Man guilty in 2024 double murder inside Colorado university dorm
A jury Wednesday found Nicholas Jordan guilty of first-degree murder in the fatal shootings of his roommate and a woman inside a dorm room on the University of Colorado Colorado Springs campus last February.
Fourth Judicial District Court Judge David Shakes read the verdict in a Colorado Springs courtroom at 1:40 p.m., after the jury deliberated for nearly five hours.
The judge sentenced Jordan to two consecutive life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole. Jordan was also sentenced to a consecutive 364-day jail sentence for a misdemeanor menacing charge.
“The facts of this case indicate that there was an intentional, unprovoked, unjustified and inexcusable murder of two innocent, young people,” Shakes said in court Wednesday afternoon.
Defense attorneys for Jordan, 25, never denied he fatally shot music student Samuel Knopp, 24, and Celie Montgomery, 26, but argued he acted in self-defense, claiming Knopp was the aggressor before the Feb. 16, 2024, shooting.
Jordan and Knopp were roommates at UCCS.
But prosecutors maintained common sense refuted that theory and Jordan would not have returned to an on-campus building, next to the dorm room he had since moved out of, to use the restroom if he were in fear of his life.
Evidence presented during the trial, including cellphone records and police interviews, showed the escalating situation between Knopp and Jordan in the months leading up to the shooting.
Knopp made several complaints to university staff a month earlier over Jordan’s behavior, including overflowing trash and marijuana use, and asked to be assigned to a new dorm room, according to police reports.
Jordan also made requests to move out of the dorm and withdraw from the university hours before the shooting, records showed.
Police found Knopp with eight gunshot wounds and Montgomery with four gunshot wounds, a Colorado Springs police detective testified. One bullet struck them both.
“Unfortunately, Sam was living with a ticking time bomb that was waiting to go off,” 4th Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen told jurors during closing arguments Tuesday afternoon.
But Jordan had no intention to hurt Montgomery, defense attorney Nick Rogers, a deputy public defender, said Tuesday, but was only defending himself against Knopp in the small 9-foot-by-11-foot dorm room.The defense suggested Knopp was armed with a baseball bat, but no bat was entered into evidence.
“He’s not the person who murdered two other people in cold blood. He’s a man that acted to save himself in a situation that none of us could hope, or even contemplate, being in,” Rogers said.
Testimony referenced a conversation with a third roommate who said Jordan threatened to kill Knopp. But when school officials interviewed Knopp, he said he couldn’t recall if Jordan threatened him, Rogers said, calling them false allegations against Jordan.
Prosecutors argued Jordan was the initial aggressor who broke into a room where Knopp and Montgomery were sleeping when they were shot shortly before 6 a.m. Calls to 911 began to flood in to report a shooting, but no one reported a disturbance or argument beforehand, Allen said.
Jordan also couldn’t tell police where he was at the time of the shooting and told a detective he may have been in Pueblo or Denver. He claimed he didn’t know the name of his roommates, according to a police interview shown during the trial.
“None of this is believable, none of this is credible. All of this shows his consciousness of guilt that he knew exactly what he did,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Anthony Gioia said.
Ahead of sentencing Wednesday, Montgomery, of Pueblo, was remembered for her beautiful singing voice and as a “ferociously honest” person who loved her son and daughter, her older sister, Ryan, said in a statement read in court.
Race Montgomery, Celie’s father, said a form of justice was found in court for the murder of his daughter and Knopp.
“One of the hardest moments for me was when all of us had to listen to how Celie’s life was possibly taken in a series of unfortunate events, like she was collateral damage lost to escalating danger that was unavoidable. At that moment, I knew anger and hate … ,” Race Montgomery said.
“That feeling is gone now. Truth prevailed thanks to the talents and perseverance of dedicated individuals whose job is to find justice wherever and however it may try to be hidden.”
Jordan is scheduled to appear in court again Friday for a case involving his alleged assault of a jail deputy.