| June 19, 2015, 3:28 pm
Colorado Cold Case: 19-month-old girl had 4 broken ribs
Brenda Hudak was frightened for the welfare of her two granddaughters including 19-month-old Amanda A'laina Gallegos.
Amanda lived with her baby sister Trinity, father Damian Gallegos and teenage mother Dawn Hudak in the basement of an Adams County home where Brenda Hudak lived on the main floor.
Amanda Gallegos, photo courtesy Colorado Bureau of Investigation
Brenda called the Adams County child abuse hot line over and over. She wasn't the only one calling.
Rachel Fleischaker, who worked with Brenda Hudak at Quest Diagnostics, said she and two co-workers also called the county's child abuse line without results. Fleischaker said she once reported seeing that "Amanda had been spanked to the point where she was black and blue all over her thighs."
The 19-month-old child and her younger sister had been hurt and were in danger.
But when social workers investigated the child's injuries, Brenda didn't get a sense that it was a thorough investigation.
In late 2000, Trinity nearly died. A sheriff's report says Trinity was found "bluish-gray and unresponsive" before a deputy opened her airway.
The infant's father "said he was walking up the stairs with the baby when he fell down, landing on the child," Denver Post reporter David Olinger reported at the time.
According to Brenda, the injury temporarily paralyzed the right side of Trinity's newborn body, but she was recovering in the care of adoptive parents.
The last time Brenda called human services, a caseworker told her that he did see Amanda's bruises, but that he saw nothing that made him sick to his stomach.
Categories: Adams County, Colo.
Colorado Cold Cases: Man got away with killing disabled woman for 34 years
Patricia Beard, photograph courtesy Denver Police Department
Patricia Beard lived at a home that took care of mentally ill or disabled people.
The 32-year-old woman lived in a one bedroom apartment, number 109, at 555 East 11th Ave.
At 2:50 p.m. on March 27, 1981 someone unlocked her front door to see why she hadn't left her room. A small portable TV, which was on a stand, was still on at low volume.
Beard was found on her bed. She was lying on her back with her face up. Her right leg was hanging over the side of the bed. Her blue panties and black pants were around her ankle. She was wearing a brown shoe on her right foot.
Her left leg was fully extended on the bed. Her left foot still had a sock on it.
Her pink robe was opened, spread apart. Her slip was pushed up above her genital area.
A large red cut was on the victim's right jaw near her chin.
Denver's homicide unit supervisor assigned Pete Diaz to the case the same day as her body was found. He wrote detailed notes about the scene.
Diaz entered the small apartment through a wooden door. The lock on the door was a knob, push-lock device. It was in good working order.
| June 6, 2015, 5:31 pm
Colorado Cold Case: Denver police dispatcher sent Sudanese refugee into harm's way
Jimma Reat, far right, with family members, photo taken from U.S. District Court record
Juan Rodriguez took the emergency call in downtown Denver early on the morning of April 1, 2012.
Four men had just had their lives threatened by a large group of Hispanic men in Southwest Denver.
The attackers assaulted Jimma Reat, his two brothers, Ran Pal and Chankuoth Pal, and a close friend, Joseph Kolong, with large beer bottles and "bottle rockets."
The men had cursed the Sudanese refugees and called the victims the N-word and other ugly racial names.
They managed to elude their attackers and flee to the safety of their apartment complex in Wheat Ridge.
Rodriguez told the men they would get emergency help only if they returned to Denver, turned on the cars' flashing emergency hazard lights to meet police.
The men obediently drove back to the neighborhood where they had just barely escaped with their lives, but Rodriguez did not send police to meet them.
When the four arrived at the location, the same men who had previously taunted them minutes earlier, opened fire, killing Reat.
"Jimma Reat was gunned down and died in his brother's arms before the police were even dispatched," according to a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of Reat's family against Rodriguez and Denver police by John Holland, Erica Grossman and
Anna Holland Edwards of the Denver law firm of Holland, Holland Edwards & Grossman in September 2012.
Although Rodriguez has been fired, the men who killed Reat have not been arrested for the crime to this day.
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Categories: City of Denver, General