Castle Rock
News-Press
Douglas County, Colorado • Volume 10, Issue 37
rmoore@ourcoloradonews.com
The district attorney-elect for the 18th Judicial District compares his choice for assistant district attorney to something like drafting a Super Bowl-quality player.
ourcastlerocknews.com
Mother convicted of killing children rmoore@ourcoloradonews.com
vast landholdings until 1995, when the last of the Helmer family members sold the property. Today, the county is first in line from the landowner who can no longer serve as the building’s custodian, said Judy Hammer,
Prosecutors were persuasive in their argument against Kelli Murphy, who was found guilty of killing her two children over a bitter custody battle. A jury on Nov. 27 found Murphy guilty of two counts of murder in the first degree and two counts of murder in the first degree by a person in a position of trust. She was immediately sentenced to life without parole, the only punishment for first-degree murder under Colorado law. Murphy was convicted in the May 22, 2011, deaths of her children, Liam and Madigan Murphy. The children were 9 and 6, respectively, when they were found smothered in their beds after Murphy called Murphy Castle Rock police to report she had tried to kill herself and her children were “in heaven.” The jury reached its verdict on what would have been Liam Murphy’s 11th birthday. In his closing arguments, deputy district attorney Christopher Gallo painted a picture of a woman driven by power and frustrated by the thought of having to share custody of her children with her estranged husband, Eric Murphy. “The woman was bent on control of her children, her husband, her divorce,” Gallo said. “It was Kelli’s way or no way. (Eric Murphy) was about to take that control away; he was about to divest her of the meaning of her life.” According to court records, the couple was going through a divorce at the time of the children’s deaths. Court testimony and evidence showed that Kelli Murphy was demanding “100 percent custody of the children and 100 percent of his salary,” Gallo said. The investigation into the children’s deaths showed Kelli Murphy waited 12 hours after her children were dead before calling police. In their closing arguments, prosecutors pointed out that in the hours surrounding the murder of her children, she avoided contact with her estranged husband and barricaded the house. In his closing arguments, public defender Ara Ohanian acknowledged that, based on testimony and evidence heard in trial, Kelli Murphy was mentally unstable, confused and paranoid. The defense had entered a not-guilty plea, with the argument that Kelli Murphy was intoxicated at the time of the murders and killed her children during a drunken blackout. “Her act in taking these drugs and this alcohol was extreme recklessness,” Ohanian said. “That’s what you should convict her on. This is not about justice for those children. There are no winners in this. It is an extreme tragedy.” Based on the evidence at the scene and the sequence of events that surrounded the children’s deaths, the blackout theory was “patently absurd,” Gallo said. Pivotal in the case was Kelli’s Murphy’s obsession with control, said Jay Williford, senior deputy district attorney.
George Brauchler, who in January will take the helm of the largest judicial district in the state, has named Mark Hurlbert, the sitting district attorney in the Fifth Judicial District, as second in command in the 18th. Hurlbert’s name was at the top of the list for Brauchler, who made his decision final after the November election. “It’s almost like going after Peyton Manning,” Brauchler said. “He has veteran experience and he’s also a change agent.” Hurlbert has served as DA since 2002 in the Fifth District, which encompasses Clear
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Creek, Eagle, Lake and Summit counties. Among the high-profile cases that have crossed Hurlbert’s desk were the Kobe Bryant rape accusation and the sage of Royal “Scoop” Daniel III, an attorney who vanished for more than four years before going to prison for theft of clients’ money. Hurlbert is a native of Dillon who graduated from Dartmouth College and the University of Colorado School of Law in Boulder. He will finish his final term in the Fifth DA continues on Page 7
Old cabin needs place to call home Deal would require property restrictions By Rhonda Moore
rmoore@ourcoloradonews.com It could be a little like finding the perfect date or it could read as the strangest kind of classified ad: County seeks willing landowner in the Chatfield Valley to preserve historic building. Must love local history, be willing to let the public visit periodically and prepare to make full disclosure at point of sale that the building stays in perpetuity. But this is a case where truth is stranger than fiction, because that is exactly what Douglas County is looking for in a perfect property owner for the Miksch-Helmer homestead cabin, which is to be dismantled and moved. Historians believe the cabin, in the present-day Roxborough Village area, was built in the early 1870s by Amos Miksch, a Pennsylvania transplant. By the time the U.S. government deeded
A Colorado Community Media Publication
By Rhonda Moore
New DA picks prominent assistant
By Rhonda Moore
Free
Murphy sentenced to life without parole
George Brauchler, left, stands outside the Robert A. Christensen Justice Center in Castle Rock with Mark Hurlbert on Nov. 28. Brauchler, who will be sworn in as district attorney for the 18th Judicial District in January, will be joined by Hurlbert, the longtime district attorney in the Fifth Judicial District, as assistant district attorney. Photo by Courtney Kuhlen
Hurlbert joining Brauchler’s team
December 6, 2012
Douglas County is looking for a new site for the Miksch-Helmer homestead cabin. Courtesy photo the property in the Chatfield Valley over to Miksch, he had built a cabin, corrals, a barn and a fence. The property changed hands in 1873 and again in 1883, when it was sold to Franz and Judith Helmer, Austrian immigrants whose descendants held onto the family’s