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Meth Use to Blame for Surge in Shootings
December 11, 2005
Meth use to blame for surge in shootings
Sunday, December 11, 2005
By EMILY MORRIS
The Daily Sentinel
The recent outbreak of violent crime in Mesa County has not
taken law enforcement officials by surprise. Rather, they
view it as yet another side effect of methamphetamine use.
“I think this community has been living on borrowed time
for the last year or two,” Mesa County District Attorney
Pete Hautzinger said. “There hadn’t been much in the way of
violent crime until recently. The reason is purely nothing
but methamphetamine.
“All the recent cases are somewhat interconnected. There
are actors who are common to all of these cases, and all
are active in our meth subculture.”
Recent criminal statistics report a 4.76 percent decrease
in violent crime within Grand Junction city limits from
January through September, but Hautzinger said overall
crime numbers for the county are higher than ever before.
The previous record for felony filings in one year in Mesa
County was 1,899. As of November there were more than 2,040
cases filed for 2005.
The recent outbreak seems to have begun with an unsolved
shootout in the 400 block of Chipeta Avenue on Oct. 14, in
which 17 shell casings were found in the street.
The next day, Lindsay Little was shot in the face in the
1000 block of Belford Avenue. Two weeks later, he was found
dead in his mother’s home after he contracted pneumonia, a
complication from his being on a hospital ventilator after
the shooting, according to the coroner’s report.
The three people arrested for Little’s apparently random
murder were “collecting drug debts,” when they saw Little
and decided to rob him, according to arrest affidavits.
The suspects, Eric Snyder, 22, Betrina Aguayo, 24, and Gary
Ortiz, 19, are charged with first-degree murder, felony
murder, first-degree assault and attempted aggravated
robbery.
Ten days after Little was shot, 20-year-old Christopher
Wieberg allegedly walked into an apartment and fatally shot
Thomas Martinez in the head over a $600 drug debt,
according to a confidential informant cited in Wieberg’s
arrest affidavit. Martinez himself was facing up to six
years in prison after he pleaded guilty to selling
methamphetamine to an undercover police officer. He was
murdered before his sentencing.
Two weeks later, on Nov. 6, someone drove through Grand
Rivers Mobile Home Park, 2925 North Ave., and shot at No.
6. There were no arrests, with the exception of the victim,
Samuel Frost, 30, for obstructing the investigation. Frost
has two past drug charges.
That same day, Manuel Meastas, a Grand Junction man, was
shot when he got out of his car and faced deputies with a
shotgun in his hands on a U.S. Forest Service Road in San
Juan County. San Juan County Sheriff’s Department deputies
exchanged gunfire with him during a 27-mile high-speed
chase.
Meastas’ parents said he was having mental-health problems.
Court records do not mention methamphetamine use.
Six days later, there was another drive-by shooting at the
Grand Rivers Mobile Home Park. There have been no arrests
in that incident.
Currently dominating local headlines is the attempted
murder of James Finnegan on Nov. 23.
Finnegan told authorities Samuel Lincoln, 24, and Charles
Pruitt, 39, drove him to the desert north of Grand Junction
and shot him six times — once in the face, twice in the
back, once in the side, once in the wrist and once in the
leg— before leaving him to die.
A week later, Samuel Lincoln allegedly fired shots at a
Sheriff’s Department patrol car as deputies pursued him.
A woman charged as an accessory in the attempted murder of
Finnegan, Ashley King, 23, was arrested in October for
alleged methamphetamine possession after she drove into a
ditch.
Lincoln, Pruitt, King and Finnegan have all been accused of
methamphetamine use in the past.
Meth common denominator
“It (methamphetamine) is — hands down — the worst drug I
have ever encountered in my career,” said Hautzinger, who
has been a prosecutor for 18 years.
Sheriff’s Department investigator Steve King, who is
heading up the investigation into the attempted murder of
Finnegan, attributes the perceived rise in crime to
methamphetamine as well.
“I am trying to think back to the last violent crime I
dealt with that didn’t have some meth angle, and I’m
thinking Blagg (a murder investigation spanning from
November 2001 to June 2002),” King said. “It was there, but
I think it was more sporadic. Since Blagg, it has been
consistent.”
Methamphetamine use is everyone’s concern, King said.
Eighty-two percent of inmates in the Colorado Department of
Corrections require substance-abuse treatment, according to
the office of Gov. Bill Owens.
Just the use of methamphetamine can lead to crime, Mesa
County Sheriff Stan Hilkey said.
“Meth causes the paranoia, violence, feeling of being
bulletproof,” Hilkey said.
Investigators believe Samuel Lincoln, one of the suspects
in the Finnegan case, is being fueled by a methamphetamine
binge.
Any number of crimes can be tied to methamphetamine use,
King said.
“Stealing property, writing bad checks, construction site
thefts — all because they need more money,” King said. “Sex
crimes, including crimes against children because of the
highly sexualized nature of meth. Go to trial and listen:
People say they were under the influence of meth at the
time. Or users can’t take care of their children and put
them in a position to be abused by a pedophile. It’s
disgusting.”
One of the best resources for investigators is the
Narcotics Task Force, because its members continually deal
with methamphetamine users, King said.
Round up the usual suspects
In the recent crimes, some of the names have appeared in
arrest affidavits and newspaper police blotter items more
than once.
“In this latest spurt — and we’ve had them before — is a
great view of the intertwined network of the meth
subculture,” Hilkey said. “These people are willing to
harbor each other, lie for each other, break the law for
each other and then turn right around and be their enemy.”
During the course of the investigation into Mesa County’s
latest homicide, Martinez’s murder, law enforcement
arrested 14 other people, Hilkey said.
“We have had other homicides, obviously, but this one
involved this subculture of people that are on
methamphetamine,” Hilkey said. “They are a very transient
crowd, and they go from one crime to the next to the next.
As a result, when you are out trying to find them, it is
not difficult to run across other people who are violating
the law.”
“There are common actors in all these different cases,”
Hautzinger said. “More now than I remember having seen in
my career before is how today’s victims can be tomorrow’s
defendants.”
Names and crimes may be familiar, but investigations become
much more complicated, King said.
“People have different reasons for not telling the truth,”
King said. “For example, the drive-by. When I got there, my
victim was on his way to jail for interfering with
deputies.”
Frost was arrested when authorities arrived to question him
and he was “uncooperative, obstructing the investigation
and resisted arrest,” Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman
Susan McBurney said.
Finnegan was arrested in May for methamphetamine
possession. The investigation into his attempted murder has
yielded seven arrests so far, and more are pending,
according to the Sheriff’s Department.
“Everybody in our two departments are familiar with this
crowd. None of the names are unusual or new,” Hilkey said.
Hilkey said when law enforcement attends briefings, it is
interesting to hear comments from around the room as photos
and names are presented.
“Everyone is saying things like: I know where he lives;
he’s associated with so and so; she’s dating him ... These
are known people.”
The closed culture is something investigators have to take
into account.
“You have to look at what is motivating people to cooperate
or not cooperate,” King said. “Or why witnesses make
themselves scarce.”
Anyone who has information related to any crime is asked to
call the anonymous Crime Stoppers tip line at 241-STOP or
(800) 221-STOP. Crime Stoppers will pay up to $1,000 for
information leading to an arrest.
In an effort to persuade people to come forward with
information about Lincoln’s whereabouts, the Sheriff’s
Department upped the ante and is offering a $5,000 reward
for information that directly leads to Lincoln’s arrest.
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