The Lisl Auman Story
Teresa/Colorado
interested in discussing. The Denver Post is running a three part
series on the story. Here's a quick synopsis of the day's events:
Teresa
LISL AUMAN
Lisl Auman said she just wanted to get her stuff back. So on Nov. 12, 1997,
she, a friend from high school and three men headed to the lodge where she
and her boyfriend lived in Buffalo Creek. The trip led to a high-speed
police chase to a Denver apartment building, where Denver police officer
Bruce VanderJagt was shot and killed by one of the men.
Auman, who was in police custody when the officer was slain, was convicted
of felony murder and imprisoned for life without parole.
The case remains controversial. The application of the felony murder statute
to Auman's circumstances is unique in Colorado and rare nationally. Three
police officers changed their accounts of the shooting. And one juror says
she regrets buckling to pressure to convict.
The prosecution says Auman committed a crime and rightly paid the price for
an officer's death.
Within weeks, Auman is expected to appeal her conviction.
In anticipation of that, and now that emotions have eased for many, this
three-part series raises new issues, unearths details and reviews the
unusual qualities of the case.
It is the product of five months of reviews of police reports, videotapes
and trial transcripts, and interviews with the attorneys, jurors and the
defendant.
Sunday: The break-in and chase leading to the surrender of Lisl Auman and
death of office Bruce VanderJagt.
Monday: The investigation, in which Auman tells police enough for them to
prosecute.
Tuesday: The trial and conviction of Auman for felony murder.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday's article:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/lisl0430.htm
Lisl Auman: Hostage or accomplice?
By Diane Carman
Denver Post Staff Writer
April 30 - Police cars blocked the streets, lights flashing, radio chatter
blasting from open car doors.
Officers crouched behind shrubbery. SWAT team members wearing protective
vests and helmets surrounded the Monaco Parkway Apartments complex, some
using their vehicles for cover. Their weapons were drawn.
A news helicopter hovered over the building, its camera sweeping the scene.
The noise was deafening.
It was just before 3 p.m., and 17-year-old Travis Ford was walking home from
school near Monaco and Hampden when an officer shouted at him.
"Get the f--- down!"
Ford dropped to the ground behind a police car.
Policemen were running, peering around corners, yelling to one another, but
the helicopter, the radio chatter, the noise swallowed their voices.
Then the sound of gunshots, an unmistakable staccato, pierced the din.
"Officer down! Officer down!"
"We need an ambulance. Code 10."
"Officer down!"
"We need help over here. It's not looking good."
A hail of gunfire followed, the sound ripping through the air, pounding and
ricocheting through the hallways.
Barbara Happel was inside her neighboring Monaco Parkway apartment when
bullets burst through the dining room wall. She ran to the living room,
threw herself to the floor and called 911.
The scream of sirens followed. Ambulances and fire trucks careened down the
street.
SWAT team members Mark Haney and Andy Ramirez dragged Officer Bruce
VanderJagt out of the hallway, trailing his blood across the snow. Officers
scooped his body onto a stretcher and loaded him into an ambulance. Bullets
had torn through the right side of his head, his chest, his arms, his legs.
Paramedics squeezed air into his lungs with a ventilator bag, pumped his
chest. They raced to Denver General Hospital, alerting trauma surgeons on
the way.
The 47-year-old VanderJagt never moved, never spoke, never drew another
breath.
In the back of a police car, 21-year-old Lisl Auman watched the tumult.
Handcuffed, searched for weapons, belted into the seat and locked into
cruiser No. A6979, she heard the gunfire, saw the frantic scene all around
her.
Finally, the shooting stopped.
Sgt. Calvin Hemphill strode toward the police car and looked hard into her
face.
"This is murder one, and you're going down," he said.
"You're going down." As if it were yesterday
Two and a half years later, Auman recalls Nov. 12, 1997, as if it were
yesterday.
She looks much the same as in her police mug shot. Her blond hair is a
little longer. She has gained a little weight.
She idly, self-consciously pulls at her prison suit as she talks. She's 24
now, living at the Colorado Women's Correctional Facility, doing life
without possibility of parole.
She was convicted of felony murder on July 17, 1998. Her appeal is set to
begin this spring.
The controversy over Auman's conviction has never waned.
Her defenders say she was wrongly convicted in a rage-inspired campaign to
avenge the death of a police officer. In their view, Auman was a hostage
caught up in a maelstrom of terror created by a drug-crazed, violent
lunatic. They say lies, police intimidation and grotesque manipulation of
public opinion were used to extract a conviction from the jury.
Her accusers say she was part of the criminal subculture and the mastermind
behind the plot to burglarize and terrorize her former boyfriend, which
started the chain of events that led to VanderJagt's murder, for which she
must bear legal responsibility.
Legal experts continue to debate the troubling questions of the case. At the
very least, some say, her conviction for a crime that was committed while
she was in police custody breaks new legal ground, sending a chilling
message about the increasingly long arm of the law.
The typical felony murder conviction goes like this:
A couple of crooks - let's call them Bonnie and Clyde - decide to hold up a
liquor store, a bank, a 7-Eleven. Something goes wrong, somebody panics.
Clyde shoots and kills a clerk.
It doesn't matter that Bonnie never fired her revolver, never meant to kill.
Under the law, she still is liable for the clerk's death.
Colorado law states, "The purpose of the felony murder statute is to hold a
participating robber accountable for a non-participant's death, even though
unintended, as long as death is caused by an act committed in the course of
or in furtherance of the robbery, or in the course of immediate flight
therefrom." Lisl Auman was convicted under the felony murder statute. It was
anything but typical.
No one else has been convicted in Colorado of felony murder for a killing
that occurred while the suspect was in police custody.
Though not unique in U.S. history, it's rare.
