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By Hector Gutierrez
News Staff Writer
Denver detectives Saturday were investigating the death of a man found in a field in lower downtown as a homicide.
The body is partially decomposed and detectives believe the man may have been dead three to six weeks, police Sgt. Tony Lombard said.
Detectives are unsure how the victim died and are waiting for autopsy results.
Workers clearing weeds from a field in the area of 19th and Lipan streets discovered the body Friday afternoon.
Detectives also have been probing the September slayings of four transients in LoDo and other assaults on homeless victims. Police have been trying to determine whether the attacks are linked.
The Denver district attorney's office has charged an 18-year-old man with the Sept. 25 assault and robbery of a homeless man in LoDo. Detectives have said Michael Leathers of Littleton also is a suspect in the beating of another transient during the early morning of Sept. 26, though he has not been charged in that assault.
However, detectives have been unable to link the results of blood samples taken from Leathers to evidence found at the crime scenes where four homeless men were found beaten to death.
On the morning of Sept. 7, homeless victims George Worth, 62, and Donald Dyer, 51, were discovered slain beneath a loading dock in the 2400 block of Blake Street.
On Sept. 8, Melvin Washington was lying on a sidewalk at 18th and Larimer streets when he was attacked. Washington, 47, died a week later from his injuries.
On Sept. 26, Milo Harris, 51, was found dead floating in the Platte River near Cuernavaca Park.
October 24, 1999
