Krazy Kolorado

Recent stories from the Denver Post:

COLORADO SPRINGS — A judge today found a Colorado Springs man who beat his mother to death with a guitar not guilty by reason of insanity.

BOULDER — After a three-day trial... a jury decided Thursday that Carol "Chay" Burdick was not wrongfully evicted from her... apartment last spring for refusing to take down a pyramid of Peeps and other Easter decorations.

DENVER — An American who traveled to Pakistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden has returned home to Colorado, several days after authorities there found him in the woods with a pistol, a sword and night-vision equipment.

In Pakistan, Gary Faulkner told officials he was out to kill the al-Qaida leader. He sold his construction tools to finance six trips on what relatives have called a Rambo-type mission to kill or capture bin Laden. He grew out his hair and beard to fit in better.

DENVER—What was supposed to be a two-day trip to the mountains to help clear her head turned into an 11-day ordeal for Kelly Guzman, who might have crossed paths with a bear as she tried to make her way to safety after her vehicle became stuck in a creek near Fraser... where temperatures dropped into the low 30s... She was found, collapsed [in a bush] and incoherent, on Sunday. She was wearing only a T-shirt, shorts, a light jacket and socks and suffering from mild hypothermia...

A reflective thermal blanket and a red poncho were left behind at the SUV when Guzman took off on foot. The warm clothing was left... on the SUV so it could be spotted from a distance, [her husband, Tom Ashford] said.

...Guzman, who did not have a cellphone, drove her Nissan Pathfinder into a creek the night of June 9. She took shelter in the sport utility vehicle for three days, enduring overnight snow and near-freezing temperatures, before trying to hike out. Without food, except for an energy bar, and lacking some medications, Guzman became disoriented, Ashford said.

"She did some things wrong," Ashford said. "But the bottom line is — I'm proud of her and glad she got out of it." Ashford said his wife lost about 30 pounds, and she was dehydrated and extremely weak from the ordeal.

Guzman was supposed to return home June 11. She was reported missing to Denver police on June 16, a Denver Police Department spokesman said. "The problem was, she didn't tell anyone where she was going," Ashford [again, her husband]said... "We thought she was trying to meditate or something. We thought she was just trying to get away," Guzman said. "After a couple of days, we started questioning. She had some people in her life we weren't sure about."

Grand County Sheriff Rodney Johnson said his office plans to interview Guzman as soon as she gains some strength back. "At some point, we want to talk to her and clarify some of the confusing stuff," he said.

In other news from Flyover Country:

A naked man armed with a gun caused chaos on a stretch of Interstate 80 in Wyoming, ending with at least three people injured and the suspect arrested, police said. Armando Cano, 26, of Moroni, Utah, was arrested Wednesday night on suspicion of attacking several motorists over miles of desolate highway between Rawlins and Green River, according to the Wyoming Highway Patrol. During the far-flung spree, shots were fired, vehicles were intentionally rammed, one person was cut with shattered glass and another was stabbed in the leg.

Highway patrol dispatchers started getting calls about 9 p.m. Wednesday about a white car that had been "swerving all over the highway and had run off the road." The driver, later identified as Cano, got out of the car and ran across the highway several times in front of approaching vehicles. Dispatchers then started fielding reports that a naked man was standing in the roadway.

Before troopers could arrive, a nude Cano got into a fight with a motorist who had stopped. Cano then jumped into his own car and started driving east on I-80. Seventeen miles away, Cano rammed into a vehicle carrying a Cheyenne couple. When both vehicles stopped, Cano, still naked, attempted to get into their vehicle.

Meanwhile, a motorist who saw the crash stopped to help. Cano forced his way into her vehicle and "found a 9mm semi-automatic handgun in the female's vehicle and began firing it from inside the vehicle out the closed window." The woman fled the vehicle on foot.

The Cheyenne couple tried to drive away from the chaotic scene, but Cano jumped back into his car and rammed the couple's vehicle again, police said.

Still armed, Cano then drove his car about 3 miles down the highway, stopped, got out and lay naked in the road. He then got up and threw an unknown object at a passing vehicle, shattering the driver-side window. As a passer-by tried to shepherd Cano off the highway, the suspect stabbed the person in the leg. Cano, now armed with a pipe, began breaking out windows of vehicles until a trooper and truck drivers wrestled him to the ground.