PODCAST · society
Colored Red
by Laura Porritt
A look into the lesser known murders and true crime of Colorado. Learn about dark tales from Colorado and the murderous history of the Mile High City. Contact the host at: [email protected] and find the show on Facebook or Instagram @coloredredpodcast to see photos associated with each case.
Episodes
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Historical Murders: The Murder of Signe Carlzen
On August 11, 1912, 32 year old SIgne Carlzen finished up teaching a music lesson in the Montclair neighborhood of Denver. At around 8PM she walked towards the streetcar line to take it back to her parent's home where she lived. At 9AM the next day, a farmer discovered her axed and mutilated body...
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The Murder of Susan Hernandez
On July 28, 2015, Susan Hernandez's daughter Katrina cannot reach her mom on the phone, and she gets a gut feeling that something is wrong. She drives over to her mom's house and finds a horrific scene, her mother is on fire in the basement. Detectives unravel a callous and obvious plot that...
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Historical Murders: The Troubled Mrs Emily Powell
On December 9, 1919, a butler for a Denver Apartment-Hotel discovered 38 year old Emily Powell despondent in a blood splattered room, her 10 year old daughter Jacqueline had been dead on the bed for hours. In their investigation, police find peculiar notes left behind by Emily that shed light on...
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1975 Colorado Springs Killing Spree
In the early morning hours of July 1st, 1975, a woman was found dead on the porch steps of a trailer in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A blood trail 50 yards long marked the area where she crawled to the steps, and bloody marks on the door marked her futile attempts to ring the bell before dying.…
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Historical Murders: The Grand Lake Spider House
Grand Lake, CO sits nestled next to the largest and deepest lake in Colorado. It's full of rich log cabin architecture and charming shops and restaurants, but it has a surprisingly dark past. One of the more amazing houses in the area is nearly 150 years old and is called The Spider House, due to...
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The Colorado "Mad Bomber"
In 1992, Grand Junction was rocked with three horrifying explosions. Pipe bombs were being planted in random places around the city and targeting no one in particular. Anyone could be the next victim by simply getting into their car or walking in the wrong place. The mystery seemed to life as...
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Historical Murders: Murder at the Circus
On August 27, 1958, 11 year old Lester Gordon Brown Jr headed alone to the circus that was in town and being exhibited at the Denver Coliseum. Lester was particularly interested in elephants and he caught the eye of a 27 year old animal trainer named Walter J Hammil. Hammil offered him a ride on…
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The Smaldone Family
This episode is a continuation of the earlier historical episode about the murder of Joe Roma. Hear about the Smaldone family, leaders of the Denver, CO mob for many decades. The two brothers Clyde and Eugene "Checkers" were undisputed family leaders and were at the front of many bizarre and…
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Historical Murders: The Prohibition Era Mafia and Murder of Joe Roma
Bitter rivalry between the mafia controlled North and South territories of Colorado came to a breaking point in the deadliest 15 years of mafia crime in Colorado's history. The era between 1919 and 1933 was Prohibition Era and bootlegging took off, controlled by Colorado's warring mafia gangs.…
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Historical Murders: The Soap Kettle Murders
On December 15, 1917, in a rural farmhouse around 4 miles from Olathe, Colorado, a young boy's body was boiled in lye to make a human soap. His father, too, would supposedly suffer the same fate. The woman at the center of the murders is Mrs. Mary Bush, a spiteful woman who accused her grandson,...
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Historical Murders: The Fate of the Fleagle Gang
On May 23, 1928, four masked robbers entered a bank in Lamar, Colorado and stole $200,000 in cash and gold bonds. In the process they shot the owner of the bank, Amos Parrish and and his son John Parrish. They took two hostages as well and drove off with guns blazing in a high speed chase with…
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The Kidnapping and Murder of Adolph Coors
On the morning of February 9, 1960, Adolph "Ad" Coors drove his car to his family's business, the Coors Brewery in Golden, Colorado. Only a couple of hours later his car was found running with the doors open on the Turkey Creek Bridge. Ad Coors was nowhere to be found. A ransom note arrived the...
