans by Ebel to kill Clements.
Later that afternoon, Ebel showed up at the Colorado Springs home of Eric Truxal, an acquaintance of 211 Crew member Thomas “Ghost” Guolee’s.
Ebel was looking for “Ghost,” Truxal told The Post, but Guolee had just left with someone else. Ebel then used Truxal’s phone for about five minutes and left, he said.
“His aura put off something you don’t want to get,” said Truxal, who says he had no idea what Ebel was planning. “It was a scary emotion. You could just feel the evil pouring out of him. I never met someone who was going to kill someone.”
Ebel shot Clements at about 8:40 p.m. on March 19. Nearly an hour later, he called Middleton’s cellphone, but Middleton was snoring on the couch, Jacqueline Middleton said. When she looked at the phone and noticed the call was from Ebel, she said she decided not to answer.
Middleton called JR on March 20, according to the Texas records. When he found out he had missed a call, JR called Middleton’s phone and Lohr answered the call, the report says.
Lohr, who answered the phone by saying “Jimbo,” asked JR whether he had heard from Ebel recently. He also said Ebel was headed south after he had “done something.” Lohr then asked him whether he had heard about the Clements murder, the report says.
When JR said he had heard about the shooting, Lohr said, “I had him do that,” the report says. JR asked Lohr why he had had Ebel kill Clements.
“‘Don’t worry about it,’” JR quoted Lohr as allegedly saying. Lohr ordered JR to “look after” Ebel if he came his way, the report says.
In a subsequent phone call with Middleton, the informant said Middleton was “freaked out” and upset because he had been asked to find Ebel a place to stay without knowing what the gang member was going to do.
JR said Ebel called him on March 21, the day that Ebel shot Montague County Sheriff ’s Deputy James Boyd during a routine traffic stop in Texas. JR told Texas Rangers that he believed Ebel called him right after the shooting because a “freaked out” Ebel told him: “Come get me . ... (I’m) in a bind.”
Within minutes, Ebel died after being shot in the head during the shootout with Texas lawmen.
Parole violations
After the deaths of Leon, Clements and Ebel, law enforcement authorities began questioning 211 Crew members and associates about their involvement with Ebel and arrested some for associating with him and questioned them about the case. Among them: • Middleton served three years on a parole violation.
• Lohr was called a person of interest in the Clements case and was returned to prison on a weapons-possession violation.
• Guolee, also called a person of interest, was sent back to prison on a parole violation. Later, after his release, he was arrested Dec. 30 for allegedly attempting to kill Colorado Springs police during a burglary of a former prison official’s home.
• The informant JR went to jail for investigation of a parole violation. He was later released.
• An unnamed 211 Crew member was sent back to jail in Texas for a possible parole violation.
• Ebel’s girlfriend, Stevie Vigil, was not a 211 Crew member, but she did serve a federal prison term for buying him the murder weapon. She is now on parole.