The disappearance and feared death of Eric Ashby while trying to find a $2 million treasure allegedly hidden by New Mexico author Forrest Fenn has led to renewed calls for the search to end. Among the most prominent people making this request is Linda Bilyeu, ex-wife of Randy Bilyeu, the first Colorado treasure hunter to have died in a quest for Fenn’s mysterious riches. Even before treasure-seeking Grand Junction pastor Paris Wallace perished in June, she believed the hunt is bogus, and as authorities work to determine if human remains found near the Arkansas River are Ashby, her resolve is stronger than ever.

The Taylor Swift trial appears to be drawing to a close, with most prognosticators predicting it will end today, August 14. That will likely come as a relief to Jeff Kandyba, the sketch artist hired to capture the scene in the federal courtroom, which doesn’t allow cameras. Kandyba’s work has been ridiculed by snarky media organizations, as well as Swift fans, some of whom have even implied that he’s purposefully submitted unflattering likenesses because he favors Katy Perry in her longtime feud with the “Bad Blood” singer. But Kandyba, who’s actually drawn courtroom sketches in high-profile cases for three decades in the Denver area, scoffs at the notion.

Amber Raye Presson, a 31-year-old from Denver, died on Sunday, August 13, while attempting to rescue her son while tubing on Clear Creek in Golden. Her death is at least the sixteenth at a Colorado water attraction in 2017, and the fifth fatal tubing accident in the state during that span, by our estimate.

As we previewed in a January post, Greg Heard, a homeless man, has filed a lawsuit against a Denver police officer and the City and County of Denver over a June 2016 arrest during which he was tased in the act of surrendering even though he was unarmed. The complaint, accessible below, bolsters its argument with a video also shared here and references to a Westword post from March in which a police trainer harshly criticized Dulayev’s decision to tase first and ask questions later.

The death of James Cummings, a 27-year-old from Denver, who drowned after leaping from a cliff-jumping spot at Green Mountain Reservoir in Summit County, was at least the fifteenth fatality at a Colorado water attraction in 2017. Now, federal and local authorities have jointly decided to temporarily restrict access to the site, in part because of its spreading reputation online among adventurers in Colorado and beyond.

Shortly after the publication of our August 8 post identifying the fourteeners in the Elk Mountains near Aspen as Colorado’s most dangerous, authorities announced the death of 57-year-old Rei Hwa Lee on North Maroon Peak, one of the aforementioned sites. Lee is the third person to die on an Elk Mountains fourteener in 22 days, and the second fatality in the Maroon Bells area since late May.

Less than a month after William Scott Planer was arrested in Colorado Springs for putting an anti-Semitic sticker on the door of Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Center, a second synagogue in the city has been the target of hateful vandalism via Nazi graffiti at Temple Beit Torah. And while there’s no evidence of direct linkage between the crimes, Jeremy Shaver, associate regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, says such incidents appear to be escalating in the Springs and beyond.