Photos Courtesy of Don Auman

Research by
Fran Allison

My dream
We were on the shore of a lake. It was mom, my stepdad, my brother and some lady I didn’t know. Big, thick gray clouds were rolling in over the sky, causing a blanket of darkness broken only by occasional bolts of lightening. The thunder magnified the contrasting silence. The lady spoke to me in this dream and said that this would be the beginning of a very long, dark storm. She looked only at me, like she was forewarning me to take cover.

Eight days after this journal entry was written, Lisl Auman’s storm would appear. Lightening was about to strike, and Auman’s life would soon be enmeshed in a cloud of darkness that no one could have predicted.

On Nov. 12, 1997, Auman, her high school friend, Demetria Soriano, and three men drove from Denver to a lodge in Buffalo Creek to retrieve Auman’s clothes and other personal belongings. Auman had been living at the lodge with her boyfriend, Shawn Cheever; and, although each had separate rooms, their personal items were scattered about in both rooms. Auman had recently ended the relationship and was planning on sharing an apartment in Denver with Soriano. When Auman asked Soriano to help her move, she didn’t know that her friend’s boyfriend, Dion Gerze, would round up some of his buddies to assist him. So on the morning of that fateful November day, Auman met Gerze’s friends — Matthaeus Jaehnig and Steven Duprey — for the first time.

“I think it was probably a romantic set-up from the beginning,” says Auman. “Everyone was determined that I would ride alone with Jaehnig, in his TransAm, to the Buffalo Creek Lodge. I had no idea who he was, but I was about to learn.” During the drive, Jaehnig talked to her about how frustrating life could be and told Auman that he thought about suicide from time to time. And then Jaehnig contradicted his suicidal notions by saying, “Sometimes, I just love life too much.”

When the group arrived at the lodge, Auman went to her own room and retrieved all of her things. Her ex-boyfriend’s room was bolted shut, so she was unable to get some of her clothes, books and make-up. “As I was taking the things from my room to the car, Duprey, Jaehnig and Gerze found bolt cutters and broke into Cheever’s room,” says Auman. “They stole some of Cheever’s things and loaded them into Soriano’s car. I honestly didn’t take anything that was not mine.”

The group then left the lodge, and it was again just the two of them, Auman and Jaehnig, driving back to Denver.

What Auman and Jaehnig didn’t know was that a young girl who lived at the lodge had witnessed the three men breaking into Cheever’s room and had called the police. While Auman and Jaehnig headed toward Denver on U.S. Highway 285, the police would soon be on their tail. As the sirens neared, the sounds were deafening to Auman, and she soon realized that the cops were tagging them. Auman yelled at Jaehnig to “pull over.” Instead, Jaehnig gunned the motor and replied, “I am sorry, but we aren’t going to stop for them.”

My fear
I was an unwilling passenger in a gripping, white-knuckle chase with a person I had met only that morning. The chase was terrifying. I was paralyzed with fear, not only by the chase, but by this madman beside me. Before this chase would end, this man would attempt to seek refuge in what I now know to be an SKS assault rifle. I was confused, anxious and scared, with no way out. My fate determined by a larger-than-life, gun-packing stranger who would kill a cop, and then kill himself, leaving me to pay for his sins.

Jaehnig roared down the highway at speeds of 120 miles per hour with more and more police cars joining in the chase. “At one point,” Auman says, “Jaehnig pulled a gun out from underneath the seat and laid it on his lap. We were swerving all over the road. I was afraid for my life. He asked me to take the wheel, and he did not wait for a response. He just put his head out the window and proceeded firing. I had no choice but to grab the wheel.”

As they approached Denver and the Monaco Parkway apartment complex where Auman was going to live with Soriano, Jaehnig was somehow able to lose the glut of police cars that furiously followed. They hit a car, and Auman tried to jump out. When she tried to get out the door, Jaehnig screamed at her to “get the fuck back in the car.” “He had a gun,” she explains. Auman was terrified.

The two of them arrived at the apartment complex, and Auman and Jaehnig bolted out of the car. Auman ran toward the apartment and heard the sirens and police radios. She was relieved, thinking that the police would be her “immediate ticket out of this situation.” Hands in the air, she surrendered. Suddenly, she was on the ground with an officer’s knee in her back, handcuffed and dragged into a nearby police car. “They started yelling at me, and I was so confused that I said, “I plead the Fifth (Amendment),” says Auman.

She sat in the police car with Detective Michael Gargaro and immediately told the officer that Jaehnig had a “big gun.” She recalls telling members of the SWAT team the same thing.

