Six homeless people have been murdered in Colorado Springs over the past two months, with suspects in some of the cases also being homeless.

The string of homicides among a particular population in such a short period of time is unprecedented and startling, said El Paso County Coroner Dr. Leon Kelly.

The cases occurred in October and November, and each appears to have started as a minor altercation that rapidly escalated to lethal violence, said Kelly, who’s also the county’s chief medical examiner.

• Jose Delgado-Diaz, 49, was fatally stabbed on Oct. 10 and found behind a strip club near South Academy Boulevard and B Street, near an unauthorized RV parking site on private property. Authorities described the site as a homeless camp; residents, however, say they work and are not homeless because they live in their campers.

Second arrest made in death of homeless man who allegedly started fire in Colorado Springs

El Paso County sheriff’s deputies identified two suspects, Gregory Paul Lee and Gabriel Lee Clark. Arrest records have been sealed because of the transient nature of the witnesses, according to a recent court hearing.

Authorities said the victim matched the description of a man who allegedly started a fire in the camp earlier that morning.

• Kelty Marron, 41, was found dead on Oct. 10, when Colorado Springs police responded to a report of an assault-in-progress in front of a downtown law firm.

Charged with Marron’s murder is Luke Herndon, the person who made the emergency call and a member of the same homeless camp as Marron.

Herndon told the dispatcher that he strangled Marron, who then became unconscious, according to arrest documents.

Marron initially began arguing about music with another man from the homeless camp, Ernest Flores Naranjo, the affidavit says, and Herndon “verbally admonished them for arguing.”

Disagreement over what to do with trash from food a passerby had given the men, along with a dispute about where to spend the night, led to “pushing and shoving.”

Herndon told police that during the fight, Marron clutched the front of his coat, and he responded by grabbing Marron’s coat with crossed hands in a move known as a “lapel stranglehold.” Herndon told police he was defending himself and didn’t realize Marron was no longer breathing.

• Allison Scarfone, 27, was found dead on Oct. 10, when Colorado Springs police responded to a call from a home near Prospect Lake.

Scarfone’s body was stuffed in a storage container inside the garage, according to arrest papers for the suspect, Gregory Alan Whittemore, 39, a convicted sex offender on parole. He was wearing an active ankle monitor that tracks the location of offenders, the affidavit states.

Whittemore’s roommate called police, saying Whittemore told him he had killed an unknown female and put her body in their garage, documents say.

Colorado Springs man offered to help woman before raping, killing her: Affidavit

When police arrived at the house, Whittemore had left with a friend, who took him to Peak View Behavioral Health, a mental health center, where police later found him.

Whittemore told police he met a homeless woman and got some clothes for her, which led to an argument. He said he choked her after she called him a “rapist,” then hit her and raped her.

• Bradly Miller, 35, was found dead on Nov. 4 at Dorchester Park on South Nevada Avenue, where homeless people congregate. Colorado Springs police responded to a report of an assault and have not identified any suspects.

Victim identified in fatal stabbing at Colorado Springs’ Dorchester Park

• Ricky Keiser, 45, was found dead on Nov. 7, near South Union Boulevard and the Martin Luther King bypass. His body had “obvious trauma and external injuries,” according to Colorado Springs police. No suspects have been named.

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• Sergio Garduno-Ramirez, 34, was found severely bleeding and unresponsive on Nov. 26 near South Nevada Avenue and East Las Vegas Street. Police were responding to a call of a disturbance. Emergency medical responders provided aid and took Garduno-Ramirez to a hospital, where he died. Police have made no arrests.

In all, Garduno-Ramirez’s death marked the city’s 50th homicide investigation this year, compared with 40 at the same time last year, according to Colorado Spring police.

Man killed south of downtown Colorado Springs identified, 50th homicide of 2022

“These individuals are part of our community and are citizens, too,” Kelly said of the homeless deaths. “We need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to protect them.”

Most of the victims have been nonviolent homeless people, said Evan Caster, senior manager of homeless initiatives for the Community Health Partnership, an organization that promotes good health among all residents.

“Which is concerning because we have people in the community to help them connect to services,” he said.

Street outreach workers from local police and fire departments, as well as organizations such as Rocky Mountain Human Services, Homeward Pikes Peak and The Place, a teen shelter, are working on safety practices to protect both homeless people and those who are trying to help them, Caster said.

“We’re continuing to do what we know works well, which is connecting them to shelter and housing vouchers,” he said.

Kelly believes the murders signal a disturbing pattern in the community.

“It seems like it has gone from what essentially has been a human dignity and aesthetics issue of the city to what is clearly now a public safety issue,” Kelly said. “Which is not necessarily something we’ve seen previously.”

