The Ignacio Police Department and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation are seeking the public’s help in a cold case homicide.
In 2009, Larry John Fuller was shot and killed as he walked home from the Sidekick Bar in Ignacio in the early hours of the New Year. The 49-year-old father of four children, three stepchildren and 14 grandchildren died at the scene. Investigators believe his death may have been the result of an altercation at the bar earlier in the evening, according to a release issued by the CBI.
To help
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is asking for anyone with information about Larry John Fuller’s death, or an altercation he had at the bar earlier that night, to call Agent Brandon Ludwig at (970) 210-5941.
The release says Fuller, a diesel mechanic who moved to Colorado in 2000, had been in the bar with his wife, Paula Silva, when he decided to walk home alone. The call to police about a man lying on the ground in the 300 block of Goddard Avenue came in at 1:53 a.m.
And because the investigation remains active – that is all the release said.
What caliber the bullet, type of gun possibly used, number of shots fired, police reports about the incident and whom he had an altercation with at the bar remain under wraps.
The only additional information the CBI would release about the sudden request for help from the public or new information that may have led to the dusting off of the case, along with which agency is bringing it to light 14 years later, came in an email response from Lisa Kohlbrenner, spokeswoman for the CBI.
“Really nothing new at all,” she wrote. “No new info or findings. IPD (Ignacio Police Department) just asked if CBI would take a fresh look at the case. This is not uncommon. Sometimes a law enforcement agency will ask the CBI to take another look at a cold case.”
What is known from previous reports in The Durango Herald in March 2010 is that Fuller had been at the bar to ring in the new year with Silva, who was his common-law wife and fiancee. They danced and had a few drinks. As closing time approached and the couple prepared to leave, Fuller for some reason left ahead of her, which Silva said was unusual. Twenty minutes later, he was found dead, shot, in front of a Baptist church in the 300 block of Goddard.
The Herald article went on to report that CBI agent Lewis Kirby believed that “somebody saw something” but that law enforcement needed community cooperation, and that numerous leads had come in but most proved to be rumors and inaccurate. In the meantime, the family reported living in fear.
Paul Madril, one of Fuller’s stepsons, told the Herald in 2010 it was frustrating to think that somebody knows something but is keeping it from authorities.
“It’s starting to get aggravating now more than anything,” he told the Herald. “This town was busy that night. Somebody had to have driven by and seen something.”
gjaros@durangoherald.com
