Castle Rock
News-Press
Douglas County, Colorado • Volume 10, Issue 30
October 18, 2012
Free
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourcastlerocknews.com
Gas explosion levels home Five escape with minor injuries, 20 evacuated from neighborhood By Rhonda Moore
rmoore@ourcoloradonews.com A mother and her four children escaped with minor injuries when a natural gas explosion leveled their Castle Rock home in a scene that neighbors compared to this generation’s worst disaster. The home of Jimmy and Lisa Martinez at 6942 Sulfur Lane in the Sapphire Pointe development was reduced to rubble shortly after 7 a.m. Oct. 12 in an explosion that rocked the neighborhood. When Janice Solomon heard the blast, she looked outside her front window to the house across the street and saw a scene that reminded her of “something out of a movie,” she said. “It looked like 9/11,” Solomon said. “The house was gone.”
Janice and Joe Solomon watched in shocked horror as neighbors immediately streamed from their homes, shovels in hand. “Everyone knew that family was home,” Solomon said. Fire investigators say Lisa Martinez was on the second floor of the house and the children were on the first floor at the time of the explosion. The children were between the ages of 6 and 10, said Castle Rock Fire Chief Art Morales. Solomon watched as neighbors helped extricate two of the children from the pile of rubble. The other two children were able to crawl to safety from underneath the debris, said Morales. First responders arrived within minutes and safely removed Lisa Martinez from the debris. The family members were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, Morales said. Responders included 42 firefighters from three agencies who arrived at a scene where the refrigerator was in the Blast continues on Page 11
Castle Rock Fire and Rescue evacuated 20 people from their homes in the Sapphire Pointe subdivision in Castle Rock Oct. 12, when a natural gas explosion razed this home at 6942 Sulfur Lane. Photo by Rhonda Moore
Town narrows water search to two bidders Broker, Denver/Aurora partnership selected for long-term negotiations By Rhonda Moore
rmoore@ourcoloradonews.com
Douglas County Coroner’s Office employees take part in the Oct. 12 exhumation of an unidentified body in Castle Rock. Photos by Courtney Kuhlen | ckuhlen@ourcoloradonews.com
Gabriel Hollist, an investigator with the Douglas County Coroner’s Office, helps load the exhumed, unidentified body for transport Oct. 12.
Body exhumed in cold case Girl was found dead at Rainbow Falls Campground By Rhonda Moore
rmoore@ourcoloradonews.com The Douglas County coroner hopes to help solve a cold case that is nearly 20 years old, with the help of advances in DNA technology. Coroner Lora Thomas and her chief deputy coroner, Charles Brining, unearthed the remains of teenager who was buried in Castle Rock without being identified. Their hope is to identify the girl to help investigators solve the mystery of her murder. “(Brining) came to us with experience
in body identification,” Thomas said. “He saw this ‘unidentified’ on our website, and one of his goals when I hired him was to identify this case.” The girl is described as an unidentified white female whose remains were found on June 15, 1993, at the Rainbow Falls Campground in Douglas County, between Woodland Park and Deckers off Highway 67. She was about 5-foot-7, 150 pounds, had shoulder-length, light brown or blonde hair, and investigators believe she had been dead since June 12 or 13, 1993. Exhumed continues on Page 23
Castle Rock Town Council narrowed its search for a long-term water provider by shutting down the public bidding process to begin negotiations for up to 3,000 acre-feet of water for future residents. Councilmembers on Oct. 9 approved a proposal that was vetted by a team that included the town’s utilities commission, which gave a unanimous recommendation to narrow negotiations to two bidders. With the approval from town council, town staff will take a closer look at a hybrid proposal that is a combination from Stillwater Resources, a Boulder-based company that acts as a water broker for municipalities such as Castle Rock, and the Water Infrastructure and Supply Efficiency (WISE) partnership between Denver and Aurora. The hybrid proposal at minimum is designed to include up to 2,000 acre-feet of water from Stillwater and 1,000 acrefeet of water from WISE, said Ron Redd, Castle Rock director of utilities. “This is not a rejection of the other proposals. They’re all viable and we could make them work,” Redd said. “The team thought WISE and Stillwater provided the best value and best chance to make it succeed.” At the beginning stages of the bidding process the proposal team mulled bids from four providers, at least one of which was surprised by the closure of the bidding process. Former Gov. Bill Owens, who submitWater continues on Page 23