University of Denver criminal law professor Jeffrey Hartje said the closest
thing to recent relevant case law is in the area of conspiracy.
Courts have generally found that "your obligation as a conspirator ends once
you get caught, especially with regard to crimes that go beyond the
contemplation of the original conspiracy," he said. District Attorney Bill
Ritter disagrees.
"She wasn't at the margin with respect to involvement in felony murder," he
said. "Felony murder is a powerful statute." Some say too powerful.
"Conspiracy and felony murder are the favored children in the prosecutor's
nursery," Hartje said. District attorneys love them because "their
responsibility as prosecutors is significantly diminished." Ordinarily, if
you're trying to prove murder, you have to demonstrate beyond reasonable
doubt that the mental state of the defendant is such that he intended to
kill, Hartje explained.
"With felony murder and conspiracy, you don't have to show intention, making
a conviction much easier."
The statutes are "draconian," he said, the penalties are severe, and in many
cases, circumstantial evidence and public outrage have been enough to
convict.
But that is an oversimplification, Ritter said. To understand Lisl Auman's
conviction, he said, you must go back to Nov. 11, 1997. The story began that
night.
"We were drinking sake," Auman recalls.
A few days before, Auman had left her rented room in the old Hudson Hotel
lodge at Buffalo Creek. She was fed up with her boyfriend, Shawn Cheever.
"I felt like he was cheating on me, whatever, and I was just like, you know,
I don't like this. It doesn't feel right . . .
"I remember one weekend I went back home to my mom and I was telling her
about Shawn, how I didn't trust him and I felt like he was playing games
with me. She said, "Let's go up there and get your stuff."
"And I said, "Well, I don't know' and I thought about it and I guess I just
didn't want to bring my mom into that." But soon after that conversation,
Auman knew she had to get out of Buffalo Creek.
She packed a few days' worth of clothes and her dog and went to her dad's
house in Denver. She spent one or two nights there, then called her best
friend from high school, Demetria Soriano.
Auman told Soriano she wanted to leave Cheever, and Soriano invited her to
move in with her.
Soriano lived with her boyfriend, Dion Gerze, in an apartment at Monaco and
Hampden in Denver. But the relationship was ending, and the two women saw it
as an opportunity to start over.
"We bonded," Auman said. "She's like, "Dion's a real jerk and he's moving
out soon.' " Auman had been renting a room at the lodge but had spent
considerable time in Cheever's room. She said she wanted to retrieve a
comforter, the rest of her clothes, her mandolin, jewelry, dog food, a
camcorder, a snowboard.
"I told her I needed to go back and get my stuff, but my plates were expired
on my car. . . . I needed help and Deme was like, "Well, I'll help you,' and
I knew it was going to take more than one car.
"And so I think Dion was somewhere in on the conversation. I remember he set
up the plan that his friend was going to help us with his car to move my
stuff." Dion's friend, Matthaeus Jaehnig, came to the apartment briefly that
night. They agreed to drive to the lodge the next day when Cheever would be
at work.
Sometime after noon on Nov. 12, the group met at Soriano's apartment. Auman
rode with Jaehnig in his red Trans Am, and Soriano, Gerze and another friend
of Jaehnig's named Steven Duprey piled into Soriano's black Chevy for the
trip to Buffalo Creek.
There, two residents, Carrie and Sabrina Matthews, watched from a window as
Auman and Soriano got out of the cars and went to Auman's room. Gerze and
Duprey went to Cheever's room, carrying bolt cutters. Jaehnig stayed in the
driveway in the parked Trans Am.
Another resident of the lodge, Mary Lucas, said Auman stopped by her room
and said hello.
Lucas recalled asking her, "What are you doing here?"
She said Auman didn't reply. She simply walked down the hall toward her
room.
Lucas told police that Cheever had placed a padlock on his door because he
"didn't trust Lisl." She watched Soriano and Auman carry clothes and other
items from Auman's room and load them into the cars.
At one point, she said, Auman carried a white basket containing a video
recorder and tripod down to the Trans Am. Auman sat in the passenger seat
and tried to put the basket on her lap. Unable to do so, she got out of the
car, put the basket on the floor on the front passenger side, and got back
into the car with her feet straddling the basket.
That detail would prove important later in the trial.
Daniel Mattson told police he was lifting weights in his room at the lodge
when he heard the cars approach outside. Moments later, he stepped into the
hall and saw a man with a handlebar mustache carrying a speaker from
Cheever's room. He went back into his room, looked out the window and saw
another guy putting bolt cutters into the Trans Am.
Mattson said he was "convinced they were ripping off Shawn." He went
downstairs, walked outside the lodge, and approached the black car.
"Do you mind if I write down your plates?"
One of the men responded that he didn't want him recording the license
numbers, but Mattson stood there with paper and pen and wrote "black car,
EHZ8886" and "red temporary, 25358R."
Jefferson County sheriff's Deputy Phil Pedigo was having lunch with fellow
Deputy Michael Sensano at the Conifer Plaza Subway when the call came in at
2:33 p.m. - a burglary in progress.
Two cars were identified as suspect vehicles, a black Chevy and a red Trans
Am with temporary plates.
Sensano was on his way to the old Hudson Hotel when he radioed that he
thought he saw the red Trans Am around Kennedy Gulch.
Pedigo turned around and followed the car. He noticed that the occupants
were watching him in their mirrors.
He requested backup and said he'd try to stop the Trans Am when it emerged
from the canyon, where it would be safer. Deputy Ed Pearson joined the
pursuit near Parmalee Gulch.
The officers followed the Trans Am, driving about 40 mph on the narrow road
through Aspen Park. Just north of Turkey Creek, they hit the overhead
lights, signaling the driver to pull over.
Auman later told police that Jaehnig looked at the flashing lights and told
her, "I'm not stopping."
