1873
Byers has had a post office since 1873.
about 0:08:34Spoilers are covered until your reading preferences load.
FILE 134 / 29 August 2019 / 152 MIN / full
We're going to Byers, Colorado, about 50 minutes northeast of Denver, in Arapaho County. about 0:06:30
Byers has had a post office since 1873.
about 0:08:34The community was named for William Byers, the newspaper editor who started the Rocky Mountain News, the first newspaper printed in Colorado; it ran until 2009.
about 0:08:39Byers started out in Iowa in the 1850s, moved to Omaha in 1854 and was the first deputy surveyor in the Nebraska territory.
about 0:09:06He moved to Denver in 1859 for the gold strikes, taking printing presses west by ox cart.
about 0:09:52Byers has had a post office since 1873.
about 0:08:34The community was named for William Byers, the newspaper editor who started the Rocky Mountain News, the first newspaper printed in Colorado; it ran until 2009.
about 0:08:39Byers started out in Iowa in the 1850s, moved to Omaha in 1854 and was the first deputy surveyor in the Nebraska territory.
about 0:09:06He moved to Denver in 1859 for the gold strikes, taking printing presses west by ox cart.
about 0:09:52He and another man wrote a handbook to the gold fields for newcomers.
about 0:10:18In 1863 he bought hot sulfur springs in northern Colorado from a Minnesota woman in what the episode calls a shady deal; the Ute tribe sued unsuccessfully.
about 0:11:03He planned to turn the springs into 'America's Switzerland', but the railroad did not arrive until 1928.
about 0:11:18In Denver he built several mansions, including the Byers-Evans House, now a museum next to the Denver Art Museum.
about 0:12:36He and his wife moved to South Denver and organised a dry community there.
about 0:12:49During the 1860s the area was cattle range and sheep country, and the gold rush did not last long.
about 0:13:22Joseph Farmer ran the biggest catalogue operation in Byers.
about 0:14:09Homesteaders arrived in the early 1900s and lived in sod houses called soddies, built from three-foot strips of buffalo grass sod.
about 0:15:12The Kansas Pacific Railroad received federal land grants of odd-numbered sections for 20 miles on each side of the track, earning 20 square miles of land for every mile of track, and towns including Byers were created from this in 1889.
about 0:17:0534.5%
Biggest faith: Catholic, 13%
about 0:19:55White 92% · Black 0.5% · Asian 0.0% · Hispanic 5.9%
Ethnicity can overlap race.Property crime
▼ about one third lower
Violent crime
▼ about half
Three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,232 sq ft house
about 0:24:19Three-bedroom, two-bath, 3,672 sq ft house
about 0:24:40Three-bedroom, three-bath, 2,550 sq ft house on 39 acres
about 0:25:00"about one third lower"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2019 about 0:30:11
"about half"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2019 about 0:30:11
"1,212"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:18:27
"up 14%"
Comparison: "since 1990". Direction: above.
As told in 2019 about 0:18:31
"about 47"
Comparison: "about ten years older than the national average". Direction: above.
As told in 2019 about 0:18:36
"63%"
Comparison: "normally 50-50". No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:18:53
"3%"
Comparison: "usually 10%". No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:19:06
"92%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:19:13
"0.5%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:19:17
"0.0%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:19:17
"5.9%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:19:53
"3.1%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:22:58
"almost $65,000"
Comparison: "usually about $58,000". No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:23:03
"142"
Comparison: "100 is the regular average". No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:23:18
"203"
Comparison: "100 is the regular average". No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:23:30
"about 53%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:20:44
"about 38%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:20:44
"8.6%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:20:52
"34.5%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:19:55
"2.5%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:20:25
"13%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:20:25
"2.6%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:20:30
"0.0%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:20:34
"1.9%"
Comparison: "high for a small mountain town". Direction: above.
As told in 2019 about 0:20:38
"$369,900"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:23:33
"$1,310"
Comparison: "usually about $1,250". No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:24:09
"$279,900"
Comparison: "about as cheap as it gets here". No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:24:19
"$399,900"
Comparison: "needs a lot of help". No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:24:40
"$534,900"
No direction stated.
As told in 2019 about 0:25:00
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No reviews recorded.
Byers is a small town in Arapahoe County, Colorado, about fifty minutes north-east of Denver, with a population of 1,212. Virginia's father, Rod McClellan, and her brothers Scott, Dan and Dave were ranchers, and the family were church-going people. The es lived in the ranch-hand house closest to the Mays' home.
He joined the Marine Corps in 1961, married Tania Ann Tatum after boot camp and had two sons. Stationed in Okinawa he drank heavily, threatened to bayonet an officer and was diagnosed with homicidal tendencies and an emotionally unstable personality with schizoid trends. The Marines discharged him on medical grounds. In 1974, aged thirty, he married Leona Coates, who was seventeen, and they had four children.
The letters became sexual. In 1984 she visited, he proposed and they were married over the telephone by a minister.
They told anyone who asked that it was for shooting snakes.
On 18 July 1986, at a farm about ten miles outside Wiggins, a man and a woman in a green four-door sedan with Kansas plates pulled into the driveway. The woman asked Tammy Bauprez for directions to Byers and, oddly, whether her husband was home. When the husband came out, the man got back into the car and they drove off in a cloud of dust.
Between 6.20 and 7pm the es drove to the May ranch. Virginia came out with Krista. When they had finished, he hit Virginia in the head with the butt of the rifle hard enough to fracture her skull and cause bleeding on the brain. She did not lose consciousness. He then shot her, first in the head and then in the torso and groin, fourteen shots in all. Gunpowder residue on her hands showed she had raised them defensively. She had begged to be let go and offered them thousands of dollars in cash. The couple covered the body with bales of hay and drove back to the May house to fetch their beer cooler.
He found Brandon and Krista frightened and alone. Virginia's purse and other belongings were still there. He telephoned his in-laws and the family began searching. Sue McClellan told them about the earlier visit and the missing clothes, and the family called the sheriff's department. He spotted a car's lights in the distance and pulled over the es as they drove in. They said they knew nothing about Virginia being missing, that they had drunk a case of beer and had been fishing.
A deputy overheard him say, 'the ball game's over, babe,' and her reply, 'Don't tell him shit, we'll get a lawyer.' The next morning relatives came to the ranch and questioned them; they repeated that Virginia had been home when they left to go fishing. He told them where to find her; she was dead under the hay bales. The court later found that he had known she was dead when he made the deal, voided it and allowed the prosecution to seek death.
He told one correspondent that he had raped fifteen women and that he had enjoyed every one. He claimed his stepbrothers had sexually abused him as a child, but also said it had nothing to do with his behaviour.
A clemency request to the governor was refused. His last meal was chocolate and vanilla ice cream in little cups, as much as he wanted. Virginia's father said afterwards that compassion had been given and justice done.
July 18, 1986 / the May ranch near Byers, Colorado
As told in the episode, on 29 August 2019.
Accused
Accused
Public places are marked on the map.
home
about 0:33:00other
about 1:38:08crime scene
about 1:39:27body found
about 1:49:00business
about 1:42:54home
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about 1:32:01business
about 1:24:37other
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