The next thing Auman remembers is the sound of gunshots and a police officer coming to the car she was sitting in and telling her that she was going down for murder. According to news reports, Sergeant Calvin Hemphill looked hard into Auman’s face and said, “This is murder one, and you’re going down.”

Auman later learned that, prior to the shooting, Jaehnig ran from the car into an alcove off of the ground level of the apartment complex. Two police officers, Bruce VanderJagt and Sergeant Dean Jones were approaching the alcove. Jones cautiously peered into the alcove, while VanderJagt looked around the corner. Jaehnig fired, and VanderJagt got hit in the face with a bullet. VanderJagt went down. Jaehnig kept firing. VanderJagt ended up with nine bullets in his body. A police officer was dead. Jaehnig then turned the gun on himself — his suicidal thoughts now a reality.

The clouds were getting thicker.

My nightmare
I had no idea that I was possibly going to be charged with murder (after they arrived at the police station), along with a slew of other charges, until I saw it on the television as I sat in the Denver County Jail. I immediately called home and my brother, Mason, was the only one there. I asked him if he was watching the news, and we both started to cry. Even today when I look back, it is still like a dream — a horrific nightmare.

Auman was just 21 years old when she sat at the Denver County Jail on the evening of Nov. 12, and fielded dozens of questions from police officers and Chief Deputy District Attorney Lamar Sims. She had never been in trouble with the law before. Auman, scared and confused, had no idea what she was up against during the interrogation. The day was a blur, and Auman was dazed. She was not going to be released.

On Nov. 19, Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter charged Auman with second-degree burglary and felony murder. The felony murder charge was instigated by the felony burglary. When a murder is committed during a felony burglary, all of those or some who were involved or cited as accomplices to the burglary can be charged with murder, even if the person was physically absent while the murder occurred. The law has been on the books for 100 years.

And a police officer was killed. Someone had to pay. Denver was already reeling from hate crimes that stifled the city during the month of November. On Nov. 5, a suspected white supremacist led police on a wild chase, firing 47 rounds of gunshots at the officers. On Nov. 10, President Bill Clinton declared war on hate crimes at the first-ever White House Conference on Hate Crimes. All eyes were on Denver. On Nov. 12, Matthaeus Jaehnig shot and killed Officer VanderJagt. It should also be noted that the Denver Rocky Mountain News reported the following on Nov. 14, 1997 — “Despite numerous scrapes with the law, Jaehnig did little time in jail, getting deferred sentences, probation or short jail terms.” Jaehnig was familiar to the police.

On Nov. 18, a gunman shot and killed a West African refugee at a Denver bus stop and wounded the “Good Samaritan” who tried to help him. The gunman told the media that he shot the man because he was black. On Nov. 19 — the same day that Auman was formally charged with first-degree murder — Denver police found a dead pig with the name VanderJagt scribbled on its side. The pig had been left in the parking lot of the Denver District 3 Police Department. On Nov. 22, President Clinton was in Denver and met with Officer VanderJagt’s widow. “We must not, and I know the people of Denver will not, tolerate acts of violence that are fed by hate against people of color,” Clinton said during his visit.

According to news reports and interviews, Denver police officers Marc Bennett, Jason Brake and Detective Michael Gargaro, who were on the scene when Auman was arrested, would change their original versions of Auman’s behavior during the arrest. In the second version of events, Gargaro would say that Auman was aggressive, uncooperative and unemotional. His first report made no reference to problems with Auman’s apprehension.

After being charged with murder, Auman spent the next eight months in the Denver County Jail awaiting trial.

My terror
I was labeled a skinhead at the Denver County Jail — a skinhead who lived in a world of violence and hate. A cop killer. I was portrayed as a Bonnie to some Clyde. Even the sheriff’s deputies hated this shell of a girl; I would later become a vessel of example in a land of terror.

The trial began on July 7, 1998, and Deputy District Attorney Tim Twining portrayed Auman as a revenge-seeking woman who actually enlisted the skinheads to rob her ex-boyfriend, Cheever. Auman, too, was depicted as a skinhead and a member of the Neo-Nazi movement.

My trial
On the day of the jury selection, in front of me were all the potential jurors, most of whom had surely seen the front page of the newspapers, exploiting me as a hateful skinhead. On the other side of me were the media and the district attorney, who defined me as a monster. Next to me were my defense attorneys, appointed to defend me. Not only did the jury have pre-conceived ideas of me, but the victims’ families as well. Their hearts empty from their losses, they sat listening to lies about me.

