“It’s pretty clear that someone didn’t want the community to read the news this week,” Erin McIntyre, co-publisher of the Ouray County Plaindealer in Colorado, wrote in an email to readers. “I’ll leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions on which story they didn’t want you to read.”
Below the email is a screenshot of the front page of this week’s Ouray County Plaindealer edition, with the lead story, written by McIntyre, headlined, “Girl: Rapes occurred at chief’s house.”
“It's pretty clear that someone didn't want the community to read the news this week. I'll leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions on which story they didn't want you to read.”
– Ouray County Plaindealer co-publisher Erin McIntyrehttps://t.co/AZqhU4PmYR https://t.co/A66GR0JB8y pic.twitter.com/vLSY4VNZ0L— Classical Liberal Caucus (@LP_CLC) January 20, 2024
A 17-year-old girl told investigators she was raped multiple times at the Ouray police chief‘s home in May during a late-night party by the chief’s stepson and two other suspects, McIntyre reported.
Suddenly, every single physical edition of the paper vanished around town.
Less than 12 hours later, the newspapers were returned to the Plainsdealer office.
The police chief of the city is Jeff Wood and his stepson accused of the crime is Nate Dieffenderffer, who was 17 at the time of the alleged incident. The other two men arrested for sexual assault were 19-year-old Gabriel Trujillo and Ashton Whittington who was celebrating his 18th birthday that night.
The accuser told investigators she was drinking at the party and passed out on a bed and when she woke up, she said she found Dieffenderffer on top of her and all of her clothes were off. She said she fought back and was restrained by one of the other suspects who was laughing as another looked “horrified.” She said she wished the one who looked scared would have helped her.
The accuser said she was taken from the hallway to a bathroom, where she was raped again by one person and then another. She said she heard someone knock on the door, which caused one of the alleged participants to stop, but no one intervened, including Whittington, who told investigators he stayed in the bedroom and didn’t know what was going on.
“I remember really trying to yell so that someone would hear me and screaming because of how painful it was,” the accuser reportedly told investigators.
Trujillo and Dieffenderffer told investigators the act was a consensual “three-way.” DNA samples matched Dieffenderffer from a bite mark on the alleged victim. Trujillo said he had a previous sexual relationship with the accuser, while he and Dieffenderffer also had a previous consensual “three-way” sex with her.
Trujillo claimed he was just a “witness” to the alleged events at the police chief’s house, despite the DNA test matching Trujillo in a vaginal sample. He said Dieffenderffer and the accuser went to the bathroom for 10 minutes, came back out “and everything seemed fine, as both of them had their clothes on.” Trujillo also called the accuser a “pathological liar.” The affidavit shows Trujillo’s story changed a few times while talking to investigators. He eventually admitted he also had sex with the compalinant in the bathroom after initially denying it.
Wood declined the paper’s request to comment on the alleged assault.
The department also hasn’t addressed the situation.
“Jeff isn’t very smart is he?” A man commented on the department’s Facebook page. “No one reads newspapers, but they do follow TikTok. He should have tried to steal all the TikToks … He’s spreading like wildfire on there.”
