Page 12 - AreaNewsletters "Apr 2021" issue

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Church with the huge window behind the altar o ering a spectacular panoramic view of our community has since been replaced with a beautiful, more modern structure
It had so many wonderful people with
a small town feel! Finding a babysitter didn’t take long. The law enforcement community in Castle Rock was a close- knit family who really helped and looked out for each other. Karen, a single mom with a little boy, who was the cook for the jail agreed to watch Shaun, and those two little boys became like brothers!
The State Patrol o ce was located at
900 Wilcox, on the north end of Wilcox next to the northbound on-ramp to
I-25. Next to it was the o ce for CDOT, the State Transportation center with snowplows and trucks. To the south of
the State Patrol building was Mike Wallen Standard, a gas station that also operated a tow truck that was often called when it was necessary to get the highway open fast after breakdowns and crashes. All three of those buildings have since been demolished. The last one was the gas station that came down just a few years ago.
Another important building that no longer exists in downtown Castle Rock
is the Courthouse, the Jail and the Sheri ’s O ce. Today we all know that Walgreen’s can be found at the northwest corner of Plum Creek and Wilcox. But in 1984, all three operations—the court, sheri and jail—occupied that same
April 2021 • Castle Rock “AreaNewsletters”
structure surrounded by a dirt parking lot – it wasn’t paved!
It’s too bad that courthouse at 355
S. Wilcox was torn down – the stories those walls could tell.
(right) Gary Robinson, of the Douglas County Sheri ’s O ce. The Ross Carlson case was his rst homicide investigation.
On the morning of August 18, 1983, Rod and Marilyn Carlson, both 37-year old Littleton school teachers, were found shot to death in northern rural Douglas County, where Parker is today. Their only child, Ross Carlson, who was 19 at the time, was at home having breakfast when Douglas County deputies arrived at the Littleton home where he lived with his parents. Ross said he’d gone to a movie the night before with a friend, but investigation showed Ross left the movie, drove home to get his parents, took them to a remote area and executed them. He drove their car back
to the movie theater where he left their car with the keys in it, hoping it would
be stolen to direct suspicion away from himself. Ross was able to get back into the movie before it ended so his friend could take him home. He was arrested for the death of his parents and brought to that Castle Rock basement jail. Ross pled not guilty by reason of insanity because he demonstrated multiple personalities; he was taken to the Colorado State Hospital in Pueblo for treatment.
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But Castle Rock still had a lot going for it...
Here’s just one true story about what took place in that building...
C O MMU N I T Y