One person died overnight after flames consumed a house in northwest Aurora on Wednesday, according to the fire department.
Aurora Fire Rescue responded to the house fire in the city’s Sable Altura Chambers neighborhood, near East 22nd Avenue and Altura Boulevard, at 2:04 p.m. Wednesday.
The flames were under control by 2:19 p.m., according to a news release from the fire department.
One victim, an unidentified adult, was rescued from the house and taken to the hospital with critical injuries, where the victim later died, Aurora Fire Rescue officials confirmed in a Thursday morning update. No other injuries were reported.
Photos posted by the fire department showed a charred home with flames licking the inside, and smoke wafting through the air around firefighters.
Five people living in the single-story building were displaced, fire officials said in the release.
The victim will be identified by the Adams County Coroner’s Office.
Information about the cause of the fire was not yet available on Thursday.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
Aurora firefighters respond to a fatal house fire near East 22nd Avenue and Altura Boulevard on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (Photo provided by Aurora Fire Rescue)
The driver of the car involved in a fatal Saturday night hit-and-run that killed a 14-year-old boy was arrested Sunday, Thornton police said.
Thornton officers responded to the fatal crash near Huron Street and West Thornton Parkway just before 9:45 p.m. Saturday, according to a news release from the agency.
A 14-year-old boy riding a small motorized bike north on Huron Street was hit from behind near the intersection, police said. The suspect vehicle, a 2013 BMW 328i, then fled the scene without stopping, according to the release.
Paramedics took the teenager to the hospital, where he later died from his injuries. The Adams County Coroner’s Office will identify the 14-year-old at a later date.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation issued a Medina Alert for the car on Sunday morning. That alert was in the process of being canceled at 1:33 p.m. Sunday, after police found the car and took the driver into custody.
The driver had not been publicly identified as of Sunday afternoon, and police did not specify what charges he was arrested on investigation of.
License plate cameras helped officers identify the suspect vehicle after the crash, police said.
An Aurora pedestrian died Saturday night after being hit by a car while crossing the street, police said.
The pedestrian, a 43-year-old man who has not been publicly identified, was walking west across Peoria Street at East Colfax Avenue outside of the crosswalk when he was hit, according to a news release from the Aurora Police Department. The crash happened just before 11 p.m. Saturday.
He was also crossing against the traffic signal, police said. The white Ford SUV that hit the man while driving south on Peoria Street had a green light.
Paramedics took the man to the hospital, where he later died, police said. He will be identified by the Adams County Coroner’s Office.
Speed and alcohol are not believed to be factors in the crash, according to the Aurora Police Department.
As of Sunday evening, no charges were expected to be filed in the crash “unless additional details are obtained through the investigation and/or reconstruction of the scene,” police said.
Almost 40 years after a passerby found the skeletal remains of missing teenager Donna Sue Wayne in a northeast Aurora field, investigators finally identified a suspect in her death — a man already in prison for the murder and sexual assault of another woman killed in the city seven months after Wayne.
Richard “Ricky” Saathoff, 65, is charged with first-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping in Wayne’s death, according to the Arapahoe County District Attorney’s Office.
While some details of the 18-year-old’s disappearance have long been public knowledge, a newly filed Aurora Police Department arrest affidavit illuminates the winding path investigators trod for nearly 40 years, using DNA and fingerprint evidence along with witness statements to identify Saathoff as a suspect.
Donna Sue Wayne.
Wayne went missing after leaving her Aurora home to meet up with friends at a Montbello house party and bar the night of June 13, 1986.
She was last seen alive early the next morning, when a Stapleton airport worker saw her being physically and sexually assaulted by a man driving her green 1972 Ford LTD in the 800 block of North Picadilly Road.
Earlier reports described the car as red, but the arrest affidavit includes photos of the green Ford. The car was later destroyed. .
Wayne screamed for help before the man forced her back into the car, the woman told police. The woman drove to the nearest house to get help, but by the time police arrived, Wayne and the man were gone.
Wayne’s car was seen abandoned in Aurora’s Hoffman Heights neighborhood the next day, on June 15, 1986, but police did not link the car to Wayne until it was towed away two weeks later, an Aurora cold case investigator wrote in the affidavit.
Police lifted two fingerprints from the driver’s side window, and a neighbor found Wayne’s car keys, tossed in an evergreen bush down the block near Vaughn Elementary School, a few weeks later.
Wayne’s body was found by a passing driver in a northeast Aurora field littered with trash and debris one month after she was last seen alive, with her clothes and purse were strewn about the area, according to the affidavit.
Her exact cause of death was never confirmed because of how much her remains had decomposed, but she had multiple broken bones, including her jaw, ribs, clavicle and in her neck, chest and face.
The investigation seemed to stall after her body was found as police chased leads that did not pan out.
Fingerprint evidence from the driver’s side window was later misplaced and went missing for years, until it was found and retested in 2009, with no matches.
