Anti-war vet held in slaying
Man allegedly shot wife, companion
Alan Gathright And Hector Gutierrez, Rocky Mountain News
Published September 18, 2007 at midnight
Just last month Iraq war veteran Ricardo Cortez was leading protests against the conflict.
Now he's in jail, accused in the shotgun slaying of his estranged wife and the wounding of her companion after finding the pair together at a Greeley gathering late Sunday.
Just last Thursday Cortez pleaded guilty to felony menacing and third-degree assault, knowingly and recklessly causing injury for attacking his wife in March. During the assault Cortez broke his wife's nose, Greeley police Lt. Carl Alm said Monday. Cortez was scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 11.
Cortez also violated a restraining order that had been issued after the assault, Alm said.
Sunday's bloodshed began about 11 p.m. when Cortez allegedly entered the house uninvited at 4431 W. Sixth St. and shot and killed his wife, Nikki Cortez, 21, of Eaton, the lieutenant said.
Cortez, 24, also is suspected of shooting Sam Jantz, who officers found lying in a yard about three houses down the street. Jantz, also 24, was recovering after surgery at the North Colorado Medical Center on Monday.
About the time of the March assault, Ricardo Cortez organized a protest in Greeley against the war in Iraq, according to The Greeley Tribune, which published a photograph of Cortez waving a sign with pictures of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, branding both leaders "war criminals."
He told the Tribune then that he was a Navy medic in Iraq during the invasion of 2003 and the bloody Marine operation to root out insurgents in Fallujah in 2004.
Alm said it appeared that Nikki Cortez and Jantz "were on a social outing" at the home of Jantz's relatives.
Cortez later turned himself in at the police department, Alm said. He is being held at the Weld County Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, first-degree burglary and violation of a restraining order.
gathrighta@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5486
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