Investigators revealed overwhelming evidence through their testimonies at accused UCCS shooter Nicholas Jordan’s preliminary hearing on Tuesday, leading to an El Paso County judge’s decision to proceed to trial with all charges.
Jordan, 25, is accused of shooting and killing his roommate and fellow UCCS student Sam Knopp, 24, and Pueblo woman Celie Rain Montgomery, 26, in the early morning hours of Feb. 16 in their dorm room at Crestone building on campus.
Three officers involved in the shooting investigation testified in court, two of which were detectives. The detectives outlined the disputes between Jordan and his roommates leading up to the shooting and the evidence that led to police believing Jordan was the suspect.
Colorado Springs detective Ed Crofoot, the lead detective for the case, said he was in charge of finding a suspect for the shooting. He testified that there were 11 spent cartridges found in Knopp’s dorm room, which matched a Taurus PT 40 caliber handgun that was found inside Jordan’s vehicle when he was arrested.
The 10-round capacity gun can hold 11 rounds in total with one being placed in the cartridge. Police collected a fingerprint found on the handgun’s magazine, which was a match for Jordan. They also found an AK-47 rifle in the vehicle with a 30-round magazine in a backpack.
According to Crofoot, records show Jordan had purchased the handgun from a gun store near Detroit, Michigan 20 days before the shooting and 12 days after Jordan had threatened to kill Knopp following a dispute over trash.
Previous reporting from The Scribe shows that there were three documented complaints and interactions between Jordan and his roommates filed by UCCS Police and the housing department on Jan. 9. One of these complaints was about the threat made by Jordan, who told Knopp that there would be consequences if he was asked to take out trash again.
On cross-examination, Crofoot said that there could be many reasons why the gun was purchased. He added there could be a correlation to the shooting but there were no eye-witness reports of Jordan entering the dorm room that morning.
Crofoot said he had interviewed Jordan upon his arrest for four hours, and facts and details he gave changed throughout the session.
Jordan initially told him that he had been living inside his car and had not been on campus all semester. Jordan also told Crofoot he was in Denver or Pueblo the day before and of the shooting.
After Crofoot presented him with a log entry that showed his keycard was used to get access to the Crestone building, Jordan said he was on campus and went into Crestone to use the bathroom but did not enter the dorm room.
“He told me that he didn’t have any idea of why he would be charged with murder,” Crofoot said. “I told him that I was investigating a shooting, and his response to me was that he was not aware of any shootings on campus. At that point in that interview, I had not mentioned anything happening at UCCS or had not even said that there had been a shooting at UCCS.”
He added that Jordan did not give a description of his roommates. Jordan said he didn’t know their names and that the last time he saw his roommates was during the fall semester.
Colorado Springs detective Mark Kerr interviewed Knopp and Jordan’s third roommate, who said Knopp and Jordan had extensive disputes relating to cleanliness and marijuana odor. The escalation of the disputes led to both him and Knopp attempting to move out of the dorm, which was scheduled to happen the day of the shooting.
The roommate told Kerr that he woke up just before 6 a.m. to what sounded like gunshots and then heard a woman cry and groaning coming from who he believed to be Knopp. He then heard a door close and someone run out of the dorm, but he did not see Jordan at any point that morning.
Crofoot later testified that Jordan was the only person who scanned into Crestone’s eastern entrance from midnight to 9 a.m. on Feb 16, doing so twice including less than 20 minutes prior to the police responding to the shots fired.
The dorm unit is a pod arrangement, with four individual bedrooms that have lockable doors and a common room organized around them.
Crofoot testified that there were no signs of forced entry to the main door to enter the dorm or the interior doors of the room. The roommate told Kerr that Knopp always locked the door to his room at night. He added that police found Jordan’s room was vacant and had no personal belongings in it.
The roommate told Kerr that Jordan moved into the dorm during the middle of the fall semester after an emergency move-in and that the problems with Jordan began shortly after. There was initially a fourth roommate sharing the apartment, but the problems caused that roommate to leave once the fall semester was over according to Crofoot
Jordan’s emergency move-in was prompted after he had been evicted from Lion Village Student Housing during the fall semester. Jordan had received multiple complaints from neighbors about his marijuana usage, according to Crofoot’s testimony.
During Crofoot’s testimony, prosecutor Andrew Vaughan attempted to have the detective testify more about the complaints from Jordan’s neighbors at Lion Village and how Jordan allegedly attempted to “hunt them down” after the eviction.
Defense attorney Nick Rogers objected to any testimony about the alleged incident, which was sustained by Judge David Shakes, so no evidence of the alleged incident was entered into court.
A resident of Lion Village who lived next door to Jordan told The Scribe in February after the shooting that Jordan wanted to either hurt or kill whoever was filing the complaints against him and that he made her and other women uncomfortable.
According to the detectives, the relationship between Montgomery and Knopp, and why she was at the dorm the morning of Feb. 16 remains unclear. Crofoot testified that an analysis of everyone’s cell phones is ongoing and could lead to clarity.
Jordan is also accused of assaulting a deputy while in the El Paso County jail after the deputy denied him cleaning supplies for the toilet in his cell, according to testimony from El Paso County deputy Taylor Smith.
Judge Shakes ruled that both charges of first-degree murder, the single menacing charge and all three violent crime sentence enhancers for the shooting are set for trial. All charges related to Jordan’s alleged assault of the deputy while in jail are also set for trial.
The hearing followed a months-long process of competency hearings that were initiated in April. Two reports were conducted separately on Jordan’s competency which yielded conflicting results. Despite this, Judge Shakes ruled in a competency hearing in August after hearing testimony from the two experts who had conducted the reports that Jordan was competent to stand trial.
Jordan will return to court on Oct. 25 for an arraignment hearing. He remains in jail on a $5 million bond.
Alleged UCCS shooter Nicholas Jordan enters the courtroom for a preliminary hearing Sep. 3. Photo by Lillian Davis.