Crash Victim Admits To Killing Wife While On Helicopter Ride To Hospital
CARBONDALE, Colo. (CBS4) - Police and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation are investigating a homicide with strange circumstances in Carbondale where the last murder was more than a decade ago.
Originally first responders thought they were just dealing with a victim of a car crash. The man was brought to Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs and then flown to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction for a higher level of care. When he was in the air he told the flight crew he wasn't just involved in a car accident, but that he had also just murdered his wife in an apartment building in Carbondale.
The car crash happened Monday at approximately 7:15 a.m. on Highway 133 heading south out of Carbondale near Roaring Fork High School. The driver of a Toyota 4Runner drove into an 18-wheeler cattle truck that was empty at the time.
Several hours later a call came back to Carbondale police that they needed to investigate the alleged confession.
"Carbondale Police Department officers responded to the reported location of the homicide and found the residents were not injured. Carbondale Police Officers continued searching apartments in the area," police said in a statement.
Officers then came in contact with a woman who was arriving home to her home on Cooper Place. The woman wouldn't let officers inside but checked the unit and found a dead body.
"The resident would not allow police officers to search her home, but agreed to check the apartment," Carbondale police said in a statement. "This resident then reported a deceased individual in the apartment with suspected knife wounds. The victim was obviously deceased."
Investigators worked around the clock and were still at the apartment late into Tuesday afternoon.
Neighbors told CBS4 they didn't know the couple, who kept to themselves. Carbondale police are not releasing their identities yet.
The police chief told CBS4 he's expecting to file an arrest warrant on the husband for murder charges. The man is under protective custody at the hospital in Grand Junction but is expected to recover from his injuries.
Police said in the statement that the last homicide in Carbondale happened in April 2003. The suspect was convicted of manslaughter. According to the Post Independent in Glenwood Springs, the last murder in Carbondale city limits was in January 1994 when a man shot and killed his roommate.
