10/24/2012: Jessica Ridgeway Murder Case Update: Teenager Arrested: Westminster, Colorado: A 17-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with the brutal murder of Colorado schoolgirl Jessica Ridgeway. Austin Reed Sigg was arrested late
Tuesday night at his home near Ketner Lake Open Space after his mother tipped off police. Sigg will be charged with two counts of murder in the first degree and a second-degree kidnapping charge, among others. Sigg will also face charges for the attempted abduction of a female jogger near Ketner Lake on May 28. Police documents state that the teen is a student at Arapahoe Community College.
On March 23, he won second place in the Crime Scene Investigation division of the Health Occupation Students of America State Leadership Conference competition, according to The Denver Post.
Police revealed earlier this week the suspect in the attempted abduction was thought to be the same man who kidnapped and murdered Jessica on October 5.
The Colorado schoolgirl's dismembered body was found on October 11, six days after she vanished on her way to school.
In the abduction attempt, an unidentified young woman was jogging around a lake about a half-mile from the Ridgeway home when she was grabbed from behind by a man.
The attacker tried to cover her mouth with a chemical-soaked rag but she was able to escape.
According to The Post, the woman described her attacker as a light-skinned Caucasian male between 18 and 30 years of age, 5 feet 6 to 5 feet 8 inches tall with a medium build and brown hair.
The link between the two cases was confirmed just days after police found a tuft of blonde hair a mile away from where 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway's body was discovered.
Someone walking in a field made the discovery on the weekend. On Friday, police found a wooden cross which they believed belonged to Jessica's killer, describing it as a 'pivotal piece of evidence' in the case.
A local news channel reported that the source alerted police to the scene and a grid search was conducted while the hair was taken into evidence.
But Westminster police investigating her murder dismissed claims that the hair is a definite clue in the case.
A spokesman told the Denver Post that so far there is nothing to suggest the hair has anything to do with Jessica or is even human.
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Another recent clue in the tragic investigation that police were closely examining, appeared in the form of a wooden cross last week.
Pictures of the cross, which is 1.5 inches tall by 1 inch wide with a hole at the top so it can be worn as a necklace, were released by Westminster Police Department on Friday.
'Authorities are looking for someone who may carry or wear this type of cross, may have recently purchased one of these, or is known to have some association with one,' Westminster Police Department Mr Trevor Materasso said in a statement at the time.
Police were also looking for local businesses that may sell these types of crosses.
The solid wood pendant has three vertical markings etched into the horizontal bar of the cross and a zig-zag pattern carved into the opposite side.
'The cross appears to be a solid piece of wood and the upper post portion is offset from the lower post below the short horizontal section,' Mr Materasso said.
He added that the item 'could become a pivotal piece of evidence that helps authorities identify and locate Jessica's killer.'
Recent clue: Pictures of the cross, which is 1.5 inch tall by 1 inch wide with a hole at the top so it can be worn as a necklace, were released by Westminster Police Department today
Jessica was last seen beginning a short walk from her home to Witt Elementary School on the morning of October 5. She never arrived.
A search by hundreds of law officers did not start until hours later because Jessica's mother works nights and slept through a call from school officials saying Jessica wasn't there.
Then, on October 7, Jessica's backpack was found on a sidewalk in Superior, some 6 miles northwest of her Westminster home.
At about 5pm on Wednesday October 10, dozens of officers flooded into Pattridge Park in Arvada, combing the foot of a hill, walking no more than five feet apart, reportedly working on a credible tip.
The focus of their search was an abandoned cabin that appeared to have been part of a former mining operation. The area is now a popular park where neighbors often come to hike, ride bicycles and fly model airplanes.
Police said they were not suspicious that Jessica's parents, who are divorced and fighting a custody battle over her, had any involvement in the disappearance.
The U.S. Marshals Service, immigration officials and state Department of Corrections have been reviewing registered sex offenders in the area.
Investigators have received more than 1,500 tips from the public. They have searched more than 500 homes and more than 1,000 vehicles in the tragic case.
SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
ANOTHER ATTACK PERHAPS BY THIS SAME GUY:
Man choked 8-year-old boy near Ketner Lake in Westminster in May
POSTED: 10/21/2012 12:01:00 AM MDTBy Kirk Mitchell
The Denver Post
Three weeks before a man attacked a woman near Ketner Lake, someone with a similar description choked an 8-year-old boy in a possible kidnapping attempt.
The man ran away only after the boy's sister and her friend yelled, cursed and threw their cellphones at him and the friend pulled on Chandler Jameson's arm.
"I don't know if he was trying to kill him, scare him or kidnap him," said Lisa Jameson, Chandler's mother.
Westminster police are soliciting information from the public about the attack on the woman on Memorial Day weekend in the belief that the same man may have kidnapped and slain 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway.
The attack on the 8-year-old boy was not reported in the media until Friday, when Fox 31 News ran a story.
Jameson said that on May 10, she drove to a Target store about a half-mile from her home near Westcliff Parkway and Church Ranch Boulevard, leaving her 13-year-old daughter Tori and her friend Jeannie, 13, in charge of Chandler at her home. It was a warm day at about 6:30 p.m.
The Jamesons' backyard abuts a trail and a narrow green space next to a creek that leads to Ketner Lake about a mile away. The kids went outside playing with toy guns. Chandler had a plastic black gun with an orange top that makes "Star Wars" sounds. One of the girls had a gun that shoots Nerf darts, and the other had a toy wooden gun.
As they were walking along the trail near a street, the girls noticed an "attractive" white man who was
between 5 feet 6 inches and 6 feet tall, wearing jogging shorts, a Bolder Boulder T-shirt and green-and-white running shoes. He had a shaved head and no facial hair. He was trim and athletically built.
He kept looping down through a tunnel that went under the street and jogged by the kids about four or five times.
When the girls lost interest in their mock shooting game and Tori called her mother on her cellphone, the man suddenly grabbed Chandler, Jameson said.
The girls were talking on their phones and had their backs to Chandler, who was leaning against a railing that separated the trail from the street. The jogger grabbed Chandler by the neck, snatched his toy gun and threw it into the lake and was trying to lift him over the railing to the street.
Listening on the phone, Jameson heard Chandler scream. "The phone just died," she said.
The girls threw their guns and cellphones at the jogger. Jeannie grabbed Chandler's hand and tugged. The man finally let go and ran down a trail between Mandalay Middle School and Semper Elementary School.
Within minutes, Jameson reached the kids and they got into her car. When the children told her what had happened, she called police and started searching for the man in her car.
Firefighters and about 15 police cars responded to the attempted kidnapping, she said. A detective was assigned to the case. Investigators weren't able to get fingerprints from the suspect on Chandler's broken gun.
The incident proved more traumatic to Tori than to her little brother, who had bruises on his neck, Jameson said.
"My daughter was just bawling," she said.
The family soon moved away because of the incident.
The kidnapping and slaying of Jessica Ridgeway made her very sad, Jameson said.
Chandler mentions the attack every once in a while, she said. He recently told a friend, "You haven't been attacked by a man. I have."
SOURCE: http://www.denverpost.com/
10/24/2012: Jessica Ridgeway Murder Case Update: Teenager Arrested: Westminster...
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