{"id":21693,"date":"2020-03-03T14:03:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T21:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=63532"},"modified":"2020-03-03T14:03:56","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T21:03:56","slug":"man-who-took-hostages-in-2015-incident-on-independence-pass-near-aspen-sentenced-to-12-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/man-who-took-hostages-in-2015-incident-on-independence-pass-near-aspen-sentenced-to-12-years-in-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who took hostages in 2015 incident on Independence Pass near Aspen sentenced to 12 years in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Colorado Springs realtor was sentenced to 12 years in prison Monday for holding three men hostage at gunpoint on Independence Pass in July 2015 and repeatedly threatening to kill them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no intention of harming anyone that day,\u201d Brolin McConnell said in court Monday before he was sentenced. \u201cI am extremely sorry for what they have gone through and what the community has gone through.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not the same person (I was) prior to going insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

McConnell\u2019s case has been through numerous stages since he used two handguns to hold the three young men hostage<\/a> for more than an hour four-and-a-half years ago on Lincoln Creek Road. He initially pleaded not guilty to the 18 felonies, including attempted first-degree murder, that had been filed against him.<\/p>\n

But after a year and a half in the Pitkin County Jail, McConnell changed his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. That delayed the case another 14 months while psychiatrists at the state hospital in Pueblo examined him and eventually found him sane.<\/p>\n

McConnell, 34, pleaded guilty in December<\/a> to criminal attempt to commit first-degree kidnapping and felony menacing and faced between eight and 20 years in prison as part of a plea deal with the District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

McConnell was scheduled to be sentenced a month ago, but his Denver-based lawyer wasn\u2019t able to land in Aspen because of weather. However, one of the three victims who\u2019d traveled to Aspen from his home in Hawaii spoke at that time so he would not have to return Monday for the actual sentencing.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrior to this incident I was just a simple kid from Hawaii,\u201d Blake Ramelb said last month. \u201cNow I can\u2019t go anywhere without images (from that day) in my head. My life is forever held hostage by this man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramelb had a foot injury that day and could not easily run away from McConnell, which the two other hostages were able to do. Ramelb said he begged McConnell repeatedly not to shoot him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019m not ready to die,\u2019\u201d Ramelb said.<\/p>\n

McConnell, however, merely smiled at his pain and repeatedly threatened to shoot him in various parts of his body and watch him \u201cbleed out,\u201d Ramelb said.<\/p>\n

McConnell fired a shot from one of the guns at Ramelb\u2019s feet and another beside his head. An Aspen Police officer witnessed McConnell fire the shot next to Ramelb\u2019s head and said he thought Ramelb was a dead man. Ramelb thought the same thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew the next shot would be the one that would take my life,\u201d he said. \u201cI was begging the officers to help me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramelb said he will not feel safe once McConnnell gets out of prison.<\/p>\n

A second hostage, who asked not be identified, spoke in court Monday and said he\u2019s been robbed at gunpoint twice in Dallas, where he\u2019s from, and that McConnell scares him far more than those robbers. McConnell pointed the handgun at his head, threatened to shoot him in the face and kept flicking the gun\u2019s safety on and off all the while smiling and making odd statements and jokes, he said.<\/p>\n

When McConnell asked them to \u201cget in an execution line,\u201d he said he looked at his friend who he\u2019d gone up to Lincoln Creek with to camp, and thought, \u201cSee you in the next life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, he said he thinks of the incident daily, has \u201ctrust issues,\u201d routinely sits in the back of rooms and has nightmares that can ruin his entire week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fearful for my life and he\u2019s not even in prison yet,\u201d the victim said Monday.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Don Nottingham read a statement from the third hostage, Mark Meredith, who said he has post-traumatic stress disorder from the incident. He said it affects his ability to go to school and that he\u2019s been told he needs to get therapy, but doesn\u2019t have time for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say that this changed the trajectory of my life is an understatement,\u201d Meredith said.<\/p>\n

All three men asked District Judge Chris Seldin to impose the maximum 20-year sentence.<\/p>\n

Nottingham also urged the judge to give McConnell the maximum, saying it was \u201cone of the most terrifying and dangerous\u201d incidents to have occurred here in recent years.<\/p>\n

But Harvey Steinberg, McConnell\u2019s lawyer, reminded the judge that his client had no prior criminal history, did not plan to take people hostage and that he suffers from mental health issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is driven by mental illness that clearly Mr. McConnell was suffering from at the time,\u201d Steinberg said. \u201cHe simply lost it that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

McConnell has since been prescribed medicine that treated his mental health symptoms and \u201csettled him down,\u201d Steinberg said.<\/p>\n

McConnell\u2019s mother said her son \u201chad been under great stress\u201d at the time of the incident because of his workload, lack of sleep and a recent divorce. He\u2019s also suffered while in jail, when he\u2019s lost both his houses, all his possessions and money and, most importantly, his two children\u2019s childhoods, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrolin has always been a thoughtful son to us,\u201d said Noreen McConnell, adding that he\u2019s never been violent. \u201cHe\u2019s a hard worker with a strong ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Seldin wondered aloud Monday how differently things might have turned out if no guns were present. In that case, McConnell likely would have received probation focused on mental health treatment, he said.<\/p>\n

As it was, the situation \u201cturned out about as bad as it could\u201d without anyone ending up dead, Seldin said.<\/p>\n

However, a 20-year prison sentence would only serve as retribution when what McConnell really needs is consistent mental health treatment, the judge said. Seldin urged McConnell\u2019s friends and family members \u2014 many of whom attended Monday\u2019s sentencing \u2014 to help him deal with the paranoid delusions he experiences by ensuring he takes his medication.<\/p>\n

McConnell was given credit for the 1,315 days he\u2019s already spent in jail in Pitkin County.<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Colorado Springs realtor was sentenced to 12 years in prison Monday for holding three men hostage at gunpoint on Independence Pass in July 2015 and repeatedly threatening to kill them. \u201cI had no intention of harming anyone that day,\u201d Brolin McConnell said in court Monday before he was sentenced. \u201cI am extremely sorry for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 22:25:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}