"The chase started at that point," Pedigo told Denver police in a videotaped
interview. It was 2:46 p.m. "We hit 85 to 90 real quick." "We were going
very fast, very fast," Auman said.
Pedigo, whose patrol car was a Chevy Blazer, had trouble keeping up with the
Trans Am.
"He's changing lanes around other cars . . . then a vehicle moved over and
he took off like a shot. He was going 100 mph. . . . That's as fast as the
Blazer will go."
The chase continued through the heavy afternoon traffic on U.S. 285 past
Kipling, Wadsworth and Santa Fe.
"A few different times I wanted to get out of the car," Auman said. "I asked
him why he wouldn't pull over. He just kept on going." Pedigo lost sight of
the Trans Am just east of Interstate 25.
"Traffic was at a dead stop . . . I lost him," Pedigo said. "But then
someone at the intersection was pointing" into the neighborhood to the north
of Hampden at Dahlia.
Pedigo and Pearson cruised the neighborhood with their overhead lights off,
seeking the Trans Am.
"I was by an elementary school," Pedigo said. "I was driving real slow. I
had my window down, trying to hear the vehicle. I had a feeling we would
terminate the chase. It was done. We had lost them."
"All of a sudden," Pearson told Denver Police, "there's the suspect vehicle
again." Auman said Jaehnig told her,
"Well, I guess this is what I'm going to have to do, and he pulled out this
gun and sat it on his lap. He popped it, or whatever it is you do with a
gun. He rolled down the window and looked back outside. We're swerving all
over the road." Auman said she had not seen the gun in the car. It was "in a
sleeve or something," she said.
"At this point, I was afraid for my life. He asked me to take ahold of the
wheel and basically he didn't wait for me to respond. He just put his head
out the window and proceeded firing." Pearson said the Trans Am was
traveling about 35 mph. He saw the driver lean out the window with both
hands on an automatic rifle.
"He shot three rounds at me, bam, bam, bam." Pearson said he dropped back
briefly, but tried to follow the TransAm until he lost sight of the car on
Monaco about a block north of Hampden.
After shooting at Pearson, Auman said, "We ended up hitting a car head on. I
opened the car door and I wanted to get out. I just wanted it to be over."
Schoolchildren in the neighborhood reported seeing the passenger door fly
open and a basket - the one witnesses saw Auman place between her feet when
she left Buffalo Creek - come out before the door slammed and the car sped
away. Auman said the basket flew out the door between her feet as she tried
to jump.
Auman said Jaehnig yelled at her to shut the door. He said, "What the f---
are you doing? Get back in here."
"I listened to him because he had this huge gun," Auman said.
Moments later, the Trans Am backed into the last empty parking place at the
apartment complex at Monaco and Hampden.
"He was right behind me" Jaehnig and Auman ran toward apartment No. 3323,
Soriano's place.
"I got out of the car," Auman said. "He was right behind me." When they got
to the apartment, the door was locked and the police had surrounded the
building. Auman and Jaehnig were in an exterior hallway that went through
the complex.
The officers were yelling. "Come out." "Show me your hands." "Get on your
knees."
"I just came out with my hands up," Auman said. "I came out walking real
slow. I did exactly what they told me to do." One of the officers called
Auman a "b----" and said, "We're not f------ around. Where the f--- is he?"
"They were asking me where he was and I had no idea where he was," Auman
said. "The last time they saw him was the last time I saw him," she
explained.
"I have no idea what happened after I came out. It was really intense at
that point in time."
Officer Michael Gargaro pushed Auman's face into the snow. He put his knee
on her back, handcuffed her and pulled her off the ground by her arms. He
led her away to a patrol car. When Auman surrendered, Jaehnig "took off real
fast" down the hallway, according to Denver Police Officer Jason Brake.
Seeing that, Officer Marc Bennett ran around the complex to intercept
Jaehnig, but the hallway was a dead end. Meanwhile, VanderJagt stepped
around the corner of the building toward the hallway.
Jaehnig opened fire. When VanderJagt fell to the ground, Jaehnig grabbed his
service revolver and scrambled back to the hallway.
A roar of gunfire erupted as police officers poured more than 150 rounds
into the small alcove. The percussion from the automatic rifle shots
reverberated on the chests of the officers as their hearts pounded.
VanderJagt's body was dragged to safety and then carried to an ambulance.
The shooting stopped. "They were telling people to settle down, regain their
composure," Pearson said. "Everyone was upset from seeing the injured
officer." An eerie quiet followed. Finally the officers entered the
bullet-ridden alcove.
Jaehnig's body was sprawled on the ground. He had put VanderJagt's revolver
to his chin and pulled the trigger.
Teresa/Colorado
Words return to haunt Lisl Auman
By Diane Carman
Denver Post Staff Writer
May 1 - The afternoon she was arrested in connection with the shooting death
of Denver police officer Bruce VanderJagt plays like a cheap horror movie
inside her head.
"Oh, man, I was a mess," recalls Lisl Auman, who is serving life in prison
without possibility of parole. "I wanted to get out of the situation. I
wanted it to be over. I was scared.
"I knew that the officer had been shot ... and I was remorseful about that."
But she had no idea what had happened to the gunman, Matthaeus Jaehnig, whom
she had last seen alive when she surrendered to police.
"There was a point in time before Matthaeus had shot himself I was afraid
for the retaliation he would take against me. ... Not only was I afraid of
him, but I was afraid of the police, too. 'Cause they had threatened me,
kept on threatening me that I was going to go down for murder, I was going
to go down for murder, and, you know, at the time I was afraid, but I
thought they can't do that to me because I didn't do anything." It never
occurred to her to request an attorney.
"Gosh, I wish I would have.
