Colorado Slaying May Be Linked to Robberies in Wyoming, Utah

A police car stands in front of the court of Arapahoe county in Centennial near Denver on July 13, 2015. (Chris Melzer/picture alliance via Getty Images)

DENVER—Attackers who killed a man in Colorado may have held up a store in Wyoming and a bank in Utah later the same day, authorities said.

The rampage began in Denver, early Friday, Feb. 22, when a man was shot multiple times, and the attackers stole his black 2015 Cadillac sedan, police said.

The victim was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His name wasn’t released.

Two hours later, a black Cadillac was used in an armed robbery at a convenience store in Cheyenne, Wyoming, 100 miles north. Cheyenne police said two men robbed the store, and one of them fired a handgun twice. No one was injured.

The men took cash and merchandise and returned to the Cadillac, where a woman was waiting, police said.

Six hours after the Cheyenne robbery, the same men robbed a Wells Fargo bank in Park City, Utah, 440 miles west of Cheyenne, authorities said. One of the men was armed with a handgun, the Summit County, Utah, Sheriff’s Department said.

Deputies said the men drove away in a black Cadillac with the same Colorado license plate as the car stolen in Denver, and a woman may have been a passenger.

Authorities said they did not know what direction the car headed.

The FBI was assisting with the investigation.

Murders And Violent Crimes

The number of murders and violent crimes committed in the United States dropped slightly in 2017, according to new crime statistics released in September 2018.

“Crime declined nationwide last year, consistent with our earlier analyses of 2017 data in the nation’s 30 largest cities,” Ames Grawert, senior counsel for the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, told the Washington Times.

“That’s the good news. The bad news is that even while crime is falling, the number of Americans incarcerated remains near-record highs. Now is the time to address the problem.”

The number of cases of manslaughter and murder dropped 0.7 percent in 2017 from the prior year, the report said.

In Pennsylvania, in 2017, the “violent crime rate was lower than the national rate last year at 313.3 per 100,000 residents. That includes 739 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters. The murder rate in Pennsylvania was 5.8 per 100,000 people, higher than the national rate of 5.3,” Patch.com reported.

Two Pennsylvania cities were listed as “Murder Capitals of America” in 2018.

Chester in Delaware County and Harrisburg, the state capitals, were named as such, Patch.com reported, citing website NeighborhoodScout.

Chester came in second in the United States after notorious East St. Louis, Illinois. In Chester, a city of 34,000, there were 23 murders in 2016, which has the latest data. In Harrisburg, which has 49,000 residents, there were 13 murders in 2016.