Heavily armed man found dead in apparent suicide at Colorado amusement park
A Colorado man with an AR-style rifle, a handgun, body armor and a helmet and fake explosives in his vehicle was found dead of an apparent suicide at an amusement park early Saturday, officials said.
“There’s much more we do not know right now than we do know,” Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario said at a news conference Monday.
Maintenance staff members found the 20-year-old man dead in the women’s restroom at the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park early Saturday, before the amusement park opened for the day, Vallario said.
The man, whose identity was not released, was wearing what was described as black tactical clothing “bearing patches and emblems that gave the appearance of being associated with law enforcement,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Investigators don’t know what the man intended or why, and Vallario said family and friends had expressed no kind of history or apparent reason for concern.
The man had an AR-style rifle with several magazines and a semi-automatic handgun with several magazines, and he was wearing body armor and a ballistic helmet. Investigators discovered “both real and fake explosives," Vallario said.
Written on a wall in the restroom where the man's body was found were the words "I am not a killer" and "I just wanted to get into the caves," said Vallario, who told reporters that he had seen only photographs.
Investigators don't know for certain that the person wrote the message. There was other text, but the sheriff couldn’t tell what it was.
The man most likely wouldn’t have been able to legally buy the guns because of his age, Vallario said. There are restrictions, and Colorado earlier this year passed a law raising the age of gun purchases to 21.
The guns appeared to be what are called "ghost guns," which are firearms without serial numbers that can be made at home from kits, he said.
Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park is an amusement park in Glenwood Springs, a city of around 10,000 in the Rocky Mountains 120 miles west of Denver. It has thrill rides and caverns. The caves extend to more than 16,000 known feet, according to the park’s website.
The man who was found dead is from the Carbondale area, said Vallario, who said he entered the park illegally before his body was found. The man apparently shot himself; an autopsy is scheduled, he said.
Despite the patches on his clothing that resembled those of law enforcement, Vallario said that as far as he knows the man wasn’t a law enforcement officer.
Near where the body was discovered, investigators found fake hand grenades and a pipe bomb, Vallario said, and there was a fake improvised explosive device in his car, as well as another package that was explosive.
The handgun was found next to the body, and the rifle was found on a counter in the restroom, Vallario said.
Visitors take a lift to the adventure park, but there is a service road to it, and it is believed the man drove to the park to enter after hours, Vallario said.
“This very sad and tragic incident reminds us how much our Glenwood Springs community means to us,” Nancy Heard, the park’s general manager, said in a statement. She thanked the law enforcement agencies that responded.
The FBI is assisting the sheriff's office, and investigators will go through the man's cellphone and social media accounts and conduct interviews to learn more about him and what he intended, Vallario said.
"We had the potential for something very heinous and gruesome to happen in this community," he said. "We were fortunate that it did not occur."
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
