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Court order lets police gather evidence in slayings, assaults
By Hector Gutierrez
News Staff Writer
Denver police say they will investigate an 18-year-old man to see if he may be connected to a series of transient slayings and other assaults on the homeless.
Police have a court order allowing them to take blood and other physical evidence from Michael Leathers, whom police tentatively described as homeless.
He was arrested in the Sept. 26 non-fatal attack on a 44-year-old homeless man, who was sleeping on a steam grate at Arapahoe and 18th streets.
On the same day, authorities pulled the battered body of a homeless man out of the South Platte River near Cuernavaca Park.
Leathers is not considered a suspect at this point in the slayings of four homeless men in September. Police say they're not sure if the deaths are connected.
``These (blood) samples will be compared with previous assaults that have occurred on transients in the Denver metro area,'' Detective Virginia Lopez said Wednesday.
Police say Leathers and possibly six other men attacked a transient, hitting and kicking him in the head, about 1 a.m. Sept. 26.
The attackers fled after the victim picked up a rock and hit one of the assailants in the face. The victim required several stitches for his head injuries.
Officers found four men at Arapahoe and 16th streets afterward, who matched the description of the assailants. One was Leathers, and he had blood on his clothing, police said.
Detectives then requested the court order to allow them to compare the blood on Leathers' clothing to the transient's blood.
Leathers is being held on $15,000 bond in connection with that assault, and another 18-year-old man was ordered in for questioning. As of Tuesday, he was not in custody.
A group of ``juvenile suspects'' was also seen assaulting Melvin Washington on Sept. 8 at 18th and Larimer streets, police reported.
When police found Washington, he was unconscious and bleeding from the head. The 47-year-old transient died a week later.
The other killings include:
* Sept. 7: George Worth, 62, and Donald Dyer, 51, were discovered beaten to death beneath a loading dock in the 2400 block of Blake Street.
* Sept. 26: Milo Harris, 51, found dead floating in the Platte River.
October 7, 1999
