ARTIST ACQUITTED OF KILLING DENVER COLUMNIST LOPEZ.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. A wealthy playboy's artist friend was acquitted of vehicular homicide In most states in the United States, vehicular homicide is a crime. In general, it involves death that results from the negligent operation of a vehicle, or that results from driving whilst committing an unlawful act that does not amount to a felony. Wednesday in the hit-and-run collision that killed a beloved newspaper columnist. Jorg Peter Schmitz had been charged in the death of Rocky Mountain News The Rocky Mountain News is a daily morning tabloid-format newspaper published in Denver, Colorado. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. (Despite Scripps still running the paper, it's the only newspaper in the Scripps family not to have the corporate lighthouse logo on columnist Greg Lopez after his friend, Spicer Breeden, fatally shot himself in the head with a .357 Magnum revolver. Breeden's suicide note suggested Schmitz was driving a BMW BMW in full Bayerische Motoren Werke AG German automaker. Founded as an aircraft engine manufacturer in 1916, the company assumed the name Bayerische Motoren Werke and became known for its high-speed motorcycles in the 1920s. on March 17, 1996, when it clipped Lopez's sport utility vehicle on Interstate 25, then disappeared into the night. But Schmitz's attorney, Walter Gerash, said Breeden's suicide amounted to a confession that he was responsible, not Schmitz. Gerash painted Breeden as a ``hateful, degenerate misfit'' who lived off his family's fortune. A Denver District Court jury deliberated more than six hours over two days before clearing Schmitz on two counts of vehicular homicide and one count of leaving the scene of an accident. The acquittal ends a trial that captured national attention with its peek into the lifestyles of Colorado's rich. It also was a local sensation, involving the wayward scion sci·on n. 1. A descendant or heir. 2. also ci·on A detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting. of a well-known family and his circle of acquaintances from Denver's nightclubs - including Schmitz. |
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