Autopsy reports about the deaths of minors will no longer be made public, under a controversial bill making its way through the Colorado statehouse. Despite long being available through the Colorado Open Records Act – which exempts other kinds of personal medical records from public scrutiny – autopsy reports for minors will soon be confidential, if the bill becomes law. Only some details from those reports – including the name, age, race, and cause of death of the child – will remain available to the public, unless the child dies while in the care or custody of a government agency, in which ..read more

The search for Ted Bundy murder victim Julie Cunningham will resume this summer, almost 50 years after she disappeared from Vail, Colorado.  Before being executed in 1989, serial killer Bundy confessed to murdering Cunningham – and a string of other young women – and burying her body “in the high desert” north of Rifle. That’s where private investigator, Jason Jensen, and his trained human remains detection dog, Lily, plan to search for Cunningham.  The missing 26-year-old was last seen in the early evening of March 15, 1975, after she left her apartment to visit a local tavern. Cun ..read more

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold has announced new rules for notaries to “ensure transparency in notary public operations.” A press release issued by Griswold’s office says the rules require a notary public to inform their customers of any service that is an additional charge to the notarial act, prior to performing that notarial act. “The rules further require that a notary public provide an itemized invoice of each specific charge in addition to the notarial act, and specifies the consequences of failing to abide by the new requirements,” says the press release.  The new r ..read more

Lindsey Paison will speak on how to find missing persons at the April meeting of the Professional Private Investigator Association of Colorado.  Paison is the owner and lead investigator of Dark Knight Private Investigations, which specializes in the reunification of missing and endangered persons with family and loved ones, as well as process service, aid to law firms for witness interviews, and mobile notary. “I started my own private investigation practice in the fall of 2021, after many years doing private process services for various law firms,” says Paison. “I expanded on my proces ..read more

Changes to the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) currently being considered by state lawmakers could stop an individual from accessing government records for 30 days if they are determined to be “vexatious”. Under House Bill 24-1296, a records custodian can ask a district court to determine that an individual or entity is vexatious. The bill says a vexatious requester is someone who submits a request for public records with the intent to annoy or harass a custodian. If a judge decides a requester is in fact vexatious, after weighing 11 factors that include the number of requests made and “a pa ..read more

Laura Tellers is innocent. That’s the first line in a motion to dismiss filed by the attorney representing a Colorado private investigator charged with smuggling drugs into a jail. “Laura Tellers had nothing to do with any conspiracy to brings drugs into Weld County Jail. The district attorney has been told this repeatedly and instead chooses to believe an incredible inconsistent story. The WCDA (Weld County district attorney) brings this case for impermissible purposes,” says the motion filed by attorney Lee Christian.  Christian’s motion suggests Tellers is an innocent victim of a “pla ..read more

Jailhouse phone calls, during which Weld County Jail inmates conspired to smuggle in drugs, shed new light on the case against a Colorado private investigator accused in the plot. According to a police indictment, the drugs were delivered to the Fort Collins home of investigator Laura Tellers, 52, who is accused of hiding them in documents and taking them into the jail on several occasions between August and October 2023.  In one call on August 7 last year, inmate turned police informant Frederick Rios told his girlfriend, Selenah Melendez:  Rios: “My nigga said if you are trying to ..read more

Laura Tellers, the Colorado private investigator arrested last November on drugs charges, smuggled fentanyl and meth into Weld County Jail, concealed in documents before giving them to an inmate who then strapped them to his penis, according to a jailhouse informant.  In a newly unsealed 15-page indictment, the Greeley Police Department reveal their case against Tellers largely derives from an interview with inmate Frederick Rios, who shared a cell with Tellers’ client, Marquis Daniels. Rios told police Tellers was regularly bringing Daniels drugs. “This transaction was occurring when Tel ..read more

Laura Tellers, the Colorado private investigator, charged last November with two counts of intent to distribute drugs and knowingly introducing contraband to Weld County Jail, has plead not guilty to the charges. At an appearance on Tuesday before Judge Vincente Vigil in Greeley County Court, Tellers learned of court dates that will proceed her July 22 trial.  The 52-year-old will face motion hearings on April 10 and May 10, for issuing subpoenas and other motions. The judge also set a pre-trial readiness conference on July 9. At the time of her arrest, Tellers was working on a number of ..read more

Private investigators in the Denver metropolitan area earn significantly more than their counterparts across the country. The mean salary for PIs in the United States is $59,400 a year, according to the latest data released by U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. However, the mean salary for PIs in the Denver metro area is $70,580, says the bureau. Across Colorado, the mean salary for PIs is $66,360. In Colorado Springs it is just $57,960. Other states with high mean salaries include Oregon ($70,640), New York ($69,260), Virginia ($68,340), New Hampshire ($67,960), and Washington ($67,490). T ..read more