Investigators retested the fingerprints in a new system in 2012 and matched the two prints to Saathoff, who was already in prison after he was convicted of murder in the death of 40-year-old Norma Houston. Houston’s body was found naked, brutally beaten and assaulted near a gas station at 11697 E. Colfax Ave. on Jan. 18, 1987, seven months after Wayne’s death, police wrote.
Like Wayne, Houston had significant trauma to her head and a broken jaw, police wrote.
Houston was sexually assaulted, and though Wayne’s remains were too deteriorated to confirm sexual assault, her pants and underwear had been removed, like Houston’s.
Investigators linked Saathoff to Houston’s murder after his DNA was found on her clothes, and he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in June 1988. He is eligible for parole in June 2027, state records show.
After the 2012 fingerprint match, investigators tried to further link Saathoff to Wayne’s murder, according to the affidavit. A detective interviewed him in prison in 2014, and he denied knowing Wayne (and later denied killing Houston).
Investigators determined Saathoff lived with his parents in the same neighborhood where Wayne’s car was abandoned, and so did his ex-girlfriend.
In May, more than a decade after the fingerprint match, investigators again looked at Wayne’s clothes for a DNA sample, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation found and tested DNA on Wayne’s jeans that had a high likelihood of belonging to Saathoff.
Saathoff remains in prison at the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility in Cañon City, according to state records. His next court date was not available Friday.
Daniel Romero, 19, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder and Michael Fernandez Jr., 24, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder in connection with a fatal shooting on Oct. 27, according to the Westminster Police Department.
Officers responded to 911 calls about gunshots at a parking lot in the 8400 block of Decatur Street around 8 p.m. and found a woman who had been shot inside a vehicle.
The woman was taken to the hospital and later died. She was identified by the Adams County Coroner’s Office as Maria Ines De Luna Ojeda, 34. The cause and manner of her death are under investigation.
Westminster police on Thursday said the shooting was a carjacking that turned deadly and identified Romero as the suspected shooter and Fernandez as the driver.
Romero and Fernandez are being held without bail at the Adams County Jail and are set to appear in court for a filing of charges hearing on Monday.
A man was shot to death Tuesday night in a Westminster motel off of Interstate 25, police said.
Westminster officers responded to the motel near West 120th Avenue and North Melody Drive just after 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to a news release from the police department. The department declined to identify the motel.
When they arrived, officers found a man inside who had been shot, police said in the release. Paramedics took him to the hospital, where he died from his injuries.
Investigators believe two men started a fight in a motel room that escalated into the shooting. Neither man has been publicly identified.
The surviving man was arrested Tuesday night, but released after “new information was revealed about the events of that evening,” police said.
That information was not released Wednesday, but police said officers were not searching for any additional suspects and there was no active threat to the community.
The man killed in the motel will be identified by the Adams County Coroner’s Office.
A 39-year-old man died after being hit by a car while riding an electric scooter in Thornton last week, police said.
The scooter rider, whose identity has not been released publicly, was headed west on West 88th Avenue when he was hit by an eastbound Dodge Caravan turning north onto Lipan Street, according to Thornton police.
The crash happened about 7:45 p.m. Thursday, police said. The intersection lies between Bell Roth Park and Sky Park in southwest Thornton.
Paramedics took the scooter rider to the hospital, where he died from his injuries, according to the department. He will be identified by the Adams County coroner’s office.
The 22-year-old man driving the Dodge Caravan was not injured and remained on scene after the crash, police said.
Additional information about the crash was not available Wednesday.
Anyone who witnessed or has information about the crash is asked to call investigators at 720-977-5069.
Westminster Police Department officers responded to calls about gunshots in the 8400 block of Decatur Street just before 8 p.m. Monday, agency officials said on social media Tuesday night.
Police found a woman in a vehicle who had been shot and was unresponsive. She was taken to the hospital, where she died from her injuries. Her name will be released by the Adams County Coroner’s Office.
Westminster police did not release any further information about suspects in the case but said the shooting is being investigated as a homicide. Anyone with information about the shooting can contact the department at 303-658-4360.
One person died and three were injured, including a 5-year-old child, during a head-on crash in Adams County on Tuesday, according to the State Patrol.
State troopers responded about 9 p.m. Tuesday to a three-vehicle crash near East 120th Avenue and Sable Boulevard, according to a news release from the agency.
A GMC Sierra pickup was driving west on 120th when it struck the rear of a Ford Escape SUV and collided with an eastbound Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV, State Patrol officials said.
The truck driver, an unidentified 48-year-old man, died at the scene of the crash, according to the news release. He will be identified by the county coroner’s office.
Paramedics took a 5-year-old boy, who was a passenger in the truck, to the hospital with minor injuries, State Patrol officials said.
The 48-year-old man driving the Jeep and his 44-year-old female passenger were taken to the hospital with moderate injuries, according to the agency. The 24-year-old woman driving the Ford escaped the crash uninjured.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, according to the State Patrol.