Eloy Conrad Duran III will always be remembered by Unit
1012. As he was born on November 10, 1984, we
will remember him on his birthday and treasure the precious memories of his
life on earth. We shall also not forget him on the date he left this earth on
January 3, 2010.
 |
|
Eloy Conrad Duran III
(November 10, 1984 to January 3, 2010)
|
"So long as we live, they too shall live and love for they are a part of us as we remember them."- Gates of Prayer
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15281292
Griego: A mourning father's
pursuit of justice
By Tina
Griego
Denver
Post Columnist
Posted:
06/12/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT4 Comments
 |
|
Eloy Conrad Duran III
(November 10, 1984 to January 3, 2010)
|
Here is a father. He wears slacks and a dress shirt and a necktie and sits
across the table from me at a neighborhood restaurant. He has before him some
papers and a small digital recorder and appears to be a businessman working
over a late breakfast.
Look
closer and his exhaustion is apparent. His face is sallow, as if he had been
sick, as if all that is holding him together are the tie and the nice slacks.
He talks
about his son. About when he was a baby they called him the Michelin Man
because he had so many rolls of fat. He was an athlete — baseball, football,
basketball — and had a ton of friends who knew him to be generous and loyal and
protective of them. The father tells you his son graduated from Kennedy High
School and became a father at 20. When the economy tanked, his son lost his job
and he and his daughter moved in. His son found work cleaning gutters.
The
father laughs and says his son liked to hoist his little girl over his shoulder
and carry her downstairs so they could all eat breakfast together.
The
father says he and his son did everything together. They went fishing, to the
movies, to church, and on summer evenings, they sat outside and talked. He says
his son was a good man, a gentleman. The father pushes the stack of papers
toward me: "The autopsy report is there."
"Name
of decedent: Eloy Conrad Duran III. Date and time of death: January 3, 2010;
0858 hours. Age: 25 years. Diagnoses: Sharp force injuries: a) stab wound of
the chest with injury to the right ventricle and right lung b) stab wound of
the right posterior shoulder with injury to the skin and subcutaneous tissue c)
five incised wounds involved the right and left arms with injury to the skin,
subcutaneous tissue and muscle."
It goes
on for nine pages. Eloy Conrad Duran III was beaten and stabbed. This happened
at house party at West Fourth Avenue and Utica Street a little after 2 a.m. on
Jan. 3.
Police
arrested 17-year-old Jovani Muniz. The district attorney's office charged him
as an adult with first-degree murder. Muniz pleaded guilty in exchange for the
lesser charge of second-degree murder. Because he had no previous criminal
record, he was given a 21-year suspended sentence in adult corrections and
seven years in the Youth Offender System. If Muniz does his time in the youth
system without incident, he will be freed. Otherwise, he will face 21 years in
adult lockup.
This is a
matter of record. It is not the whole story.
Left
behind is Eloy Conrad Duran II, who believes his son was set up and jumped at
that party by gangsters. He believes others should be punished. He believes
seven years for the life of his son does not even come close to justice.
"It's
a farce," Duran says. "My son is dead and (Muniz) will be in YOS
taking college classes."
What you
need to know about the particular hell Duran occupies is that since his son was
killed, he has lost his job, he is filing for bankruptcy, and on that recorder
are interviews he started conducting after the May sentencing with witnesses to
his son's death.
A young
man kills another and from this act come ripples and some of those ripples are
tidal waves. I sit with a father, who has at home his 13-year-old son and his
slain son's 6-year-old daughter, and I can provide no answers. The police tell
me they are not looking for any other suspects. The D.A.'s office says it did
not have the evidence to support the scenario Duran posits. Not the
premeditation, the beat-down, the gang involvement, though Muniz may have been
part of a tagging crew.
All the
while, whispers reach Duran's ears: People were drinking and your son, 6 feet,
260 pounds, was really drunk and looking for a fight and 10, 15 guys jumped him
and then handed the knife to a 115-pound kid because he'd get less time.
How else,
Duran wonders, could a scrawny teen take down a big man?
So, he
searches for evidence to persuade police to reopen the case. He undertakes a
dangerous course.
I do not
presume to know his suffering. I do not know what it is to imagine my child's
final moments or to sit in a courtroom and hear the words "seven
years."
I speak
to him of his younger son and his granddaughter and he says: "They are all
that keep me going now. This is what I have to do. I don't believe justice was
served, and I don't know, frankly, what to do about it."
Listen to
the recording, he says. I hear him interviewing a girl. She says she saw 10
guys surrounding his son. (Another will tell him she saw four.) "Was this
person there?" Duran says. He has photos. "I don't care about
names." But the girl is hesitant now. "I don't know," she says.
I hear a
desperate father who forgets to stop recording after he finishes talking to the
girl. I hear his footsteps and his breathing. I hear him open the car door. I
hear him settle in his seat. I hear him cry.
Tina
Griego writes Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
 |
|
Eloy Conrad Duran III
(November 10, 1984 to January 3, 2010)
|
OTHER LINKS:
No comments:
Post a Comment