Thornton shooting suspect surrenders

By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact), Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 19, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Photo by Matt McClain / The Rocky

Denise Pavelka weeps with her daughter in her arms while paying her respects to Marco and Vera Escobedo at a makeshift memorial outside the slain couple's condominium.

Lance L. McDermed

Photo by Matt McClain / The Rocky

A no-trespassing sign with the image of a handgun is displayed in the window of Lance Leroy McDermed's condo.

Photo by Matt McClain / The Rocky

A makeshift memorial sits Monday outside the Escobedos' Autumn Creek condominium in Thornton. The couple were killed Saturday evening when they answered their door.

Photo by CBS 4 News

Vera, 41, and Marco, 44, Escobedo

Lance L. McDermed, sought nationwide in the shooting death of two of his neighbors, walked into the Thornton police station Monday in the company of his mother and stepfather.

Investigators were caught by surprise Monday afternoon when a man who was the focus of a nationwide alert in a double homicide calmly walked through the front door of the police station.

Lance Leroy McDermed surrendered to police about 2:30 p.m., Thornton police spokesman Matt Barnes said.

McDermed, who is suspected in the Saturday evening shooting deaths of two of his neighbors, was accompanied by his mother and stepfather. They had picked him up in Cheyenne and driven him to the Thornton police station.

"We had been in contact with the family and encouraged them, that if they made contact with him, to encourage him to turn himself in," Barnes said. "Apparently, that was successful."

The surrender occurred about two hours after McDermed's car was found at a truck stop at Interstate 25 and Colorado 119. Employees summoned Weld County sheriff's deputies after they had noticed the maroon 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier that had been described in news reports.

Investigators were dispatched to Cheyenne and to the parking lot where the car was found, Barnes said.

A rare end to search

McDermed, 36, is being held without bail on two counts of first- degree murder in the deaths of Marco and Vera Escobedo, who lived next door to him in a Thornton condominium complex.

McDermed was booked and taken to the Adams County Jail. His first court appearance could be Thursday or Friday, Barnes said.

While it is common for people to turn themselves in on misdemeanor charges, it is unusual for murder suspects to surrender at the police station, Barnes said.

"In cases as serious as this, it's very rare," he said.

McDermed had a running feud with the Escobedos that might have begun with a dispute over parking spaces. He had installed a surveillance camera outside his unit to monitor his neighbors' parking habits.

Barnes said that investigators were trying to piece together what led to the shootings.

"At this point, we haven't established a motive to what triggered this particular incident," he said.

The victims' relatives said they knew about the disputes with McDermed.

"It was not an ongoing feud," Vesa Ray, sister of Vera Escobedo, told CBS 4 News. "It was one-way harassment because my sister and brother-in-law would not do anything to hurt anybody. They weren't angry people."

Michael Archuleta, a brother-in- law, said he and his two young sons were in the condo when the attack occurred.

"(Marco and Vera) were not only my sons' aunt and uncle, they were his godparents," Archuleta told CBS 4 News. "My children should not have had to witness this."

A steady stream of friends and neighbors stopped by the Escobedos' condo Monday.

They left candles, flowers and a small cross that read, "We Love You Vera and Marco." Someone also left some photographs that showed Vera Escobedo on a camping trip with friends, sitting bundled up around a campfire.

Augie and Martha Sanchez left some flowers and prayed. Vera Escobedo had been their daughter's best friend since the girls were 10 years old.

"Vera was always over at our house, or else they were over at Vera's mom's house," Augie Sanchez said.

His wife remembered how Vera would stop to have coffee with her mom every Wednesday.

"(Vera) was always doing things for other people," said Martha Sanchez, who broke the news of the deaths to her daughter.

"She just fell apart," the mother said.

Son of former officer

The suspect is the son of Gerald McDermed, a former Sterling police officer who was convicted in the murder of his estranged wife in 1989.

Retired Sterling Police Chief Bill Finch remembered the elder McDermed as an officer with a volatile temper who pleaded guilty to murdering his third wife.

"He was a good person, but he had a raging temper," Finch said. "He couldn't stand for people to tell him what to do."

Gerald McDermed "was a helluva police officer" but had a short fuse outside of work, he said.

In 1989, Gerald McDermed was sentenced to 28 years in prison for shooting his estranged wife, Karen, Finch said. He said that the elder McDermed was paroled several years ago, died in a Denver-area hospital and was buried in Holly, near the Kansas border.

"Gerald was an extremely high- tempered person," Finch said. "He went through the State Patrol academy and was assigned to Broomfield." Two days later, after a dispute with his boss, he threw his badge on a table and quit, Finch said.

The elder McDermed then got a job with Sterling police and was very good at it for four years in the mid-1970s, Finch said. But he got into a dispute over a policy by marrying a co-worker and quit that job, too.

"He left our department, his marriage went to hell, he got a divorce," Finch said. "He remarried a third time and moved to Holly."

That was the wife McDermed later killed, Finch said.

Barnes said that the younger McDermed's only known criminal history was a summons last summer for harassment, which was issued in connection with the dispute with the Escobedos. The records in that case weren't available Monday because of the Presidents Day holiday.

The suspect

Lance L. McDermed, 36

* Had last been seen about 7 p.m. Sunday in the 9100 block of Gale Boulevard, in his neighborhood.

* He turned himself in to Thornton police about 2:30 p.m. Monday after relatives brought him back from Cheyenne.

* His car had been found at a truck stop at Interstate 25 and Colorado 119.

