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Anonymous donor offers money for arrest, prosecution
By Carla Crowder
News Staff Writer
An anonymous donor has put up a $100,000 reward for help in solving the beating deaths of five homeless people in Denver.
Mayor Wellington Webb announced the offer Friday at the Denver Police Department, where detectives have been investigating the killings since early September.
City officials offered little information about the mysterious donor.
He or she is a Colorado businessperson who contacted Denver Rocky Mountain News Publisher Larry Strutton earlier this week, Webb said.
Denver Crime Stoppers received a letter from the contributor's attorney ensuring that the $100,000 is valid.
``The money will be there,'' Webb said.
It's the largest reward that Crime Stoppers locally has offered, said Denver Crime Stoppers President David Caldiero.
Homicide investigators said Friday that they're not convinced the killings are related. They said it's too soon to say whether a serial killer is involved.
``Right now, the only real solid links we have are they are transients, and the geographic area, and they (were killed by) blunt force trauma,'' said Denver Police Capt. Tim Leary. ``However, not all the trauma has been the same.''
Some of the victims appeared to have been beaten with a weapon, others with fists, Leary said.
Police have not been able to determine a motive.
``This is a group of people who always felt the streets were safe because they had nothing to take,'' said Steve Walkup, of the Denver Rescue Mission, where more than 60 men a night more than the shelter's capacity have been seeking refuge since the killings.
The slain men were all found in lower downtown or the central Platte Valley. The victims are: Donald Dyer, 51; George Worth, 63; Melvin Washington, 47; Milo Harris, 52; and Kenneth Rapp Jr., 43.
This kind of brutality, like hate crimes, puts a black eye on a city, said John Parvensky, director of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.
Police tend to call the victims transients.
``But most homeless people in Denver are not transient,'' Parvensky said. Many have ``deep roots'' with the community, he said.
Denver Public Safety Director Butch Montoya used the occasion to point out that there are many, complex reasons for homelessness - mental illness, drug addictions and other problems.
``We're not going to allow a person or persons to prey on one of our most vulnerable populations,'' Montoya said. ``Our community needs to be outraged at this.''
Webb added: ``The message that we want to get out, if there's one overriding theme, we have to treat lives the same, whether it's a person that's extremely wealthy or it's a person that's homeless.''
Anyone with information on the killings can call Crime Stoppers at (303) 640-4422.
Callers will remain anonymous.
The $100,000 reward will be made if the information offered leads to the arrest and prosecutionof the killer or killers.
October 30, 1999
