Suspect in a Colorado college dorm fatal shooting had threatened to kill roommate, affidavit says
DENVER — A student was charged with murdering his roommate and another person told his roommate he would “kill” him if he was asked to take out the trash, according to a court document released Friday.
Nicholas Jordan is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, menacing and committing a violent crime in the Feb. 16 shooting in a dormitory at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Jordan is accused of killing his roommate, Samuel Knopp, 24, and Celie Rain Montgomery, 26.
The January dispute was recounted by a third roommate in the dorm room where Jordan and Knopp lived, according to Jordan’s arrest affidavit. Police and housing records confirmed the interactions, the document said.
Jordan’s attorney, Nick Rogers, objected to the document’s release, in part because he said his client — a junior studying accounting — “would continue to be persecuted in the media.” He did not address the charges against Jordan during the hearing and tried unsuccessfully to have Jordan released from jail without posting bail.
The warrant for Jordan’s arrest was issued on the first day of the investigation, but the fact that he was a suspect was not revealed until he was arrested Monday in a residential area of Colorado Springs, about 3 miles from campus.
In addition to a gun that prosecutors say was found in Jordan’s car, authorities recently learned he also had a fully loaded AK-47, Robert Willett of the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office told Shakes. Jordan had a temporary job and was about to withdraw from college, he said.
According to police, the bodies of Knopp and Montgomery were found after shots were fired around 6 a.m. Friday at Crestone House, a dorm in a complex that provides undergraduate and graduate students with apartment-style housing. A campus-wide lockdown lasted about 90 minutes before it was scaled back to just the complex.
On Friday, police said the deaths appeared to be an “isolated incident” involving people who knew each other, and not a random attack. They said there was no “ongoing threat to the community”.