"It's so silly to say this now, but as I look back, I was sitting there and
I don't think that I thought it was as serious as it was. I thought I was
going to be able to go home." Tears well in her eyes and spill onto her
cheeks. She shudders, wipes her face with her hands.
"I didn't know I was going to be charged with murder.''
---
When a police officer is killed in the line of duty, the response is
enormous. Emotions run high.
"There was a lot of guilt among those officers," said Denver Deputy District
Attorney Tim Twining. "They experienced 'it could have been me, should have
been me' kind of thoughts. Those are conversations I had with those
officers."
Law enforcement agencies in Denver, Jefferson County, Arapahoe County,
Castle Rock and Lakewood were among those cooperating in the sprawling
investigation. Resources from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation were
tapped. Efforts continued around the clock.
Critical information in the case emerged from the three hours of police
interviews with Auman that night. The expert questioning and her alternately
naive and concocted responses became the foundation for the prosecution's
case against her.
Auman's words, her description of the day's events, would come back to haunt
her.
---
It was 4:50 p.m. Nov. 12, 1997, inside the interview room at the Denver
Police Department. Auman sat across the table from Detective Jon Priest.
Detective Kelly O'Hayre and Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Lamar Sims
were also in the room.
The video camera was rolling.
"I want you to understand my situation," said Auman, drinking from a paper
cup. "I would have pulled over if it was me. I wouldn't have shot anybody. I
just wanted to give up." Auman had been read her rights. She had waived her
right to an attorney.
The videotape continues. Priest asked how she knew Matthaeus Jaehnig. "I
know this person who knows him." She fidgeted. She looked at her hands.
A friend named Dave sent Jaehnig to help her move from Buffalo Creek, she
said. Auman planned to live with a high school friend, Demetria Soriano, in
Denver.
The officer asked if she knew Dave well.
"We're close, yeah. He's like my big brother. He looks out for me." Priest
wanted to know his last name.
"I'd like to tell you," she said, "but I'm afraid for my life."
"You couldn't be safer anywhere in the world than you are right now," Priest
said.
Auman paused. "It's Vargas."
"So you wanted someone there for some muscle for you?" Priest suggested.
The interview continued.
She told the officers she didn't know Soriano's last name, although they'd
been friends since high school. She offered a description of the fictitious
Dave, complete with tattoos. She made up a fake last name for her former
boyfriend, Shawn Cheever. She said his room was unlocked when they arrived
at the lodge and that the door was open. She described Jaehnig's red Trans
Am as a Firebird, "I think it was green." "I sure don't want to catch you in
a lie," Priest said.
"I'm not lying," Auman replied. "I'm not a liar. I might have told you some
things before because I was afraid for my life ..."
Her eyes glanced from the table to the officer.
"We're not just here to talk about what happened," Priest said. "We're here
to help as best we can any problems you might be involved in."
"I just wish I'd never gotten involved with these people," Auman said.
The interview had been under way for nearly two hours. Auman was biting her
fingers, shaking her head.
"It's not a good day," she said. "Two people that I don't even know ... are
dead because of me." "Why is that?" said Priest, drawing more detail from
her in this critical area of criminal responsibility.
"Just because I wanted a little muscle to back me up when I wanted to go get
my stuff," she said.
She'd used the very word Priest had suggested earlier. Prosecutors later
would use this to show she knew her companions had violence in mind that
day.
She started to cry.
"Lisl, we're not trying to say you're a bad person," said O'Hayre.
"I'm not a bad person," she said.
"We're not out to hurt you," O'Hayre added. "I know you didn't intend for
this to happen today. But there are some things that got set in motion. This
is a big-time thing." "I'm just scared as hell now," Auman said.
The interview ended at 6:43 p.m.
Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter had been watching through a two-way
mirror. He already had enough to prosecute.
---
One by one the other suspects were identified.
Soriano was arrested at her parents' home in Highlands Ranch. Her boyfriend,
Dion Gerze, called from the Super 8 Motel in Castle Rock, saying he wanted
to turn himself in. A warrant was issued for Jaehnig's friend Steven Duprey,
who was hiding in the basement of a friend's house on South Federal
Boulevard.
The mysterious tattooed Dave Vargas didn't exist.
Denver Police evidence teams worked in the dark at the crime scene,
videotaping blood stains, bullet holes, spent shells and the body of Jaehnig
sprawled on the concrete, with the murder weapon at his feet, the suicide
weapon at his side. Blood trailed from his head.
Denver police officer Nick Rogers interviewed Cheever about the burglary
from his room at the Hudson Hotel in Buffalo Creek. "I locked my room when I
decided to tell her to get lost," he wrote in the statement to police on
Nov. 12. "I had nothing in my room that belonged to her." At her home in
Littleton, Colleen Auerbach talked to Denver police by phone. Her daughter,
Lisl, was in custody, they explained.
"Tell her just to tell the truth," Auerbach said. "Tell her that her mother
says to tell the truth.''
---
At 11:25 p.m., the video camera began taping Auman's second police
interview. Once again, Ritter was watching through the two-way mirror. Auman
was crying. No defense attorney was present.
"Are you OK?" asked Priest.
"I guess so," she answered, sniffling.
Priest handed her some tissues.
"Thank you," she said.
Priest asked Auman to explain what had happened.
"Shawn lied to me and made me feel like s---," she said. "I wanted to
retaliate, I guess." She identified Soriano and Cheever. She explained that
Soriano's friends had offered to help her move. She continued to use the
fake names of "John" and "Dan" for Gerze and Duprey, and said the only name
she knew for Jaehnig was a nickname, "Sardine." "I wanted my stuff back,"
she said. "At this point in time, I didn't realize that whatever of my stuff
I got back, I was going to have to split with them and I didn't realize they
were going to take stuff that did not belong to me." Auman said they planned
to go to the Hudson Hotel to pick up her belongings during the day while
Cheever was at work because there would be "less conflict, I guess." She
talked to "John" about Cheever.