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Historical Murders: The Schenk Family Massacre
On December 21, 1919, a quiet farm house in Weld County, Colorado was much quieter than usual. A family member discovered the entire family of 6 shot to death within the home, including 4 children under the age of 10. An investigation would reveal bad blood between the family patriarch Adam…
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Colorado's "Doctor" Death
In 2004, ER doctors were stumped. Two people had now been admitted to the ER with severe complications from treatments delivered by a naturopathic "doctor" named Brian O'Connell. One of the patients had died. When they look into Brian O'Connell's past, they discover he has a long history of…
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The Slide-Rock Bolter
In this episode I change gears to talk about a deadly and fearsome mythological creature unique to Colorado, the Slide Rock Bolter. Miners and mountain folk, forever enraged by tourists romping into their towns, conceived this "cryptid" that swings down from high cliffs to gobble up unknowing...
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The Murder of Heather Dawn Church
On September 17, 1991, thirteen year old Heather Dawn Church disappeared with few clues from her home in the distanced and quiet neighborhood of Black Forest near Colorado Springs. For years her case sat in mystery, as if she simply stepped out of the front door and vanished. A dedicated...
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The Murder of Paige Birgfeld
34 year old Paige Birgfeld went missing on Thursday, June 28, 2007. She left behind three children, a large home and several tumultuous relationships. Amongst Paige's scattered possessions along a highway were clues to a secret life that Paige lived to pay the bills. Her burned out car, her…
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Historical Murders: A Look at Victor, CO
Brawls, riots, shootings and other drunken buffoonery are only a small part of this once large and bustling town of the Rocky Mountains. Victor, CO once boasted over 15 saloons and theaters and was home to around 20,000 people in its prime. The town and surrounding mountains are still dotted with...
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The Missing Men of Silver Plume
In 1987, Tom Young went missing after closing down his bookstore in Silver Plume, Colorado and walking off into the wilderness with his dog. Months later, in 1988, Keith Reinhard would rent the same shop space for his antique store and become obsessed with the mystery of what happened to Tom…
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Historical Murders: Brief History of the KKK in Colorado
The 1920's saw the takeover of Colorado by the KKK, from politics to local businesses, they had their stranglehold in the state. Colorado was also brought into the 20th Century by a barbaric lynching of a 16 year old boy named Preston Porter Jr. Learn about the brief history of the KKK in…
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The Murder of Kimberly Greene Medina
On October 29, 1996, Kimberly Greene Medina disappeared without a trace. Her husband didn't report her missing until two days later and claimed she went missing while walking to a local convenience store to buy cigarettes. The truly realities of what Michael Medina was capable of wouldn't be...
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Historical Murders: The Murder in Room 8
On January 23, 1920, shots could be heard ringing out from the Waldorf Hotel in Denver, Colorado. When police and journalists arrived they found a peculiar scene and uncovered a love triangle that involved a sick man, a woman, and an estranged husband who had been stalking his wife. Curiously…
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The 1993 Chuck E. Cheese Massacre
On December 14, 1993, a man hid inside a men's bathroom inside a Chuck E. Cheese in Aurora, CO and came out after closing duties began. He shot everyone working in the restaurant and made off with around $1500, some keychains and some game tokens. 4 employees were killed and one survived the...
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Historical Murders: The Great Mint Robbery of 1922
On a cold December morning in Denver, CO, 1922, a Buick touring car pulled up behind an armored car in front of the Denver Mint. Four gunmen emerged from the Buick and demanded the money that was being loaded into the armored car. One of the Mint guards, a veteran of the police force, was killed...
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The Murder of Tina Tournai (Sandoval)
On October 19, 1995 in Greeley, CO, Tina Sandoval left work to have a reluctant meeting with her estranged husband, John Sandoval, and retrieve money for an IRS debt they incurred while together. Tina was never heard from again. It would take over two decades for detectives to finally piece...
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BONUS Episode: The Chinese Race Riots of 1880
In this special bonus episode I'll discuss a dark time in Denver's history that isn't well known. All across America in the last decades of the 19th Century, racial tensions flared due to labor disputes and immigration. Everyone wanted a piece of the booming Denver economy and this caused a clash...
