On a spring evening in Colorado Springs, the life of 33-year-old Steven Fairfax was tragically cut short. On April 18, 1993, Fairfax was outside Jim & I's Star Bar when a man named Eugene Baylis, wearing a flak jacket and armed with an AK-47 and four grenades, opened fire. The chaotic scene resulted in the deaths of both Fairfax and the bar's manager, 40-year-old Paul “P.K.” Klein, who was a member of the Sons of Silence motorcycle club.
Five other people were wounded in the violent outburst.
The shooter, Eugene Baylis, was shot in the head and wounded by a police officer, James Rau, as he attempted to reload his weapon. Baylis was subsequently arrested and faced a high-profile trial in 1995. Over the course of 28 days, more than 100 witnesses testified. Baylis's defense attorneys argued that he acted in self-defense, claiming that a member of the motorcycle gang had shot him in the face with a pellet gun earlier. In a move that surprised many, a Pueblo County jury acquitted Baylis of all 43 charges related to the shooting spree.
Following his acquittal, Baylis pleaded guilty in 1995 to federal charges for the illegal possession of three machine guns and was sentenced to three years in prison, with credit for time served. Years later, in a separate incident in May 2018, Eugene Baylis was shot and killed by a federal officer near Grand Junction after he opened fire on two Bureau of Land Management officers.
