On the evening of March 19, 2013, Thomas Lynn Clements, the 58-year-old head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, was at his home in Monument, Colorado, when he answered a knock at the door. On his doorstep stood a man posing as a pizza delivery driver. Moments later, Clements was shot in the chest and died at the scene. The brazen assassination of a public official in his quiet, rolling hills neighborhood sent shockwaves through the community and drew national attention.
The
investigation quickly zeroed in on Evan Spencer Ebel, a 28-year-old recent parolee and member of the white supremacist prison gang known as the 211 Crew. Ebel had a lengthy criminal record and had spent a significant portion of his incarceration in solitary confinement, a practice Clements had been working to reform. The evidence against Ebel was substantial. Two days before killing Clements, Ebel had murdered Nathan Leon, a pizza delivery driver, and stolen his uniform and pizza carrier to use as a disguise. The gun Ebel used in a later shootout with Texas law enforcement was ballistically matched to the weapon that killed both Clements and Leon.
Ebel's time as a fugitive was short-lived. Two days after the Clements murder, a sheriff's deputy in Montague County, Texas, attempted to pull over the black Cadillac Ebel was driving. Ebel opened fire on the deputy, wounding him, and led police on a high-speed chase that ended when he crashed into a semi-truck. He emerged from the vehicle and continued to fire at officers until he was fatally shot. Ebel died without ever being formally charged with Clements' murder. Inside his car, authorities discovered items connecting him to both murders, including Nathan Leon’s pizza delivery props.
While Ebel was the sole person identified as the killer, investigators have long debated whether he acted alone. Suspicion has consistently pointed towards the 211 Crew, with some law enforcement officials believing the assassination was ordered by the gang's hierarchy. Recorded phone conversations surfaced in which Ebel told a fellow gang member he was 'taking care of things on the street for other inmates' and predicted he would likely die soon. In the course of the investigation, two other members of the 211 Crew, James Lohr and Thomas Guolee, were arrested and questioned, though they were not named as suspects in the murder itself. The woman who illegally purchased the gun for Ebel, Stevie Vigil, was sentenced to over two years in prison for her role. Despite ongoing investigation and lingering questions about a wider conspiracy, no one else has ever been charged in the assassination of Thomas Clements.