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Historical Murders: The House of a Thousand Candles
The House of a Thousand Candles sits at 1410 High Street in Denver Colorado and has been a hotbed of strange activity, some paranormal, and some criminal. The house was the inspiration for the book, The House of a Thousand Candles, written by Meredith Nicholson, who lived in the home for a number...
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The Disappearance of Nonnie Dotson
On November 19, 2006, Nonnie Dotson walked to run some errands near Chatfield Reservoir in Littleton, CO. She was never seen or heard from again. Nonnie was an active duty Air Force officer and due to be released from the military the following May. The ensuing investigation would question…
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Historical Murders: The Babies in the Chest
On a warm April day in 1943, an apartment manager was searching an apartment building in Denver, CO for the source of a bad odor. He eventually found the source in the form of a painted wooden hope chest. What he found in the chest would launch an investigation into a tenant in the building named...
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The Murder of Bruce Dodson
On the morning of October 15, 1995 a man at a hunting site camp on the Uncompahgre Plateau in Colorado heard a woman hysterically screaming for help. He ran to the scene to find 48 year old Bruce Dodson lying on the ground and apparently dead. He had been shot. His wife Janice was screaming and...
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Historical Murders: The Unsolved Axe Murders
In 1911 a serial killer stalked the United States by train. He would sneak into a home through a window and kill entire families with the blunt end of an axe he found in or near their home. What he did in addition to murder in the homes was even more peculiar and included destroying their heads...
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The Murder of Randy Baker
Randy Baker had a rough start to his year in 2017. He had heart surgery, his wife left him, and he had fallen asleep at the wheel a grand total of 5 times. But the real surprise came when Randy was found dead on August 16, 2017 by his wife Kelly. She seemed upset and so did his sister, Carol, and...
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Historical Murders: To Sleep Forever
Russel Gulch, CO, 1904. Azel Galbraith was never a satisfied man. He and his family lived in a quiet mining town in Colorado at the turn of the 20th Century and enjoyed the small luxuries of his salary as a business manager for a local mine. But soon his attention moved to a mistress he kept in...
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The McCormick Murder Farm
For decades rumors persisted about a farm on the eastern plains of Colorado where transients and farm workers would head to for work and never be seen again. This farm was owned by Tom McCormick and run by him, his two sons Michael and John and the dozens of transient farm hands they recruited…
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Historical Murders: The Sand Creek Massacre
On November 29, 1864, First Colorado Calvary troops of the Colorado Territory led by Colonel John Chivington, a preacher from Ohio with no war experience, attacked a camp of peace seeking indigenous tribes by Sand Creek. Nearly 200 members of the tribes were killed, mostly elderly men, women, and...
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The "Clockwork Orange Murder" of Jacine Gielinski
Jacine Gielinski was on her way to visit her boyfriend on April 29, 1997 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Little did she know she was being stalked by two men in another car after they saw her stopped at a stoplight. As she exited her car to enter her boyfriend's apartment complex, the two men...
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Historical Murders: The Black Hand of Colorado
Was the Black Hand, otherwise known as the Italian mafia, a real organized crime gang or a myth in the early 1900s? Regardless of what you might think, the hysteria and murders stemming from fear and intimidation under the name of the Black Hand were real and often gruesome. In this episode I'll...
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The Devil's Foothold: The Murder of Jennifer and Abby Blagg
The Blagg family was described as a picture perfect family. They were born-again Christians and active in their community. But on November 13, 2001, Michael Blagg calls 911 from his home in Grand Junction, Colorado to report his wife and daughter missing. There's a massive pool of blood on his...
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Historical Murders: The 100 Year Old Murder Confession
In 1986, a man remodeling his home in Fountain, CO comes across a murder confession written in pencil on the back of a piece of wood built into the home. Who wrote the confession and who was murdered? I'll go over this story as well as some other strange occurrences from Fountain, CO.
