ERIE, CO – A 29-year-old Colorado man was arrested this past June after authorities say he intentionally crashed into his ex-girlfriend’s vehicle before pulling her body from the wreckage and killing her with what the medical examiner believes to have been “a sharp instrument.”
According to a press release from the Weld County District Attorney’s Office, Erie Police officers responded to a crash on June 21st at approximately 1:00 a.m. near the intersection of Weld County Road 7 and Weld County Road 6. Upon arrival, officers reportedly discovered the body of a 28-year-old woman, later identified as Haley Rippetoe, which responding officers were immediately skeptical of whether the collision caused the woman’s fatal injuries.
Per the Weld County DA’s press release, “officers determined that the amount and location of blood was not consistent with a vehicle crash, nor was it consistent with a person being ejected from a vehicle.”
Rippetoe’s siblings and father reportedly received iPhone notifications that she’d been involved in a vehicle collision, with her siblings responding to the area of the collision where they found police working the scene. Officers contacted Rippetoe’s father to inform him of his daughter’s death, to which he reportedly told investigators he believed Rippetoe’s ex-boyfriend, 29-year-old Justin De Nileon, was somehow involved.
Arrest records show De Nileon had previously been booked on charges of kidnapping and assaulting Rippetoe back in May, resulting in an order of protection being put into place. Rippetoe’s father later recalled in an interview with a local news outlet his daughter telling him before her death, “A piece of paper isn't going to stop somebody that kidnaps somebody with a kid.”
Investigators believe that after Rippetoe’s vehicle was involved in the crash, she was forcibly removed from the vehicle, as officers reportedly observed evidence of her seatbelt being cut off and the driver’s side window appearing to have been breached consistent with someone trying “to gain access into the vehicle,” per an arrest affidavit.
A subsequent autopsy revealed Rippetoe suffered several punctures caused by an unspecified “sharp instrument” to the head, neck and torso, injuries which are reportedly inconsistent with those typically sustained from a vehicle collision and ejection. A white vehicle was reportedly believed to be the second vehicle involved in the collision based upon evidence at the scene, with later obtained surveillance video revealing a white SUV matching De Nileon’s vehicle leaving the scene of the crash.
Phone records obtained by police reportedly showed De Nileon had called his parents following the collision, resulting in his parents calling in a welfare check for their son as he reportedly sounded “panicked” on the phone. Shortly after the aforemtioned phone call, De Nileon arrived at his parents’ house where police conducted the welfare check, reportedly finding De Nileon “concealing himself under a tent, having a large amount of suspected blood on his clothing and cuts and abrasions on his hands.”
De Nileon was later arrested on June 25th on charges of first-degree murder and remains in custody without bond at the Weld County Jail. His next scheduled court appearance is slated for September 2nd.
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