From the Longmont Daily Times-Call 10/6/99Crime canyon
by Greg Avery
Daily Times-Call
"*LONGMONT — In the space of a month, detectives twice taped off
portions of the scenic canyon to investigate a brutal crime.
* *Juxtaposed against its beautiful twisting geography cut by Lefthand
Creek, the crimes seemed especially heinous — gang rape and murder.
* *But the Aug. 29 and Sept. 26 incidents were hardly the first in
Lefthand Canyon, nor were they unusually brutal for its recent history.
* *On Sept. 26, a couple looking for landscaping material discovered
24-year-old Natalie Mirabal's strangled and decapitated body near a
short turn-off in the canyon west of Longmont.
* *Twenty-eight days earlier, a 2 hour gang rape took place at the
canyon's Ponderosa Park picnic area.
* *The 20-year-old woman, kidnapped and raped by six men, was dropped
off a mile down the canyon, left to wander shoeless in the dark for
help.
* *The incidents only add to Lefthand's dark mystique."
Snip
"* *In 1978, a teen-age girl, Christine Jones, was raped and murdered in
the same gulch, a crime that remains unsolved and whose file is still
active.
* *In September 1982, 14-year-old Margaret Hillman disappeared from a
barn dance in Lefthand Canyon. Forest Service workers doing a timber
survey on Heil Ranch just north of the canyon found her body nearly a
year later, buried in a stream bed with her clothes neatly folded next
to her.
* *Higher up the canyon in 1987, about five miles east of Ward, someone
strangled Longmont 27-year-old Carol Murphy. Sheriff's detectives
believe they know who killed her, but never had enough evidence to make
an arrest.
* *A slew of other violent crimes like rapes and assaults have been
reported over the years.
* *It's location seems to be the reason.
* *"It's pretty accessible but it still feels remote," Epp said.
* *Lefthand Canyon Drive is a county road, not a state highway like the
roads up Boulder and South St. Vrain canyons.
* *It's traffic volumes are much lighter and housing developments
sparse and far from the roads making it feel farther from prying eyes
than it looks on a map.
* *For someone quickly seeking a secluded spot to commit a crime or
leave a body, it seems ideal, said Boulder police investigations Cmdr.
Joe Pelle, a former Sheriff's deputy who lives in Longmont and has more
than two decades in law enforcement experience here. Lefthand's
connection to the North Foothills Highway gives it high-speed access
from Boulder and Longmont.
* *But grisly crime is hardly the exclusive domain of Lefthand Canyon.
* *To Pelle, Boulder Canyon also evokes memories of death — three
children kidnapped and found near Barker Reservoir, two of them killed —
*as does St. Vrain Canyon west of Lyons."
