Troubled prison time for Colo. suspect Ebel

DENVER Behind bars, he was known as "Ebel Evil."

Within a day of arriving at his first permanent prison, Evan Spencer Ebel, the suspect in last week's slaying of Colorado's prisons chief, got into a fight. Six months later, he told a female guard "that he would kill her if he ever saw her on the streets, and that he would make her beg for her life," according to prison records released Thursday.

That was one of 28 different violations he racked up during his time behind bars, most of which was spent in solitary confinement. When Ebel was released Jan. 28 after serving his sentence — with a swastika tattooed on his stomach and the word "Hate" on one of his hands — prisons officials warned he had a high chance of reoffending.

Two months later, Ebel died in a shootout with Texas authorities. The gun he used was the same one that killed prison chief Tom Clements on March 19. Police also have linked Ebel to the slaying of a pizza delivery man just before that.

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On Thursday, the woman who authorities believe gave Ebel his pistol, Stevie Marie Vigil, 22, appeared in court on charges of illegally giving a convicted felon a firearm. Her cousin Victor Baca, told The Associated Press that he's know Ebel since elementary school and Vigil knew Ebel through him.

"I think he just intimidated her," Victor Baca said, describing Vigil as a nursing student who hated guns. "Whether she bought the gun for protection because he possibly was going to hurt her, I don't know."

The details on Ebel's eight years behind bars come from his prison record, which was released under an open records request. It shows that Ebel was a member of the 211 Crew, a white supremacist prison gang. The prisons system twice tried to get him out of solitary confinement by enrolling him in special programs designed to help offenders.

Both times, Ebel was removed from the program because of disciplinary problems and sent back to solitary. He was released directly from solitary confinement onto the streets.

Clements, a deeply religious man who believed in the redemptive power of incarceration, was dedicated to limiting solitary confinement.

"It is an unbelievably bitter irony ... the thing he most wanted to change was releasing people from six years of solitary confinement directly into the general population," Gov. John Hickenlooper said at Clements' memorial service Monday. "They're considered unsafe to release into the prison population. How can we release them back into the general public?"

Ebel's parents have not agreed to any interviews but both have said publicly that they struggled to control their son. When he was 12, his mother, Jody Mangue, wrote in an online memorial, they sent him to a series of camps aimed at helping children with behavioral problems.

Ebel stayed with Baca's family for a time as a child. Baca said Ebel told him those camps — some of which were overseas — changed Ebel and made him harder. He said Ebel told him instructors there would throw rocks at the children, withhold food and let others beat them. Baca called them "Third World prison or something."

Court records show Ebel's first brush with the law was in 2003, when he held a gun to an acquaintance's head while they watched a Denver Broncos game and took his wallet. He ended up in prison after being linked to two other armed robberies.

Prison records list his aliases as "Ebel Evil" and "Dustin McKay." He was disciplined for smearing feces on his cell wall, punching a fellow inmate and punching a guard in 2006. Prison documents say Ebel also threatened to kill that guard and their family. That attack earned him another felony conviction.

When Ebel was released from prison, his parole terms forbade him from driving a car, frequenting bars or interacting with other gang members. Baca said Ebel and Vigil had been spending time together since his release.

Sgt. Joe Roybal, an El Paso County sheriff's spokesman, said investigators are looking into whether Vigil knew what Ebel was planning to do with the gun.

Vigil made her first court appearance Thursday in Arapahoe County dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit. Her hands were cuffed and her feet shackled. She faces one count of unlawful purchase of a firearm, a felony that carries a penalty of two to 16 years in prison.

The statute makes it illegal for someone to buy a firearm to transfer to a person that they know or should know isn't legally allowed to have a firearm. Vigil has no criminal record in Colorado, so she would be able to pass a background check to buy a gun.

Mark Hurlbert, assistant district attorney for Arapahoe County, declined to comment on whether there were any other charges being considered against Vigil or whether she was suspected of being a part of a conspiracy.

Vigil's lawyer, Normando Pacheco, left the hearing without comment.

Most documents in the case have been sealed, including an arrest affidavit that details the events leading to Virgil's arrest. Unlike other states, the sealing of court records is increasingly common in Colorado in high profile cases that are under investigation.

A judge is scheduled to consider the evidence against Vigil at a hearing on April 30.