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18-year-old also a suspect in second attack; Police continue investigating slayings of homeless men
By Hector Gutierrez
News Staff Writer
An 18-year-old transient charged Friday with beating a Denver homeless man last month is also a suspect in a second attack on a transient.
The two beatings took place eight hours apart on the weekend of Sept. 25.
In the first assault, the man was beaten, then thrown into the South Platte River. He survived.
But a third man who suffered the same fate - a harsh beating, before being found floating in the river Sept. 26 - died of his injuries. No one has been charged with that assault.
But police are aware of the similarities.
Four homeless men have died, and several others have been beaten this fall in lower downtown. Police are still not sure if the violence is related.
Officers arrested Michael Leathers on Monday and are holding him in connection with the non-fatal beatings on September 25 and 26. Detectives also have received a court order allowing them to take blood from Leathers to see if he might be involved in other attacks.
Leathers was taken into custody after the Sept. 25 beating victim saw him near 16th Street Mall and Arapahoe Street and called police. The Denver district attorney charged Leathers with second-degree assault and robbery in that attack.
Detectives have been attempting to piece together the sequence of events surrounding the two beatings and one homicide that occurred over that same weekend. According to court affidavits:
The first victim told detectives that on Sept. 25 he was playing harmonica on the 16th Street Mall and collecting money from passersby. He saw Leathers walking up and down the mall most of the day, detectives said.
About 5 p.m., Leathers approached the 39-year-old victim and told him he knew of a place where he could get some food, detectives said. The victim followed Leathers to a bicycle path at Confluence Park near Speer Boulevard and 15th Street.
Once there, they met up with ``other young males.'' Leathers and the men attacked the victim, police said. He said he has no memory of the beating.
The victim told detectives he was knocked unconscious. When he woke he was being treated for head and facial injuries at Denver Health Medical Center.
A nurse told the victim he had been found ``floating in the river,'' detectives said.
About eight hours later - 1 a.m. on Sept. 26 - police responded to Arapahoe and 18th streets on a call of a homeless man being beaten.
The 44-year-old victim told officers he was lying on steam grate when ``four to six'' men began kicking and hitting him. The victim fought off his attackers by hurling a rock at one of them.
About an hour later, officers found a small group of young men at Arapahoe and 16th streets who matched the description of the assailants. One was Leathers.
Officers discovered what looked like blood stains on Leathers' clothing and boots, and police confiscated them.
About 12 hours after the second beating, a passerby discovered the beaten body of Milo Harris, 51, in the South Platte River near Cuernavaca Park.
In addition to Harris' killing, detectives are investigating the slayings of Melvin Washington, 47, George Worth, 62, and Donald Dyer, 51, who were all homeless.
A witness told police that Washington was lying on a sidewalk Sept. 8 when a group of ``juvenile suspects'' started beating him. He died a week later.
Worth and Dyer were found beaten to death under a loading dock in the 2400 block of Blake Street a day before Washington's body was discovered.
October 9, 1999
