News in Brief
Aspen, CO Colorado
CORRECTION: The following brief contains a mistake about where the suspect was taken into custody. Pitkin County deputies arrested Shane Nicholson on Monday night for allegedly violating his parole at the home where convicted murderer Andrew Kachik once lived. He was not arrested at the home where Kachik shot and killed Vincent Thomas.
GARFIELD COUNTY – A Thomasville man was arrested Monday evening on a Garfield County warrant that was issued after he allegedly violated his parole.
Shane Nicholson, 37, was taken into custody without incident at the same home in which a man shot and killed another man in 2002.
Garfield County authorities told Pitkin County Sheriff’s deputies about Nicholson’s possible whereabouts.
“We went there and arrested him,” said Patrol Director Ann Stephenson.
Andrew Kachik was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Vincent Thomas, who died at the residence.
Nicholson has served time in state prison for vandalism and also was charged in Garfield County for felony vehicular eluding and a misdemeanor charge of failure to comply with a court order, Stephenson said.
He was taken to Pitkin County Jail before being transported to Garfield County.
“You drive 23 miles up the Fryingpan and plan to get someone out of a small house, it gets the adrenaline pumping,” Stephenson said. “But the arrest was a non-event, and we’re happy to say that.”
WOODY CREEK – The Beaver Run Resort, which had been scheduled to sell at a foreclosure auction this week, has been given a year-long extension for further negotiations between property owner Floyd Watkins and his lenders.
Watkins went through several years of financial misfortune, unable to pay his loans, at the same time that he is battling terminal cancer.
He has been fighting off foreclosures on the property, which is located at 6090 Woody Creek Road, from Alpine Bank and Rocky Mountain Equity Mortgage for the past several years.
The Pitkin County Assessor’s Office lists the market value of the Beaver Run Ranch at nearly $7.3 million. In 1985, the property was sold to Janelle Renee Watkins for $335,000.
GLENWOOD SPRINGS – Starting Oct. 1, the Colorado Department of Transportation will close one lane of traffic in both directions on Highway 82 in south Glenwood Springs when the agency continues a resurfacing project that began in early July.
Motorists can expect single-lane closures in both directions, primarily from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., for seven to 10 straight days. There will be no interference during peak travel periods: no work in the upvalley lanes between 6:30 a.m. and 9 a.m., and no work in the downvalley direction between 3:30 p.m. and 6 p.m.
The project involves first grinding up the top layer of asphalt, then an asphalt overlay and striping on a one-plus mile section of Grand Avenue/Highway 82 from 23rd Street south to the city limits.
For more information, contact Project Information Manager Sean Thomas of Grand River Construction at 970-618-8329.
