By Lance Benzel
The Gazette
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — As retired Colorado Springs firefighter Daryl B. Ritz lay wounded from three gunshots, his assailant paused before firing one more round from a .40-caliber Ruger pistol — this time at Ritz’s head.
The delay between shots — captured on a dashboard camera from a nearby vehicle — was among the evidence cited by prosecutors Tuesday in arguing that suspect Gustavo Torres-Gonzalez, 43, had only one purpose in mind: To kill.
“There was deliberation, reflection and the exercise of judgment,” prosecutor Beth Reed said at a half-day hearing in 4th Judicial District Court.
District Judge Barbara Hughes ruled that evidence in the slaying, which occurred May 16 north of Colorado Springs, was persuasive enough to constitute the presumption Torres-Gonzales will be convicted at trial.
The defendant, who pleaded not guilty at the hearing’s conclusion, will remain in El Paso County jail without bond pending a Jan. 9 trial, the judge ruled.
Ritz, 58, retired from the Fire Department in May 2013 after a 33-year career. He is the brother of a retired police lieutenant Brian Ritz, who helped discover the body while assisting El Paso County sheriff’s authorities on a search of their father’s property off Judge Orr Road.
Daryl Ritz, who worked as a driver at Pioneer Sand and Gravel, told coworkers he intended to stop by the property to check on things after a recent spate of burglaries and thefts, including the thefts of a kit-built airplane and a Jeep.
A GoPro camera mounted inside Ritz’s dump truck provides distant look at a confrontation between two people before one falls to the ground, prosecutors say.
At that point, the gunman approaches and fires what sheriff’s investigators in an arrest affidavit called a “coup de grace,” or kill shot.
In attacking the evidence, one of Torres-Gonzalez’s attorneys argued that the video, which was shot from approximately 100 yards away from the struggle, shows little more than “shadowy figures.”
Public defender Marcus Henson also faulted the “colorful characters” whose claims under interrogation helped lead authorities to his client.
One of them, Christopher Shawn Laxton, 42, was caught red-handed burning documents belonging to Ritz when authorities raided his Black Forest home in search of stolen property, Henson said. They allegedly found the vehicle, the airplane and “numerous” other items that had been plundered from what used to be a commercial painting business stashed at Laxton’s property.
Laxton’s DNA was also on a methamphetamine pipe found in one of the burglarized buildings on the Ritz property.
Court records show he has been charged with destroying evidence, a felony, and awaits an arraignment scheduled for Oct. 11, at which he is likely to learn his trial date.
In disputing Henson’s claim of an “absolute dearth of physical evidence,” Reed cited cell phone records that show Torres-Gonzalez made calls from the property at Judge Orr Road on the day of the killing and up until 5 p.m. the next day, suggested that he spent the night there after the slaying.
Meanwhile, authorities determined there was no evidence that Laxton or any other potential suspects were present at the time, sheriff’s investigators said.
Detectives said two men, including Laxton, told them that Torres-Gonzalez admitted shooting Ritz.
The other man, Anthony “Tony” David, said Torres-Gonzalez, Laxton and their associates referred to the Ritz property as The Nugget, apparently under the belief it was once owned by the mob and contained buried treasure, according to sheriff’s detective John Watts.
Henson argued that David and Laxton’s claims should be viewed with skepticism because both were potential suspects at the time they were interviewed.
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