'Nobody Was Worried About Opiates': Mother's Plea After Daughter's Murder
DENVER (CBS4)- The mother of a young woman killed in early August is speaking out. Connie Jones doesn't sugar coat it. She says her daughter was living on the streets but says, she also had a home.
"She was just beautiful she had brown hair and these bright green eyes," Connie said. "Very intelligent, very motivated she certainly suffered some losses when she was young."
At the time of her murder, Nicole Boston, 28, was living with her husband and friend off of Ohio and Broadway. Police identified them as homeless, they were sleeping on pallets on dirt tucked in corner behind a warehouse.
Connie says Nicole had a home, but the addiction took over. She says life threw her a curveballs early on. Nicole had her first child at the age of 16. Then in 2008, the father of her child was murdered, and the curveballs just kept coming.
At the age of 23, Nicole was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and underwent a partial hysterectomy.
"From that it just went to the pain pills ... I guess the really hard thing for me is that I don't remember seeing a change in her," said Connie.
Connie says she was focused on the cancer. Nicole would likely need more surgery.
"I mean at that time nobody was worried about the opiates. Everybody was worried about the cancer."
It was nearly two years ago when Connie started taking care of Nicole's three children. She would talk to Nicole via phone sporadically.
It was several days before Nicole was killed, Connie thought she might come home.
"That Saturday was her oldest daughter's 12th birthday, and just out of the blue, 'Mom I want to come home.'"
Nicole told her mother she would meet her at the Broadway RTD lot at 9 p.m., the Tuesday before she was killed. Connie waited for hours, even sleeping in her car. Nicole never showed.
Police in Denver arrested Maurice Butler earlier this month, less than a month after the murders near a busy light rail station.
According to police, around 11 a.m. on Aug. 9, someone walking near Ohio and South Broadway found the bodies of two men and a woman.
The victims have been identified as Christopher Zamudio, 45, Jerome Coronado, 39, and Nicole.
After Nicole's death, she was labeled homeless, but Connie says, that's not the case.
"My last words were, 'I'm waiting here for you,' So she knew she could come home."
Connie hopes others recognize Nicole's addiction as a disease and wants to bring attention to what Nicole went through while battling it.
"That is a heck of a thing to face every morning to literally pick yourself up off the ground. How people can just dismiss what happens to our most vulnerable is probably at the heart of the problem," she said. "It's all of our dilemma. We all need to try to help, and we need to work together to try and do that, and it's going to be winter time pretty soon, and I think we all should be worried about who is out here."
Connie recognizes, it's easy to make assumptions before knowing the full story.
"You don't want to be that person, but we all kind of slip into that."
She says after everything, she is proud of her daughter. She hopes to be an advocate for others going through similar situations.
She doesn't know quite what the advocacy plan will look like, but she did have a strategy to start that everyone can employ.
"Just be kind. It doesn't cost anything and it feels great."
LINK: Nicole Boston GoFundMe
