A nationwide dragnet is underway for a man suspected of fatally shooting three people while they were sleeping in their Rye-area home and then burning the structure down Wednesday.
The victims are identified as Reginald Burton Tuttle, 51, his wife, Kim Tuttle, 55, and Dawn Roderick, 33. All three were shot to death, according to Pueblo County Coroner James Kramer.
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A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Harry Carl Mapps, 59, who had been living with the Tuttles until he was ordered to leave about a week ago. He is being called the “primary suspect” in the murders.
Mapps cashed two checks bearing the name of one of the victims on Wednesday, according to a sheriff’s office news release.
The checks, for $4,000 each, were cashed Wednesday morning. The first was cashed at 8:20 a.m. in Pueblo and the second at 10:04 a.m. in La Junta, said Pueblo police spokeswoman Lisa Shorter. An image of Mapps, with a full beard, was taken by a surveillance camera at a gas station.
A nationwide warrant seeks his arrest for identity theft, forgery and theft of more than $5,000.
The bodies were found Thursday in the home, in the 8200 block of Colorado 165, just outside of Rye.
Mapps was a radio dispatcher for Reginald Tuttle Express, a trucking company.
Mapps’ estranged wife, Sandy Martin, 52, said he moved from their home in Dimmit, Texas, to Rye about six months ago to live and work with his longtime friends, the Tuttles.
She said Mapps has suffered a series of setbacks relating to an ongoing drinking problem. He lost his job driving a milk tanker in 2009 after he was arrested for drunken driving in Madison, Wis.
Martin said police in Dimmit have been keeping an eye out for Mapps in case he returned there. She said he is not a violent man, and she does not believe he killed his friends of 20 years.
But a week ago, the Tuttles asked Mapps to leave their home, Pueblo County sheriff’s investigators have said.
Martin said she believes Mapps was living out of his dark-blue minivan over the past week.
