CBI says four killed in apparent murder-suicide

Four people were killed in an apparent murder-suicide at a La Junta home late Tuesday night, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

La Junta police responded to a home in the 1100 block of Smithland Avenue at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and found two adults and two children with gunshot wounds, CBI officials said in a news release Wednesday.

Two adults and a child were pronounced dead at the scene, and the second child was taken to a Denver-area hospital and later pronounced dead.

Investigators believe it was not a random incident and that the people who died knew each other, CBI officials said.

— Katie Langford, The Denver Post

In plea deal, 23-year-old receives 12 years in fatal drunken-driving crash

A 23-year-old man was sentenced to 12 years in prison Tuesday for a drunken-driving crash involving multiple vehicles.

The collision killed a Colorado Ballet musician and hospitalized three others.

Juan Ortega Torres Jr., 23, pleaded guilty to one charge of vehicular homicide and two charges of vehicular assault in May, according to a news release from the 1st Judicial District attorney’s office.

The plea dropped four additional counts of vehicular assault, driving under the influence and reckless driving from his case, according to court records.

On Tuesday, Ortega Torres was sentenced to 12 years in prison — half of the maximum 24-year sentence he could have received, according to the district attorney’s office.

The crash happened after Ortega Torres ran a red light at West 64th Avenue and Lamar Street in Arvada, crashing into three cars while going 60 mph in a 35 mph zone, the district attorney’s office said in the news release.

Kresten Wolff Thomsen, 44, died in the crash, and two children and the driver of another vehicle were injured, Arvada police said.

Thomsen was picking his two children up from school and was a few miles from home when the crash occurred. He was a composer, writer and musician who worked with the Colorado Ballet.

“All of the words in all of the languages on Earth will never be able to describe what a wonderful man this was,” Thomsen’s wife said to the court Tuesday. “Kresten and the loss of him consumes my every thought. I live in a sorrow that is indescribable, unpredictable, and inconsolable.

“I long for him every minute of every day.”

— Lauren Penington, The Denver Post