Ivan Moreno
Rocky Mountain News
PARKER, Colo. — The bizarre case of a man whose decomposing body was found by a Realtor who was showing a home took another twist early Sunday when SWAT officers killed a man police wanted to question about the slaying.
Police provided few details of the SWAT shooting, but more information emerged about the homicide victim, a 41-year-old named Robert Alurac who had lived in Alaska and Oklahoma before moving to Colorado.
A Douglas County SWAT officer saw a man wanted for questioning about Alurac’s death climbing out of the second-floor window of a Super 8 Motel about 12 a.m. Sunday.
Officers shot the man after they confronted him in front of the motel and he displayed a weapon, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said.
The man’s name was not released.
Douglas County SWAT officers executed a search warrant at the motel at the request of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating Alurac’s death.
Jacki Kelley, a Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, said the man whom SWAT officers shot was one of a group of people investigators wanted to question about the homicide.
Alurac’s body was found July 23 outside a $390,000 home for sale in the 8400 block of Scenic Drive near Morrison.
A Realtor showing the home saw Alurac’s body, which investigators said had apparently been there for some time.
Shannon Herren, whose mother was married to Alurac for two years before they divorced, said he was an Eskimo from Anchorage, Alaska.
“He was a nice guy,” she said in a telephone interview Sunday. “I mean he was funny, always had a smile. Loved my kids.”
Herren said Alurac was a construction worker and a mechanic in Alaska.
She said he lived in Oklahoma, too, before he moved to Colorado, but that her mother had not talked to him in some time.
Details of how Alurac died have not been released.
Guests at the Super 8 Motel, 6230 Pine Lane, were evacuated and taken to an American Red Cross shelter at Pine Elementary School before the SWAT team began negotiations with the man who was killed Sunday.
“Some people were really upset, some were scared, some were just going with the flow,” said Melinda Epp, an American Red Cross spokeswoman.
“They were thankful they had a place to stay.”
The 70 people were given cots and blankets and were settled in at the school’s gym, Epp said.
A woman who was with the man in the motel room was arrested, but her name also was being withheld.
Copyright 2007 Denver Publishing Company