Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Aurora, CO: Wife Escaped As Aurora, Colorado Gunman Killed His In-Laws


A day before the start of a week-long hearing to determine if the case against alleged movie theater gunman James Holmes can go to trial, more details are emerging about another shooting in Aurora, Colorado on Saturday. Relatives say 33-year-old Sonny Archuleta killed his wife’s stepfather, Anthony Ticali, her sister, Stacie Philbrook, and her sister’s boyfriend, Chris Ratliff, in an Aurora townhouse before he was killed by police after a six-hour standoff. Stephanie Archuleta, the gunman's wife, escaped by jumping from a second story window, then called the police. “It wasn’t just here or there,” said Corinne Wurzbacher, Stephanie's stepsister,according to the Post. “Stephanie said she couldn’t understand how the bullets missed her. She’s faced with all of this grief and guilt."
It's been reported that Archuleta might have been high on methamphetamine during the shooting, but police are still trying to determine his motive. “He just went nuts," said Wurzbacher. "I don’t think he cared who he hit. He was in a really bad state of mind that night. He was really low. It was a drug fit. He wasn’t right in the head. I can only think that they tried to confront from.” Archuleta had been arrested for several misdemeanors in 2012, including carrying a concealed weapon and prohibited use of a weapon. According to Wurzbacher, Archuleta frequently clashed with his father-in-law, who lived with him, and he'd threatened him with a gun in the last year.
Archuleta lost his brother, Patricio Archuleta, to gun violence a little over a year ago when he was shot in a Denver parking lot. A police source says Stephanie told authorities that her husband was mentally unbalanced, and her mother, Shannon Ticali, expressed sympathy for her son-in-law. “My daughter was murdered, my son-in-law was killed by the police because he’s sick,” she said. “He was still a human. We have no ill feelings towards him.”

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