Film chronicles efforts to 'Free Lisl'

New documentary shows Thompson in Auman's corner

Sara Burnett, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 11, 2006 at midnight

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Lisl Auman was sitting in the Denver County Jail, charged with felony murder when another inmate loaned her the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson.

The book made Auman laugh. Even in Thompson's madness, she said, she felt like she could understand him. So when Auman went to prison for life for the crime - a conviction the Colorado Supreme Court overturned last year - she decided to write Thompson a letter.

"To my disbelief, he wrote me back," Auman says in the opening minutes of the new documentary, Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver.

The film, which will make its world premiere Nov. 18 at the Denver Press Club as part of the Starz Denver Film Festival, chronicles Auman's case and the efforts of Thompson and others to free her.

It is directed by Wayne Ewing, whose other films about Thompson include the 2003 Breakfast With Hunter and last year's When I Die.

Auman was charged with felony murder in November 1997, after a skinhead she had met the night before, Matthaus Jaehnig, shot and killed Denver police Officer Bruce VanderJagt. Matthaus then killed himself.

At the time, Auman was handcuffed and sitting in the back of a police squad car.

A jury found Auman guilty one year later, concluding she participated in a burglary that led to the killing. Under Colorado's felony murder law, defendants convicted of felonies that end in a murder are held as responsible as the person pulling the trigger.

In the documentary, lawyers, journalists and Auman's family say on the day of the murder Auman went with four other people, including Matthaus, to her ex-boyfriend's apartment to get some of her belongings. The other people began stealing the ex-boyfriend's things, they say.

Someone called 911, setting off a police chase that ended in Denver with VanderJagt being killed.

The documentary criticizes the media and prosecutors - including Gov.-elect Bill Ritter, then Denver district attorney - for a frenzy of misinformation and for labeling Auman a "cold-blooded killer" rather than an innocent bystander.

But the public's perception of Auman began to change when Thompson got involved.

In his first letter to Auman, the late author wrote that he was "horrified" by her story and pledged that he would try to help.

In 2001 - the day before Auman's attorney filed an appeal to the Colorado Court of Appeals - Thompson was the key speaker at a "Free Lisl" rally on the west steps of the state Capitol.

Joining him was singer/songwriter Warren Zevon, just one of the many celebrities Thompson recruited over the years to take up Auman's cause and to try to get the felony murder law thrown out.

The appellate court upheld Auman's conviction.

But in March 2005, the Supreme Court overturned it, ruling the jury had received faulty instructions and Auman couldn't be held responsible for the murder or the burglary if she didn't know the crimes were going to take place.

The ruling came down two weeks after Thompson committed suicide.

In the film, Auman - now thinner than at the time of her trial, her long blonde hair cropped shorter - says it was "bittersweet" that Thompson wasn't with her to celebrate the day she walked out of prison.

But she felt Thompson's presence around her that day, Auman says.

"I believe that . . . was like one of his last hurrahs, taking care of me before he went on his own way out into the atmosphere."

If you go

• What: Screening of Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver.

• When and where: 3:30 p.m., Nov. 18 at the Denver Press Club, 1330 Glenarm Place; and at 4 p.m., Nov. 19 at Starz Film Center.

• Of note: The Saturday screening will be followed by a panel discussion with attorneys Hal Haddon and Gerry Goldstein; Hunter S. Thompson's son, Juan Thompson; director Wayne Ewing and Curtis Robinson, publisher of the Mountain Gazette.

• Tickets: www.denverfilm.org.

Quotes from Lisl Auman

"When I went to prison, for some reason I thought, 'I'm going to write this crazy old bastard a letter' . . . To my disbelief, he wrote me back."

On how Thompson got involved. Auman had read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas while in jail.

"Maybe in the back of my mind I felt, 'This is the beginning of the end,' like the end of my stay here." On receiving a letter in return.

"Now he's running for governor."

Shaking her head, while watching old video footage of then-Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter defending his case against her.

burnetts@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5343

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