Confession Solves Old Murder Case
By Aaron J. Lopez
Associated Press Writer
Friday, October 24, 1997; 2:44 p.m. EDT
NEDERLAND, Colo. (AP) -- In 1971, Guy Goughnor was a 19-year-old
longhair who went by the name Deputy Dawg. He and his hippie
friends used to drink into the night, urinate in the streets, steal
laundry from clotheslines and otherwise show their disrespect for
authority.
The last time anyone saw Goughnor alive was the night a
bulldog-like lawman by the name of Renner Forbes pulled him out of
a bar and threw him into the back of his patrol car.
Last month, Forbes, now 68 and living in a nursing home,
confessed to killing Deputy Dawg, authorities say.
``He was looking over his shoulder for the last 26 years, not
only for the law, but his maker,'' said Kirk Long, a former Boulder
County detective who headed the original investigation. ``I think
he wants to clear his conscience before he meets his maker -- or try
to at least.''
Forbes had been the prime suspect in Goughnor's shooting death
from the start, but without enough forensic evidence, Long was
forced to abandon the case in 1972.
``It's one of things that you know who did it and you just can't
prove it,'' Long said. ``It's real frustrating, but at the same
time it goes with the job.''
Forbes, who was Nederlander's town marshal, arrived in 1971 at
this Rocky Mountain village of 550 people just east of the
Continental Divide. Raised on a farm in Bird City, Kan., and fresh
out of the Air Force, the brash, bull-necked Forbes seemed suited
for restoring order in restless times.
``He was big, and he was scary-looking,'' recalled Celeste
Haselwood, who lived in Nederland from 1962 to 1995. ``He looked
like a bulldog. If I was a lawbreaker and I saw him on the street,
I'd stop whatever I was doing.''
Lured by the picturesque Colorado mountain peaks, drifters gave
Forbes plenty of work as they turned Nederland into their own
personal summer camp.
``We were overloaded with hippies,'' said Stephanie Lawrence,
who moved to Nederland in 1940. ``There were bad ones and some of
the good ones -- the flower kids.''
Goughnor, who hitchhiked here from his family's lakefront home
in a Minneapolis suburb and adopted the name of a cartoon
character, ran with the more reckless crowd that used deerskin
hides to cover their teepees in the woods outside of town.
Their mischief ranged from indecent exposure and theft to public
urination and stealing the water hoses from the fire department.
One police report described Goughnor as ``a huge pain.''
On July 21, 1971, Forbes pulled Goughnor from the Pioneer Inn
tavern, threw him in his patrol car and drove him to a remote area
of adjacent Clear Creek County, where he shot the young man once in
the head, authorities said.
Hunters found Goughnor's body a month later in a mountain canyon
where Forbes used to hunt elk. It had been dragged off a steep,
dirt road marked on maps as Oh My God Road.
Shortly thereafter, Forbes lost his job when he pleaded guilty
to misdemeanor assault charges after a fight. He moved back to
Kansas, where he managed his mother's farm for 25 years.
Forbes referred all questions to his lawyer, Bob Peppin, who
would not comment on the confession. He is scheduled to be formally
charged in December with second-degree murder, which carries up to
48 years in prison.
``This is a guy who's paralyzed on one side, can't get out of
his wheelchair by himself, can't turn over in bed, can't get in bed
by himself, can't dress himself, can't eat by himself. What do you
really take away from him if you put him in prison vs. say a
nursing home?'' asked Detective Steve Ainsworth, who worked on the
revived case.
Nederland residents seem ambivalent about Forbes' future. A copy
of Forbes' picture hangs on the door to the town marshal's office.
The caption reads: ``If you have a complaint or have broken the
law, you are welcome to sign up for a ride-a-long with ME!''
``We still have the hippies and the dreadlocks,'' said Diana
Giglietti, who works in the office, ``but we don't take them out
and shoot them.''
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