"I said, "Take it easy on him.' And he said, "I'll do the best I can." "I
said, "Don't kill him.'- " This was just the kind of testimony the
prosecution needed. They were building a case that violence was expected.
Priest kept prodding.
Auman said they all were talking the night before about moving her things to
Denver and "I opened my big mouth and I told them he had a couple of big
speakers." She was implicating herself in a conspiracy to commit burglary.
Priest kept her talking.
At the lodge, "John," "Dan" and Auman were in Cheever's room, she explained.
"You knew they were taking things that didn't belong to you?" asked Priest.
"Right," Auman said.
---
In another interview room at Denver Police headquarters, Detective Alex
Woods was questioning Soriano.
She said she and Auman had enlisted the help of three guys to drive to the
mountains and get some property that belonged to Auman. She identified the
guys as "Tao" (Matthaeus Jaehnig), "John" and "Dan." She admitted that they
took things that belonged to Cheever and she told the detective they also
wanted to scare Cheever.
In the middle of the interview, Woods was notified that detectives
interviewing Soriano's parents had learned her boyfriend, Dion Gerze, had
been along on the trip to Buffalo Creek.
At that point, Soriano requested an attorney. The interview abruptly ended.
---
At 6:15 p.m. Nov. 12, a Denver police officer filed a statement about the
homicide, which included the following:
"I ran over to him (Officer Marc Bennett) as he was ordering a white female,
(unidentified) to exit the hallway of the building and lay (sic) on the
ground. As she was removed by myself and Officer Bruce VanderJagt and I
believe Officer Tony Martinez, my partner yelled that the suspect could
possibly have access to the other side of the building. I then ran around
the north side of this same building and observed no footprints in the rear
and no obvious access to this courtyard area. ..." Signed, Jason Brake
---
At 6:45 p.m. Nov. 12, another police report was filed on the arrest of
Auman:
"As I started towards the apartments, I observed a male attempting to force
entry into the southernmost apartment with a female standing in front of him
watching the parking lot. I began to yell for them to get their hands in the
air. When I began yelling the female turned around and put her hands in the
air while the male ducked down and began to run northbound behind a plywood
type hallway. I continued to yell for the female to get to her knees and she
began to go to her knees when I grabbed her and started to pull her to the
ground. ...
"I passed the female to Officer VanderJagt who took control of her and
eventually handcuffed her with Officer Brake. ...
"After realizing that there was no way for the party (Jaehnig) to escape I
went to the southeast corner ..." Signed, Marc Bennett Two days later, Brake
and Bennett revised their statements, filing additional police reports and
supplemental videotaped interviews.
The officers, who were partners at the District 3 substation, said they had
not discussed the arrest or their earlier reports. They said it was
coincidence that they remembered additional details on the same day, two
days after the shooting.
Brake now said that as Auman emerged from the hallway to surrender to
police, "I observed her lean to her right as if to drop something, then
stand back up with no weapon in her hands.
"We weren't sure what she was setting down or if she was setting anything
down. It just appeared like she was going to set something down or reach for
something." Demonstrating the same movements that Brake had performed on the
tape, Bennett told the detective, "She did this, a slight movement. I
thought she was setting something down. ... I didn't know what was down
there." Bennett said otherwise his report of Nov. 12 was complete.
"I put everything in there but seeing the female dip. I came in today to add
that." The "dip" implied that Auman handed the murder weapon to Jaehnig. It
supported the prosecution's contention that she actively assisted in the
murder of VanderJagt.
Officer Michael Gargaro also amended his statement two days after the
shooting, changing the way he characterized Auman's behavior after her
arrest.
In a videotaped interview on the day of the murder, Gargaro, who had
handcuffed Auman and drove her to police headquarters, described her as
frightened and compassionate.
On the way to headquarters, he said, "the suspect asked me if I knew the
officer" who had been killed. "I told her that I did. I told her that he had
a little child and that he was a really wonderful guy and that he didn't
deserve what happened.
"I wanted to know if she was going to cooperate with me and help me out.
"She said, "I don't know anything ... I just met him today. I'm really sorry
for your friend. I'm sorry that happened. I didn't mean for anything bad
like this to happen.'- " In his amended report two days later, he
characterized Auman as unfeeling and uncommunicative.
"Sergeant (Calvin) Hemphill walked up to my police unit and began to ask the
female suspect who the other person is," Gargaro wrote. "The female suspect
stated all she knew was "Sardine." "... Sgt. Hemphill became angry ... The
female continued to be uncooperative, stating "I just don't know anything.'
... "At this time, gunfire erupted. Within moments, officers announced that
an officer was down. I advised the female of this situation. No emotion."
Auman's lawyers later would say the revised reports were inspired and
orchestrated by the prosecution team to help their case.
Prosecutors said they believed the officers were providing additional
information to their reports to be conscientious, and said the changes were
spontaneous.
---
Defense attorneys challenged the truthfulness of another key prosecution
witness, even before Auman's trial began.
Cheever, the alleged burglary victim, was arrested Nov. 21, 1997, accused of
theft, forgery, criminal impersonation and drug possession. When officers
searched the hotel room where he had been staying, they reported finding
marijuana, four stolen purses and three checkbooks, including one in the
name of Lisl Auman.
Nine days earlier, Cheever told police that nothing belonging to Auman was
in his room.
Auman by that time had also produced canceled checks to show she'd purchased
the video recorder and snowboard she was accused of stealing from Cheever.
The case sped forward.
