Property Dispute Leaves 3 Dead, 1 Injured and 2 In Prison, Maybe For Life

[Diggin It]

Woman believed to be girlfriend of suspect in Colorado property shooting arrested

A woman believed to be the girlfriend of a man supected of killing three people and wounding a fourth in a property dispute in rural Colorado is also being held in connection with the shooting

abcnews.go.com

"According to court documents, their neighbor, Hanme Clark, yelled about trespassing and then started shooting while Robert Geers was talking to a surveyor."

"Other neighbors not involved in the shooting have accused Clark of harassing them, denying them court-ordered use of part of his property to access their property, and posting signs saying he was armed, court records said. "


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What we know about the property dispute in Custer County that turned deadly

More details emerge after a 25-hour manhunt that ended in New Mexico.

www.cpr.org

"The surveyor told investigators that a man Geers identified as Clark approached them, yelling about trespassing, and then started to shoot. The surveyor was able to escape, running to a home about a half mile away, Clark’s arrest affidavit said."

"A week before the shooting, another area landowner asked that Clark be held in contempt of a June 2022 court order that had allowed them to cross the suspect's property to access their land.

The suspect had also been accused earlier of locking a gate and posting a sign near the gate that said “the owner of this property is armed,” said Kevin Flesch, an attorney for one of the defendants who lost his easement access."


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There is also a comment about not expecting it to escalate which I have to question since there had been multiple encounters, weapons seen and threatening signs.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

What's wrong with these lunatics? I don't understand why we (the USA) don't reopen asylums or build more. It has to be mental illness and/or drugs. I'd rather my tax dollars go to that than room & board in prison for nuts like that. Should be automatic death penalty not life in prison after innocent are killed like that.

 

[Hay Dude]

Agree.
Too many closed, and being “crazy”, doesn’t fit the woke agenda, either.
Now look what we got….

 

[dodge man]

As a land surveyor I have never had a gun pointed at me or displayed but I did have a deputy join us for an afternoon to make sure someone didn’t start shooting. It can get pretty scary sometimes.

 

[Joel/ak]

The guy obviously is crazy but to be honest, I can relate.

Been having various neighbor issues for the last 10 years. Gets frustrating.

This weekend I seen where a neighbor posted part of our property as his. Been having this issue with property owner for a couple of years now. Try and go the legal route and they just blow you off. Atleast he stopped ripping up our place with his quad.

 

[Joel/ak]

Oh and sheriff's are useless. Had someone rip our gate out of the ground. Called sheriff cuz I want a police report and it being on the record. Sheriff actually asked me "why I called him."

No support from LEO'S in my area

 

[CalG]

There is always more to every story.

And it's difficult to really know when YOUR property is being unjustly taken from you, even by "legal" actions.

As case in point..

I had some "friends", husband and wife. The guy and I go way back, I never got on with her.
Together they bought a small piece of entirely unimproved property about a mile and a half off any road, and land locked by abuters, with no right of way. How the parcel came to be, I can not say, but not too uncommon around here.

Well, after owning the property for about a year, and walking in a few times (trespassing to get there} to cut all the oaks, under the pretext of growing shiitake mushrooms, they finagled some lawyer to persuade a judge to force the adjacent landowner to give a right of way through his property to the nearest roadway. The right of way granted did not even follow the property boundaries, as that route was deemed to be "too great a hardship to build a road". The right of way literately divided the neighboring property in two!
When the couple shared their "success" with me , it was all I could do to hold my tongue.
They have since parted ways, and I can certainly understand why. I couldn't live with myself having done as much.
Events such as these can bring even a sane man to anger.

 

[Joel/ak]

That's not our case. Our place has been posted for about the last 40 years or so. This guy I guess wants and extra 100ft by 1/4mile. There is no misunderstanding. Can't read (our signs) and just doesn't care.

Our place has been professionally surveyed (gps) and recorded with township and county. We are still told we are full of **** by neighbors. They refuse to do due diligence. Can't win by legal means

 

[Torvy]

It does not excuse what he did, but reading between the lines it sounds like he had been there a long time and others moved in and got courts to grant them easements to access their land.

It seems it would be easier to require all property sales include public access to roads. (In other words, you can't sell a 'landlocked' parcel). When we were looking for this property, we saw a lot of those landlocked parcels for sale. I guess some people use them for hunting, but it is a situation ripe for conflict.

 

[dodge man]

It‘s a recognized legal principle that land can not be landlocked. I’m not surprised a judge granted a right of way.