Gov. John Hickenlooper on Thursday announced an audit to ensure the state’s prisoners are serving their correct sentences, two weeks after a parolee who was mistakenly released four years early was identified as a suspect in the killing of Colorado’s prisons chief.
The announcement came as authorities said they were looking for two other members of Evan Ebel’s white supremacist prison gang. Authorities said the two men were not suspects but “persons of interest” in Tom Clements’ death. Investigators are trying to determine whether Clements’ killing was an isolated attack or done at the direction of top members of the 211 Crew.
Amid that backdrop, state officials announced the audit and a review of state parole procedures by the National Institute of Corrections. Ebel had slipped his ankle bracelet five days before the Clements killing, but authorities did not issue a warrant for his arrest on parole violations until the following day.
During that time, police believe Ebel also was involved in the slaying of Nathan Leon, a pizza deliveryman and father of three, in Denver.
Ebel was sentenced to a combined eight years in prison for a series of assault and menacing convictions in 2005. He was convicted of assaulting a prison guard in 2008, but a clerical error led his new four-year sentence to be recorded as running simultaneously to his others, rather than to start after they finished. As a result, he was released Jan. 28.
Meanwhile, the announcement Wednesday night that authorities are looking for two other 211 gang members was the first official indication of a possible tie to the gang.
James Lohr, 47, and Thomas Guolee, 31, aren’t being called suspects in Clements’ killing, but are considered persons of interest. Their names surfaced during the investigation, El Paso County sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Kramer said. He wouldn’t elaborate.
Authorities say the two Colorado Springs men are members of the 211 Crew gang and have been associated with Ebel in the past.
Both are wanted on warrants unrelated to Clements’ death, and authorities believe they are armed and dangerous. Sheriff’s investigators said they don’t know the whereabouts of Lohr and Guolee or if they are together, but it’s possible one or both of them could be headed to Nevada or Texas, Kramer said.
Ebel is the only suspect that investigators have named in Clements’ killing, but they haven’t given a motive. They have said they’re looking into his connection to the gang he joined while in prison, and whether that was connected to the attack.
Records show the vendor operating the electronic monitoring bracelet Ebel wore noted a “tamper alert” March 14. Corrections officials left a message for Ebel telling him to report in two days and have the bracelet repaired, records show.
The next day, for the first time since his release, Ebel did not call in for his daily phone check-in.
On March 16, he missed his appointment to repair the bracelet. Only on the following day do the records show that a note was made in the corrections system that he failed to show up.
By then, Leon, a father of three, was shot and killed after answering a call for a pizza at a Denver truck stop.
On March 18, parole officers contacted Ebel’s father, who said he was concerned his son had fled and gave them permission to search Ebel’s apartment. The next afternoon, two parole officers concluded he had fled.
Hours later, Clements answered his doorbell and was fatally shot.
The next morning, still unaware of a connection with the most recent slaying, the state issued a warrant for Ebel’s arrest on parole violations.
A sheriff’s deputy in rural Texas pulled Ebel over March 21, but he fled. Ebel was killed in the shootout that followed.
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