On Nov. 28, 16 days after the VanderJagt shooting, Steven Duprey was
arrested outside a South Federal house. He was charged with illegal
possession of a semiautomatic handgun, possession of a controlled substance,
burglary and parole violation.
Meanwhile, several reports were filed from the crime labs.
Pathologist Thomas Henry stated that a drug screen found 772 nanograms of
methamphetamine per milliliter of Jaehnig's blood. Any level over 500
nanograms per milliliter is considered "significant." In most people, 772
nanograms would be considered a toxic, potentially lethal dose.
And in what would become a critical element to impeach Brake and Bennett's
statements implying that Auman handled the murder weapon, the Colorado
Bureau of Investigation reported its analysis "failed to reveal the presence
of gunshot primer residue" on any samples from Auman's body or clothing, and
that Auman's fingerprints were not found on the murder weapon.
The officers stood by their story.
Tim Twining and Henry Cooper, the deputy district attorneys handling the
prosecution, said it was clear to them from the start that Auman was guilty.
The interviews with Auman and Soriano tipped them off.
"Interestingly, Lisl and Demetria Soriano both used the same fictitious
names for the men," Twining recalled. "This is a plan that was hatched down
at the apartment before they ever got to (Buffalo Creek). These were the
names they'd all agreed upon." Auman admitted to lying in the police
interviews but is adamant that she intended only to retrieve her belongings
in Buffalo Creek and that the much debated "dip" never happened.
"I can't think of anything that would have made them think that I leaned
over, because I walked out very slowly with my hands out right in front of
me. I didn't want to make any sudden moves because they were angry," Auman
recalled. "I never leaned over to do anything ... I never touched the gun.
"I think they just made that up to justify the murder charge." But Twining
supported the officers.
"I believe what the officers said. It makes logical sense to me." Twining
said the officers remembered the same thing on the same day two days after
the event, because they had been traumatized by the sight of one of their
"brethren" being "brutally murdered." Cooper agreed. He said he believes the
officers did not talk to each other at the station house at District 3
before they amended their reports, that the fact that they both came forth
on the same day with the same incriminating information was strictly
coincidence.
"I was totally convinced that what they were saying was true," he said.
Teresa/Colorado
By Diane Carman
Denver Post Staff Writer
May 2 - The trial has haunted her for nearly two years.
"If Matthaeus Jaehnig hadn't killed himself, we'd have never even known Lisl
Auman," said Linda Chin, a member of the jury that convicted Auman of felony
murder, second-degree burglary and lesser charges on July 17, 1998.
Chin said she never believed Auman was responsible for officer Bruce
VanderJagt's murder or the burglary that preceded it. To this day she
doesn't accept the prosecution's argument. To this day she maintains that
the jury made a grievous mistake.
She held out for an acquittal through hours of jury deliberations but
finally broke down under the intense pressure to convict.
"I regretted it when I did it but justified it long enough to go through
with it," Chin said. "It actually went across my mind when they were polling
the jury, what if I said no? What if I changed my mind when they come to me?
"But I didn't. I lost courage," she said. "I even made the remark in the
jury room (that) I have not changed my opinion, but I've lost the desire to
keep fighting for her." Then the realization of what she'd done overwhelmed
her.
"I just couldn't get over the fact (that) I knew I'd done wrong." But it was
too late.
"They never would have gone to trial with this if it had not been a
policeman who had been shot. I'm sure they figured somebody's got to pay,"
Chin said.
It was for that reason, she said, that she believes some of the police
officers who took the stand lied in their testimony about whether Auman
might have handed a gun to Jaehnig just before her arrest.
"I and some of the most vocal persons on the jury did not believe them," she
said.
Herb Greenberg, another juror, told reporters after the trial that the jury
"didn't really worry about" whether Auman handed the rifle to Jaehnig as
police testified was possible. Other jurors were unavailable or unwilling to
talk about the case.
Chin said they voted to convict Auman because "they wanted her to pay for
something because it was so political. They wanted to vote what they thought
was the right way.
"People really got sucked in."
Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter said he has no second thoughts about
the case.
"I'm comfortable that everything we did along the way that bore the
consequences ultimately that they bore for Lisl is a reflection of what the
community believes should happen in combination with what the law is,"
Ritter said.`
VanderJagt's murder stunned and horrified the community, especially in the
context of what was happening in Denver in the fall of 1997.
Two days before the shooting, President Clinton appeared at the White House
Conference on Hate Crimes and declared a "war on hate." With that message
still fresh, the profile of Matthaeus Jaehnig seemed to reveal a culture of
violent extremists in Denver.
Jaehnig, 25, a skinhead and white supremacist, had been arrested eight times
since 1992 for weapons violations, menacing, assault, drug possession,
criminal mischief and keeping dangerous dogs. In 1995, he had trained at the
Aryan Nations compound in Idaho. Then in November 1997, after a highspeed
chase from Buffalo Creek, Jaehnig was cornered by police and shot and killed
VanderJagt at a Denver apartment complex. He then committed suicide.
Early press reports, later retracted, described Auman as a fellow militant
and girlfriend of Jaehnig's.
In contrast, VanderJagt was a decorated and much admired police officer with
a grief-stricken wife and young daughter left fatherless.
Six days after the VanderJagt shooting, West African refugee Oumar Dia was
murdered and bystander Jeannie VanVelkinburgh was shot and paralyzed in a
racially motivated crime at a Downtown Denver bus stop.
The next day, Nov. 19, 1997, a dead pig with the name "VanderJagt" scrawled
on its side was left in the parking lot of the Denver Police District 3
substation, where the slain officer had worked.
On Nov. 22, Clinton traveled to Denver to meet with his widow, Anna Marie
VanderJagt, and to rally the community. "We must not tolerate violence and
hatred against police officers, the people who put their lives on the line
for us every day,"
the president said.`
In preparing their case against Auman, one of the first things prosecutors
did was offer immunity to other participants in the events on Nov. 12.