The victims

Marco and Vera Escobedo

* The couple and Lance McDermed had been engaged in a long-standing dispute over parking in front of their neighboring condos.

* In 2006 McDermed reported to police that his car had been damaged in the parking lot.

* In July 2007 Vera Escobedos reported to police that

McDermed stormed out of his condo, swearing at her, as she carried bags into her home. She also claimed he pushed her, which he denied.

* McDermed also accused Vera Escobedo of trying to run him over with her car.

• February 19, 2008

  6:42 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  DahmersCookbook writes:

  Like Father, like Son. Nothing for shrinks to dig for its all on the table.

• February 19, 2008

  8:47 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  MRSTTYLER writes:

  THAT IS GOOD HE IS IN JAIL AND THE POLICE DID NOT HAVE TO LOOK FOR HIM BECAUSE HE COULD HAVE HURT SOMEONE ELSE.

• February 19, 2008

  9:50 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  jconder45 writes:

  Check out the sign McDermed displayed in his window. There was a definite mentality at work.

• February 19, 2008

  9:55 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Victoria writes:

  Interesting, had it been a hispanic who killed a white man, this bulletin would be full of hate messages. Not much reaction when it's the other way around. Justice for the Escobedos!!!!!!

• February 19, 2008

  10:31 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  soccer_mama writes:

  I couldn't agree more w/ Victoria's posting. I was looking forward to reading a bunch of hateful messages about the hispanic couple that was killed, how they probably deserved it because they were probably illegals! Funny how it doesn't work that way.
  Oh well.......

• February 19, 2008

  12:20 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  AuroraDawn writes:

  I'm totally against violence in settling disputes, but if what is being reported is true...I can really relate to McDermed's frustration. I live in northeast Denver, and my next-door neighbors have been almost intolerable. They have always had anywhere between 6 and 8 cars at any one time (all but one or two of them dead), and would constantly park directly behind my garage, blocking me from either getting out or getting in, and they wouldn't answer the door when we would go and try to ask them to move their cars. We finally had to install ballards to block them from parking there (it cost us $600). They got mad, so they backed into and destroyed our fence (which cost us another $500 to repair). They threw dog feces into our backyard, and grafittied our garage (more $$ to cover the graffiti). They constantly drove across our front driveway and curb strip to drive their pickup onto their front lawn to load or unload things (driving over and damaging my water meter in the process). I ended up having to build a foot-tall brick planter there to block them from doing that, at a cost of about $400. Now, they and their friends block the alleyway, fill the dumpsters with large furniture, work on their cars and run power tools late at night right next to the bedroom window. One of them installs car stereos on the side, so we're treated to deafening bass booms occasionally. We've lived with this for nearly 15 years...I can see how it would make McDermed crazy.

• February 19, 2008

  1:31 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  jconder45 writes:

  AuroraDawn- have you tried going to the police? Some of the things they have done are illegal.

• February 19, 2008

  1:34 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  wjewelr writes:

  Violence is not the answer for any situation!!! And for anyone to suggest they can see how this could of made McDermed crazy is absurd. It is a shame that people make judgment before they even know the facts. The Escobedo’s were not illegal immigrants, and for that matter NOT all Latino’s are illegal immigrants. The bottom line is two beautiful souls were taken violently on Saturday. And justice needs to be served!!!

• February 19, 2008

  1:56 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  AuroraDawn writes:

  Yeah, at one point in time, they had a dog tied up between our houses (there is no fence between the houses, just around our backyard). The poor dog would go all day during the summer without water when the temps were nearing 100 degrees. During one of the more tense times between us, we would sneak along the side of the house and give the dog water. They called the police on us for trespassing. We told the police to check the dog's collar... it had not been changed since the dog was a puppy, and it was strangling him. The cops charged THEM with animal cruelty. WE called the cops when they graffitied our garage. The police just took a report and said they couldn't prove who did it. THEY called the police when we had an early afternoon 3-person drum circle in our backyard. The police officer said the drumming sounded beautiful to her, but that we had to take it inside the house. We called the police when they brought out their stereo and placed the speakers facing our house and blasted us so loud that the police dispatcher couldn't even hear me. And they were so arrogant that they didn't even turn it down when the squad car pulled up. The police asked us if we wanted to press a complaint, and we said yes. That meant that they had to show up in court and possibly pay a fine. That was when they started backing off. There is an uneasy truce between us now.... but things are a lot better than they used to be.

• February 19, 2008

  10:12 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  redwhiteandBLUE writes:

  There needs to be RESPECT. People need to stay in their assigned parking spots. If there aren't any..observe where your neighbors usually park.

  If you have friends and family over, tell them to RESPECT your neighborhood and park in empty unavailable spots, don't just PILE IN and park anywhere you please. The same with music..keep it to your self, no one wants to hear YOUR music. HAVE COMMON COURTESY!
  lIVE AMONG EACH OTHER in peace! ESPECIALLY NOW THAT THE WEATHER IS GETTING WARM. People have to sleep at night ,or may be sick, or have babies and/or don't want them disturbed. Don't be working on cars/ motors all ours of the night. Have RESPECT!

• April 1, 2008

  3:27 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  ellabear writes:

  You have all missed the point. Reading these posts I had to go back to the article to remember what it was about. The point people is that one human being took the life of another. That is wrong regardless of circumstance or how respectful or unbigoted/ racist the rest of the world needs to learn how be. Sometimes people do bad things and there is no stopping it. Simple.

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