The courtroom was crammed with police and media. Day after day, the jury faced a sea of blue. Officer Bruce VanderJagt was dead, and the “men in blue” mourned him. On July 17, 10 days after the trial started, the jury came back with a verdict.

My moment
I noticed a few of the female jurors, closer to my age, with tears in their eyes. I was scared to think about what that might mean. Cyrus and Angela (defense attorneys) held my hand. I remember thinking that this is the moment of truth, and the truth will set me free.

Judge Nancy Rice read the verdict: “The jury finds the defendant, Lisl Auman, guilty of felony murder.”

My darkness
I realized through the faces of my family members what had just been said, and my whole body went numb. I grew hot all over and involuntarily broke out in sobs. For the first time, I saw tears in my father’s eyes. That memory alone has grown to be one of the most painful memories in my recollection. Judge Rice ordered me out of the courtroom. I remember chaos. Cameramen were falling all over me, and reporters were asking me nonsensical questions, like how I felt about the verdict. How did they think I felt? I found out that Judge Rice, too, had hurried out of the courtroom. Two weeks later, I was told that Judge Rice was chosen to be a Colorado Supreme Court Judge.

It’s been almost three years since that awful day when my life changed forever. Not only am I older, but I have grown emotionally and mentally. Hard are the lessons that have taught me to stand strong in the face of adversity and devastation, and rocky is the path that I struggle to keep on when all I see is darkness.”

Lisl Auman is now 24. She waits for a court appeal while incarcerated at the Colorado Women’s Correctional Facility. Gone is the innocence of a young girl, a budding flower in the garden of life. But wisdom beyond her age is evident as you look into her eyes. And there is pain. Auman’s final words during our interview told the story — “Our lives can change drastically in one day.”

Auman has a creative soul; she engages others through her beautiful smile and bright mind. She loves to write and has taken a few English correspondence courses while in prison. She dreams of becoming a writer and moving back to Oregon. She dreams that the clouds will give way to sunshine.

She was born on Christmas Day 1975 in Eugene, Ore. When she was six years old, her parents moved the family to Colorado. She remembers driving by the federal prison in Cañon City and asking her dad about the people inside. When she was 10 years old, her parents divorced, and Auman went through the same grueling emotions that every child encounters when mom and dad separate. But she always stayed close to her parents and her step-dad. She graduated from high school not really knowing what she wanted to do. She loves the arts and became quite good at producing stained glass pieces. Auman was just a kid trying to figure it all out when she met Jaehnig on Nov. 12, 1997.

Lisl Auman could be your daughter, your sister, your niece or your friend. We all make choices that haunt us, but we trust that we can move on when we realize the consequences of the bad choices. And we don’t expect to pay for the sins of others. Auman was trapped in a whirlwind of unexpected events on Nov. 12. What choice that she made that day is she paying for? Leaving a boyfriend and moving? Allowing people she did not know to help? Being a passenger in a car with a stranger?

Don Auman, Lisl’s father, is passionate about his daughter, and the pain he feels for her is almost unbearable. “The life journey we all walk, which formulates our character, is forever lost for Lisl. She has lost the potential for all of life’s experiences, and we may never know what her contribution to society might have been,” he says.

Lisl’s mother, Colleen Auerbach, talks about the agony of having a child incarcerated for a murder she did not commit. “Lisl was, and still is, a very caring and giving young woman. Everyday I am afraid that she will become bitter toward everyone, but her strength of character and belief in herself has enabled her to live these last three years in prison without giving in to hatred. She will be a victim and a scapegoat, until the day she is allowed to come home. I am very proud to have her as my daughter,” says Auerbach.

It costs the State of Colorado approximately $30,000 per year to incarcerate Lisl Auman. The young woman we interviewed is not and never will be a danger to our society. One juror at Auman’s trial, Linda Chin, tried to rescind her guilty vote shortly after the trial was over. Chin has since donated money to Auman’s defense.

A decorated police officer is dead, and that is a tragedy. But if the system had worked long ago, Jaehnig’s rap sheet would have him behind bars or in some correctional program, one police officer would be alive and one woman would be free. The disparity in our system is just another tragedy.

My passion
Today, my eyes burn, not from the pain and hate that I have seen, but from tears of passion. Love is my religion. There are many who still choose to hate me. I, in contrast, will love them. Hate will eat us alive. We must have passion for life — life which is so bittersweet and sacred.