Indiana Investigators In Colorado To Question Hatchet Attack Suspect
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4)- Two investigators from the Indiana State Police have flown to Colorado to see if a man in custody in Teller County may be linked to a double murder that occurred earlier this year.
They want to interview Daniel Nations with the key question to answer, "Was he in Indiana when Liberty German and Abby Williams were killed on Valentine's Day?"
It now appears possible Nations was in Morgan County southwest of Indianapolis where he reported in as a registered sex offender.
Captain Brent Worth of the Morgan County Sheriff Department told CBS4 Indianapolis, "He came in on February 7, 2017 and then he came in on February 14th and checked in. The last address that he reported was he was staying under a bridge, homeless."
Nations was arrested there days later for a missed court date.
Morgan County is less than 90 minutes from where the girls were killed during a hike.
They snapped a picture of a man who was following them and recorded a few words of him saying, "Down the hill."
In July, Nations turned up in Georgetown, about 35 miles west of Denver, where he is charged with giving a false report. That was two days after a sketch of the suspected Indiana killer was released.
Then two weeks ago, bicyclist Tim Watkins was shot to death on the Mount Herman Trail near Monument. It is not known who might have been involved.
This past Monday, Nations was arrested for felony menacing and reckless endangerment for threatening people with a hatchet in the same area where Watkins was killed. A hatchet and a .22 caliber gun were found in Nation's car. It had expired Indiana license plates.
Indiana investigators may want to obtain a DNA sample from Nations to compare with any possible DNA found at the scene of the double murder of the girls who were in their early teens. At this point, they are referring to him as a "person of interest."
CBS4's Rick Sallinger is a Peabody award winning reporter who has been with the station more than two decades doing hard news and investigative reporting. Follow him on Twitter @ricksallinger.
