DENVER (AP) — A college student accused of killing his roommate and another person at a Colorado dorm room last week told his roommate a month earlier he would “kill him” if he was asked to take out the trash again, according to a court document released Friday.
The dispute in early January was reported to campus police and housing officials but there is no indication in court documents that university officials made any attempt to remove the suspect from the room despite multiple reports of conflicts, including the threat.
Chris Valentine, a spokesperson for the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, said due to the ongoing investigation and federal student privacy laws, the university couldn’t “provide any additional information about the people involved in this incident.”
The new details about the shooting and the threat were included in an arrest affidavit that was unsealed by a judge after charges against the suspect, Nicholas Jordan of Detroit, were announced during a court hearing Friday.
Jordan, 25, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, felony menacing and committing a crime of violence in the Feb. 16 killing of his roommate, Samuel Knopp, 24, of Parker, Colorado, and Celie Rain Montgomery, 26, of Pueblo, Colorado, in a dorm room at the university.
Jordan’s lawyer, Nick Rogers, objected to the document’s release, in part because he said his client — a junior studying accounting — would continue to be “prosecuted in the media.” He did not address the allegations against Jordan during the hearing and tried unsuccessfully to have Jordan released from jail without paying any bail.
Besides the trash incident, another roommate who also lived with Knopp and Jordan told investigators that he and Knopp made multiple complaints about Jordan’s “living area cleanliness,” and his marijuana and cigarette smoking, the document said. Jordan filed a request to withdraw from the university about 14 hours before the fatal shootings. His dorm room was empty when police arrived, court records said.
An electronic access number assigned to Jordan was used twice to enter the dorm building on Feb. 16, once just before 4 a.m. and a second time at 5:42 a.m. A few minutes before 6 a.m., a surveillance camera captured somebody running out of the dorm building, the arrest affidavit said.
The warrant for Jordan’s arrest was issued on the first day of the investigation, but he was not publicly identified as a suspect until his arrest Monday in a residential area of Colorado Springs, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) from campus.
In addition to a gun that prosecutors said was found in Jordan’s car, authorities recently learned that he also had a fully loaded AK-47, Robert Willett of the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office told Judge David Shakes. Jordan had a temporary job and appeared to have all his belongings in his car when he was arrested, Willett said, arguing Jordan was a flight risk.
According to police, the other roommate reported the shots early on Feb. 16, leading to the discovery of the bodies of Knopp and Montgomery in Crestone House, a dorm in a complex that offers apartment-style living for students.
Knopp “was a senior studying music and a beloved member of the Visual and Performing Arts department. He was an accomplished guitar player and an extremely talented musician,” University Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet said in a statement on Sunday. Montgomery was not a student at the university.
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Hanson reported from Helena, Montana.
