A man was arrested on a murder charge days after Erie police responded to an iPhone crash alert June 21 and found a woman dead outside her car with what appeared to be multiple stab wounds. Police say the man in May crashed into the woman\u2019s car and kidnapped and threatened her.<\/p>\n
Justin De Nileon, 29, is facing one count of first-degree murder \u2014 after deliberation and one count of violation of a protection order in the death of 28-year-old Haley Rippetoe, who was identified in the affidavit.<\/p>\n
About 1:17 a.m. June 21, Erie police were alerted to an iPhone crash detection at Weld County Road 7 and Weld County Road 6, according to the affidavit. When officers arrived on scene, they found Rippetoe lying in a ditch east of WCR 7 outside the driver\u2019s side of her car, which had rolled over. The woman did not have a pulse and appeared to have multiple traumatic injuries.<\/p>\n
Crash investigators, looking at skid marks at the crash site and damage to Rippetoe\u2019s car, determined the vehicle had been hit from behind by a white vehicle before it rolled over. The woman\u2019s injuries, later determined to be stab wounds, were not consistent with a vehicle crash, but instead with \u201cintentional, deliberate injuries inflicted by another person,\u201d according to an autopsy referenced in the affidavit.<\/p>\n
It is not clear at what point Rippetoe was stabbed. Jolene Weiner, Weld County\u2019s chief deputy coroner, could not provide information about the official cause or manner of Rippetoe\u2019s death until the completion of an autopsy report, which she said could take several weeks.<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s family members told police they believed her ex-boyfriend, De Nileon, had been involved in the crash, according to the affidavit. They said De Nileon had been violent with Rippetoe before and threatened to hurt her if she ended the relationship, including in one May incident in Broomfield in which De Nileon was arrested.<\/p>\n
In that incident, De Nileon forced Rippetoe and another person into his car and drove recklessly for over an hour, according to the affidavit. When Rippetoe reached for De Nileon\u2019s phone to call for help, he grabbed a bat and threatened to hit her. Eventually, De Nileon let the two out of the car, and they flagged down another car for help. Rippetoe told police that during the drive De Nileon had said, \u201cI listen to the voices in my head, and they told me to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
De Nileon was arrested on charges of second-degree kidnapping, felony menacing, and third-degree assault in that Broomfield case. He was restrained from contacting Rippetoe and the other individual and released from jail after posting a $50,000 surety bond, according to the affidavit and online court records.<\/p>\n
Immediately after the June 21 crash, De Nileon called his parents and sounded panicked, according to the affidavit. His parents called Broomfield police and asked for them to check on their son. They later called Commerce City Police because they thought someone was trying to break into their home from the backyard. Police found De Nileon in his parents\u2019 backyard with blood that did not appear to be his own on his hands and clothing.<\/p>\n
De Nileon\u2019s white car could be seen in Flock and surveillance camera footage from nearby businesses following behind the Rippetoe\u2019s car, then leaving the crash scene shortly after the iPhone crash notification was sent out.<\/p>\n
De Nileon is being held without bond at the Weld County Jail. He is set to appear for a preliminary hearing in the Broomfield case at 1:30 p.m. July 23 in Broomfield court and a disposition hearing in the murder case at 10 a.m. Sept. 2 in Weld County District Court, according to court records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man was arrested on a murder charge days after Erie police responded to an iPhone crash alert…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[44482,44483,1676,7250,202,136,138,137,1677,457,241,182,139,1680],"class_list":["post-234033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-broomfield","tag-broomfield-county","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-news","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-front-range","tag-homicide","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-weld-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}