Westword

What was behind one Colorado woman’s obsession with the code breaker? Derangement? A kind of fetish? Or something else?

Sometimes it feels like it happened yesterday. Other times it’s as if it happened to someone else. She has told the story of that day so many times now that it doesn’t even feel like it’s her story anymore. It’s just something she knows, something she might have picked up anywhere, a scrap of ancient history or pop trivia. I’ll take American Mass Shootings for a thousand, Alex.

In USP Florence, the most violent prison in the U.S. federal prison system, rats don’t live long and they don’t die peacefully. But Wayne Byerly talked, and lived — and found redemption.

Where would you take a $100,000 check that is also a suicide note — to the cops or to the bank?

Laradon’s director found the envelope in her mailbox when she returned to work four days later. On the back, in handwritten block letters, were six words: WAIT UNTILL YOU HEAR FROM CORONER. And below that, in parentheses: PLEASE DONT CALL EVERYTHING IS OK.

Despite the plea to wait, Green opened the envelope. Inside was the original of Beech’s Last Will and Testament, which left all his worldly goods to Laradon Hall.

A look at what led up to the passing of Amendment 64 in Colorado, which legalized recreational marijuana use in the state:

“While the medical marijuana industry was evolving, activists continued to push for recreational use of marijuana. In 2005, Mason Tvert’s newly founded Safer Alternatives to Recreational Enjoyment pushed — and passed — resolutions at Colorado State University and CU demanding that cannabis penalties be no worse than penalties for alcohol offenses on campus. That same year, SAFER put a measure on the Denver ballot that would decriminalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by anyone over the age of twenty. When Denver voters approved the proposal, the Mile High City became the first major city in the country to make such a move — even though it was mostly symbolic and simply reinforced the state’s 1975 decriminalization laws.

“Still, it was seen as a win for the cannabis community, and it inspired SAFER to push for a similar statewide measure in 2006 that only received 40 percent of the vote. In 2007, SAFER again focused on Denver, which this time approved making marijuana possession the city’s lowest police priority.

“And soon a lot more people would be possessing marijuana — legally.”

The long road to reform the government’s Minerals Management Service, three years after its “sex, drugs and oil” scandal:

“One thing that the agency hasn’t done is put to rest the skepticism of its whistleblowers. They claim that schemes similar to the royalty-avoidance techniques at issue in the False Claim Act lawsuits are still being used by major oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in tens of millions in lost revenues.

“‘I don’t think a lot has changed,’ says Little. ‘Shell isn’t the only company doing this. We turned in several other companies to the inspector general. We gave them our files. We had to force them to take them. And they still have not done one thing. They have not pursued any of those companies.'”