Violence not uncommon

Violence in homeless camps is routinely a problem, said Sgt. Jason Garrett, a spokesman for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.

Disagreements and fights are common among the homeless, James Sanders said last week, while sitting in Monument Valley Park, a popular spot for homeless people.

Sanders has been homeless off and on for 20 years and has seen and heard it all.

“Somebody probably stole something or it was a bad drug deal,” he said of the city’s recent murders. “Who knows?”

The Sheriff’s Office doesn’t receive complaints in a majority of the disturbances involving the homeless, Garrett said.

People living on the streets typically want minimal contact with law enforcement, Garrett said, so much of the criminal activity between themselves goes underreported.

“It’s a hard number to quantify because we cannot track events that are not reported, leaving us with only the reported incidents — and not the whole picture,” he said.

Types of transients vary, Garrett said, from the “fallen on hard times” individuals and families who work on getting back into housing and jobs, to people who have mild to moderate mental health problems to those on the fringe.

The latter don’t look for regular employment, balk at authority and rely on handouts or theft to live, Garrett said. They also are the most difficult group to help, he said. They’re often called the chronically homeless, as they are homeless for months or years.

“They do not seek or accept assistance from any of the major resources — unless it comes with no strings attached,” Garrett said.

They also often have rap sheets and outstanding arrest warrants.

“It is pretty common,” Garrett said.

About 30% of transients the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office makes contact with end up with warrant arrests, he said.

Another 10% have nonextraditable warrants issued out of other jurisdictions. In that case, people are not arrested but only advised that the warrant exists, Garrett said.

“The transient population does not usually participate in societal norms, such as showing up for court when charged with a crime,” he said.

Many of the warrants for homeless people relate to their failure to appear for crimes they are accused of committing due to their lifestyle, such as theft, trespassing, littering and illegal camping.

“Most of these crimes are noncustodial arrests,” Garrett said, “and it takes the party not showing up to court to spur a booking into jail.”

Homeless people who have mental conditions also are tough for law enforcement to work with, he said, because mental health is “noncriminal.”

But behavior resulting from an imbalance can be.

For example, Whittemore, the man suspected of killing Scarfone, told police he had been diagnosed with several mental disorders and took prescribed medications. He also said in the arrest report that he had “psychotic and crazy thoughts.”

Homeless homicides more than double

The number of homicides of homeless people in El Paso County this year has more than doubled over last year.

The Coroner’s Office processed a total of four homeless homicides in 2021, Kelly said.

In all, there have been at least nine killings of homeless people this year, he said, with possibly more that have not yet been identified as such.

“Generally, we do have a couple homicides in our homeless population every year,” Kelly said. Now, “We are dealing with a different situation than we’ve had.”

With a tendency toward drug and alcohol use, the prevalence of mental illness and sheer desperation, homeless people are at risk of violence, he said.

The community’s increase in homicides impacts not only families and friends but also other facets of the community, Kelly said.

“This is going to be an ongoing issue for the economic rejuvenation of downtown and the South Nevada Avenue area, which continues to be a priority for the city,” Kelly said.

As issues pertaining to the homeless, such as urban camping, littering, aggressive panhandling and loitering, became the top complaint at the city of Colorado Springs, officials have been working for several years to improve conditions for the homeless population as well as residents at-large.

The city conducts regular cleanups of camps, enforces camping bans near waterways and other public spaces, deploys police and fire crews to walk the streets and homeless camps to make sure people are all right and try to get them into stable living situations.

Merchants of the Downtown Partnership of Colorado Springs share the concerns of the community and the need for additional mental health services, said spokeswoman Carrie Simison.

That’s why the organization was grateful the city retained funding for the Fire Department’s Homeless Outreach Program in its 2023 budget, she said.

“Our city needs a strong police presence to tackle behavior by anyone, housed or unhoused,” Simison said, “and we need skilled outreach workers to help people with addiction and mental health issues connect to services.”

Organizations that assist the homeless are gearing up for the county’s annual count of sheltered and unsheltered people, which will happen in January.

This year’s census conducted in February identified 1,443 people as homeless.

The number of people staying in transitional housing and emergency shelters reached the highest level ever reported. The number of chronically homeless, 396, was the highest ever reported as well.

The number of “unsheltered” people, those living on the streets, was the lowest since 2015, at 267 people.

The census helps providers deliver services to areas most in need, the Community Health Partnership’s Caster said.

“The real victims here are people who are experiencing homelessness,” Caster said of the recent spate of murders, “and we’re doing our best to protect them and make sure we’re not demonizing the homeless population.”