International tribunal to hear Castle Rock case

Restraining order failed to protect three young girls

Ivan Moreno, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 8, 2007 at midnight

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Two years after Jessica Lenahan exhausted all of her legal appeals, including one to the U.S. Supreme Court, she learned Friday that her case will be heard by an international human rights tribunal.

Lenahan, whose estranged husband killed their three daughters in 1999, has said that Castle Rock police could have prevented their deaths if they had enforced her restraining order against him.

Instead, her 30-year-old husband, Simon Gonzales, shot their three daughters before dying in a shootout with Castle Rock police.

Lenahan unsuccessfully sued Castle Rock police and pursued appeals all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected her case in 2005.

Last year, she filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, based in Washington, D.C. The group, established in 1959, hears human rights cases from citizens of countries in the Americas.

The commission informed Lenahan Friday it has accepted her case.

While the commission doesn't have the authority to award Lenahan any money or overturn the Supreme Court's action, her attorney said the commission's rulings carry weight internationally.

"There's no enforcement authority, but what there is, is a lot of moral authority," said attorney Caroline Bettinger-Lopez.

The commission will make a ruling in six to 12 months on whether the U.S. violated Lenahan's human rights, Bettinger-Lopez said.

"I think it took me all afternoon to process and absorb the meaning of that decision," Lenahan said Sunday, referring to the commission taking up her case.

Lenahan's case could open a new avenue for domestic violence cases to be heard as human rights violations, Bettinger-Lopez said.

"The commission essentially said the countries have an obligation to protect victims of domestic violence," she said.

Lenahan said Bettinger-Lopez told her she was "starting a mini-revolution in the United States."

Castle Rock Police Chief Tony Lane was not available for comment Sunday.

The death of Jessica Lenahan's three daughters, Rebecca, 10, Katheryn, 8, and Leslie, 7, sparked an outcry from groups fighting domestic violence, who saw it as an example of police failing to protect victims.

Lenahan had gotten a restraining order against Gonzales in 1999, after she filed for divorce, because she said he was making harassing phone calls.

In her lawsuit, Lenahan said Castle Rock police ignored her pleas for help the night of June 22, 1999, when Gonzales took her three daughters without her knowledge. She said she called police nine times in 10 hours.

Early the next morning, Gonzales parked his pickup truck in front of police headquarters. He fired a handgun, nearly hitting a police officer and was shot by surrounding officers when he refused to put down his gun.

In the bullet-riddled truck, police found the bodies of the three girls, who investigators said Gonzales had shot earlier while they slept.

Lenahan's lawsuit reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 7-2 in June 2005 that Colorado's law on restraining orders requires officers simply to make "reasonable efforts" to enforce them.

Castle Rock police had cited Gonzales for violating the restraining order a month before the shootout.

Last March, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which is the human rights arm of the Organization of American States, held a hearing on Lenahan's case. The federal government was represented by the U.S. State Department.

The commission has given Lenahan new hope that her message will be heard. She has spent the last seven years living out of a suitcase, she said, traveling across the country and speaking at events.

"It's no longer about me," she said Sunday. "The only thing about me that it involves is that our human rights were violated and that they continue to be violated."IN HER OWN WORDS: JESSICA LENAHAN

Jessica Lenahan moved to California and remarried after her daughters' deaths. She has since divorced and is living in Colorado again. On Sunday, she spoke about how she remembers her daughters.

"Rebecca, Katheryn and Leslie. Rebecca would've been 18 this year and obviously doing all of the, you know, senior things that seniors do. Katheryn would've been 17 now on Oct. 12. And Leslie would've been 15. So I would've had three teenage daughters! Oh my gosh!

"My sister and I spoke about that yesterday. What would Katheryn be doing about right now? Talking on the phone and bossing people around, and driving around in her car, and whistling at boys, and, you know, probably gone to homecoming.

"I try really hard not to think about it as a loss . . . I'm watching a lot of my family, and my son being 21 with two children and my grandchildren, this is what keeps me going. I'm thinking, 'I would love for my children to be able to be proud of Colorado, and being residents here, and knowing what their rights are, and seeing them flourish.'

"That is something I really encourage my son to find, the best things in life, and not dwell on what could've, would've, should've."

morenoi@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2895

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