Demetria Soriano, Dion Gerze and Steven Duprey retained legal counsel on
their arrests. Soriano and Gerze were granted immunity from prosecution in
exchange for their testimony against Auman. All of them could have faced
felony murder charges.
Auman was the only one of the group who had no prior arrest record and the
only one to submit to extended questioning without a lawyer.
The two police interviews with Auman the night of the shooting were the
foundation of the prosecution's case and key factors in Ritter's decision to
charge her with felony murder.
But, Ritter said, getting a conviction on the felony murder charge was
hardly a slam-dunk.
"Quite frankly, there is this issue of her being under arrest and him
committing the murder after she was under arrest," he said. "In spite of
what the felony murder statute says, we knew there may be jurors who would
look at that and question it." With that in mind, Denver Deputy District
Attorneys Tim Twining and Henry Cooper contacted Auman's defense attorneys
about a plea bargain.
Though the negotiations never reached the point of a formal offer, Cooper
said they were discussing a "rough number" of 30 years in prison in exchange
for a guilty verdict on a lesser charge. "That was just flatly . . . almost
laughed at," Cooper said.
Public defenders Angela Kruse and Cyrus Callum, who represented Auman,
rejected the deal. Auman's mother, Colleen Auerbach, said they were
confident Auman would be acquitted of the felony murder charge. So the case
went to trial on July 7, 1998, with Denver District Judge Nancy Rice
presiding.
It took eight days.
Auman never took the stand.`
The prosecution called Soriano and Gerze in an attempt to establish that
Auman had planned to burglarize and terrorize her former boyfriend, Shawn
Cheever, and had enlisted their help.
This was an important part of their case because the Colorado felony murder
statute states: "One cannot be held guilty of murder as an aider and abettor
if he has acted without knowledge or malice on his part and was ignorant of
the malicious motives and felonious intent on the part of the actual
slayer."
The judge called Soriano and Gerze "hostile witnesses." They testified that
the trip to Buffalo Creek was to move Auman's things to Denver, that they
planned to go when Cheever was at work to avoid a confrontation and that
they were unaware Jaehnig had brought guns.
Next in court was a parade of police officers.
The most controversial testimony came from three of the officers involved in
Auman's arrest: Marc Bennett, Jason Brake and Michael Gargaro. Bennett and
Brake, who were partners, amended their police reports two days after the
VanderJagt shooting to suggest that Auman passed the murder weapon to
Jaehnig just before she surrendered and that she had been uncooperative.
At the trial, they testified they had not discussed those details and that
it was coincidental that they remembered the additional information at the
same time.
But the defense cited a videotaped statement by Brake, recorded the day the
amended reports were filed, in which he refers to conversations with Bennett
between Nov. 12 and 14. "I thought my partner ran this way originally, but
after talking to him . . . ,"
Brake said on the videotape.
The defense also argued that the district attorney's office had talked to
the officers prior to the filing of the supplemental reports and coached
them on how to change their stories to bolster their case.
The judge ruled that they had insufficient evidence to prove that. She
allowed the officers' testimony to stand.
Gargaro, who also worked at District 3 with Bennett and Brake, altered his
report on Auman's arrest on Nov. 14, the same day Bennett and Brake provided
additional documents.
In his original statement, he said Auman was arrested without incident. The
later report described her behavior as uncooperative.
The prosecution contended that Auman could have saved VanderJagt's life if
only she had told the police that the alcove area where she and Jaehnig were
standing was a dead end and that he had a gun. They speculated that
VanderJagt pursued Jaehnig, thinking he was fleeing through another exit
from the hallway.
The defense argued, however, that Auman had last seen Jaehnig at the same
time the officers saw him, when she surrendered, which explained why she
said, "I don't know what you're talking about,"
when asked where he was.
They also reminded jurors that Jaehnig had fired at an officer during the
chase, so it should have been obvious he was armed, and that she had
correctly told officers that he had a rifle when they asked her to describe
it.
Gargaro also testified that he had been an off-duty security guard at the
Monaco Parkway apartment complex for seven years. The defense suggested that
he knew the layout and could have told his fellow officer the alcove was a
dead end.
The defense also painted Bennett as racked with guilt and eager to deflect
responsibility for the loss of VanderJagt.
"You said you were - you were feeling really crummy about what happened
because you felt that you should have taken a shot at Matthaeus Jaehnig?"
Kruse asked.
"I felt I was the only guy that had a shot at the time." But while the
officers' testimony was controversial, it did not irreparably damage the
prosecution's case.
They had a powerful weapon against Auman in their arsenal. They had her
videotapes.`
The prosecution led the jury through Auman's incriminating remarks step by
step.
"You very seldom see a smart criminal," said Twining, recalling how she
helped their case.
In the hands of the police interview team, Auman was thoroughly
outmaneuvered though she clearly tried a few tricks of her own.
She lied about the names of her companions, using the same fictitious names
that Soriano had used at the time of her arrest. Auman lied about how she
was introduced to Jaehnig and how they got into Cheever's room.
When officer Jon Priest asked if they recruited the three guys to help with
the move because they needed some "muscle,"
she parroted the word back to him. It was used repeatedly during her trial
to imply that she intended for them to injure Cheever.
At the end of the first interview, Auman delivered a statement the
prosecution would use again and again to argue for a conviction.
"Two people that I don't even know . . . are dead because of me." In the
second videotaped police interview, she still lied about the names of Gerze
and Duprey, then implicated herself further in plotting the burglary
scenario, complete with a suggestion of possible violence.