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The Mysterious Death of Randy Wilson
On June 14, 2010 Kiowa High School teacher Randy Wilson was found dead by his car in a field at the intersection of two rural county roads. He had his hands tied behind his back, a bag over his head and his own belt around his neck. Clues would be few and far between in the case until a man...
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A Brief History of Colorado State Penitentiary
In this episode I'll go over some of the more notable events of the Colorado State Penitentiary leading up to the 1970's. I'll cover the execution methods including one odd execution method that was only ever used in Colorado. Also hear about some of the weirder stories of inmates buried at...
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The Unsolved Murder of Peggy Hettrick and Railroading of Tim Masters
On Februrary 11, 1987, 15-year-old Tim Masters walked through the field behind his house on the way to the school bus stop in Fort Collins, Colorado. There he discovered the body of Peggy Hettrick who was lying face up with her shirt pulled up and her pants pulled down around her knees. She had...
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Historical Murders: The Unsolved Murder of Lois Coursey
It's June 19, 1957 and Nora "Lois" Coursey has just dropped off her 11 year old daughter at a birthday party in Englewood, CO. A woman at the party notes she forgot to pick up party napkins and Lois offers to go run an errand for the them. She walks out into her car and drives off, never to be…
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The Man Who Told Everybody, Richard Paul White
Danyall White couldn't believe what she was seeing when she turned on the news to see helicopters flying over her brother's home in the Park Hill neighborhood of Denver, Colorado in 2003. The reporter said that they were looking for bodies. It would turn out that a lot of people had heard that...
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Historical Murders: The Palace Theatre and the Murder of Effie Moore
Denver in the 1880's was rough and full of crime, and no area was more full of crime than the area now known as Lodo (Lower Downtown). Over 60 saloons were in operation but none was more famous than the Palace Theatre, who many locals described as a "slaughterhouse" due to the high volume of...
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Colorado Bluebeard: Harold Henthorn
Toni Henthorn and her husband Harold Henthorn were enjoying a weekend getaway to celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary in Rocky Mountain National Park. All was going well and the couple took lots of pictures, until later that night Harold called 911 to report his wife had fallen off of a cliff...
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Historical Murders: Prisoner 15495, The Story of Farice King
On November 22, 1928, Eddie Ives was cornered under a bed in a local party house. He shot wildly from under the bed, killing one officer and wounding another officer named Bob Evans in addition to the owner of the home. As Bob Evans recovered in Denver General, a nurse named Farice King…
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The Murder of Spider Sabich
Spider Sabich (Vladimir Peter Sabich Jr) was a professional skier at the top of his game in the early 1970's. He raced in the Olympics as well as the World Cup and owned a chalet in beautiful Aspen, Colorado. He thought he had everything he could have ever wanted until he met Claudine Longet, a...
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Historical Murders: The Denver Dresden Doll
It's 1911 and Gertrude Gibson Patterson valued the finer things in life, as evidenced by her taste in designer wardrobes and her secret "benefactor" in the form of a man who was old enough to be her grandfather. She also valued attention from men more her age, which is why she married a secret...
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The Murder of Kenia Monge
On April 1, 2011 Kenia Monge vanished from a club in Lower Downtown Denver (Lodo). A bizarre text message is found on her phone by her stepdad and police soon zero in on a strange man named Travis Forbes, who has a history of assault on women. As police try to figure out what he did with Kenia,...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
A look into the lesser known murders and true crime of Colorado. Learn about dark tales from Colorado and the murderous history of the Mile High City. Contact the host at: [email protected] and find the show on Facebook or Instagram @coloredredpodcast to see photos associated with each case.
HOSTED BY
Laura Porritt
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Colored Red have?
Colored Red currently has 76 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Colored Red about?
A look into the lesser known murders and true crime of Colorado. Learn about dark tales from Colorado and the murderous history of the Mile High City. Contact the host at: [email protected] and find the show on Facebook or Instagram @coloredredpodcast to see photos associated with each...
How often does Colored Red release new episodes?
Colored Red has 76 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Colored Red?
You can listen to Colored Red on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Colored Red?
Colored Red is created and hosted by Laura Porritt.
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