"Shawn lied to me and made me feel like s---," she said. "I wanted to
retaliate, I guess." She also told the police that she told her companions,
"Just don't kill him." Her statements about her intent to only pick up her
belongings, how she grabbed the wheel of Jaehnig's car to prevent a crash
and not to help him shoot at the police, and her attempts to escape the car
were emphasized by the defense throughout the trial.
Her earlier lies undermined her credibility, however.`
Closing arguments came on July 16, 1998. Prosecutor Cooper went first.
"What are the elements of felony murder?" he said. "Basically, you find the
defendant committed a burglary and you find that she or one of her
co-participants killed somebody while they were trying to get away. That's
felony murder."
Then he repeated statements from Auman's interviews once more and spoke
directly to the jury.
"You stated you understood the law and you would follow the law. . . . And
if you apply the law to the facts in this case, it's clear the defendant is
guilty."
Callum argued that Auman was wrongly accused of murder and was not even
guilty of burglary. Would burglars have talked to the residents at the
Hudson Hotel and allowed them to write down their license numbers?
He said she was attempting to jump from Jaehnig's car when the
schoolchildren saw the passenger side door open and a basket fly out, the
same basket another witness saw Auman place between her legs on the floor of
the car.
And he accused the police officers of lying under oath.
"We don't want to believe that police officers lie. . . . We don't want to
believe that police officers fabricate. We want to trust police officers,
but the police officers that testified . . . are not worthy of your trust."
Finally, he reminded them of the key element in Auman's defense.
"Where was she at the time of the shooting? She was in the police car.''`
The concept of felony murder has been controversial since its inception more
than 200 years ago in England. Defense attorneys argue that it is capricious
and applied unfairly.
But prosecutors say it is an important means to hold people accountable for
participating in life-threatening criminal behaviors.
Over the years, felony murder statutes have evolved to include "affirmative
defenses" for the accused.
"The statute places a tremendous burden on the defendant," said Jeffrey
Hartje, professor of criminal law at the University of Denver. "In the
affirmative defenses, the burden of persuasion shifts to the defendant."
Among the six elements the defense needs to prove are such things as the
defendant being unarmed, attempting to disengage from the crime and not
knowing that others intended to commit murder. Auman's attorneys repeatedly
emphasized these elements of her story.
But Hartje said the thorniest - and most interesting - part of this case
remains the undisputed fact that she was in police custody when VanderJagt
was shot.
"I just have problems with the notion of the death occurring in the course
of or furtherance of the original felony," he said. "The statute says it's
felony murder if the murder occurs in the furtherance of the original crime
or the immediate flight therefrom.
"Her flight ended when she was taken into police custody.''`
The jury deliberations began with a vote to see where everyone stood. It was
11 to 1 for a guilty verdict.
"I was shocked," Chin said.
"Maybe they didn't like her character. Some people, you could tell, even
faulted her for drinking a bottle of alcohol the night before, getting drunk
with her friend."
But the main reason they voted to convict her, Chin said, was because "if it
hadn't been for her, they wouldn't have all gone there. She got the group
together to go get her stuff, regardless of whether it was a burglary or
not."
After hours of deadlock in the jury room and orders from the judge to keep
talking, the jurors decided to watch Auman's videotaped police interviews
one more time.
After the tape ended, Chin voted to convict.
"I wish I had waited an hour after seeing those before I voted again," Chin
said, "because after seeing that, you're not sympathetic. She comes off as
flaky, not interested.
"For whatever reason, I seemed to justify in my mind that it was OK to
change my vote." Later, when she discovered that the mandatory sentence for
felony murder is life without possibility of parole, she was angry.
"I never would have voted to convict her if I had known that, and I know
some of the other jurors wouldn't have either. We had no idea. There were
some jurors saying, "I just want to make sure she does more time in jail
than what she's served.' " Jurors are asked to reach a verdict based on the
facts. They aren't told about penalties and aren't supposed to consider them
in their deliberations.
One element of the defense strategy definitely backfired, Chin said. Even
though they were told it was her right not to testify, jurors were
influenced by the fact that Auman didn't take the stand.
"She should have taken the stand because I think she could have explained
away a lot of this or given her side of it, other than just her video. That
was not good, not good at all." When the verdict was read, Auman and her
family burst into tears. Several jurors were crying.
Her sentence was mandatory: life in prison without parole.
She was 22 years old.`
The appeal process is to begin in several weeks when Auman's attorney is
expected to file an opening brief in the Colorado Court of Appeals. Only
then will the public have any indication what the strategy will be.
While the case has fascinated the legal community, the prospect for
overturning the conviction is hard to predict.
"It'll be a struggle in the appeals court," Hartje said, "even though I
think this conviction was a very bizarre result if she was in fact in
custody when this guy shot the cop." Once a jury convicts someone,
regardless of the facts of the case, it's an uphill battle to reverse it, he
said.
"It's not hopeless though," said Kathleen Lord of the public defender's
Office, who is handling the appeal.
Lord would not discuss the strategy for Auman's appeal.
"You can't bring new evidence in," she said. "You can bring new legal
arguments to the table."
Usually, the procedure in the appeals court is to allow each side 15 minutes
to argue his case before a judge. "Then it could be five weeks or it could
be a year before we get a ruling," Lord said.`
Auman has time.
The days and years stretch before her in endless monotony. She counsels
juvenile offenders as part of the "Shape Up" program at the prison. She
writes in her journal. She reads.
"I will not stop fighting," she said. "I won't give up until the day I die."
At this point, death is her only ticket out.
Tears well up in her eyes and she looks away to compose herself. She dreams
of walking out of the prison, moving to Oregon to live in the woods and make
stained glass and never come back to Colorado again. It's the fantasy that
gets her through each day. She leans forward in the plastic visiting room
chair and confronts reality once more.
"If my appeals don't succeed, then I guess this is it," she said. "This will
be my life. This right here."