Editor’s Note: KDNK Community Access Radio and Sol del Valle are collaborating on an investigative reporting series regarding the death of Ramon Chacon. This is the second installment of that series, made possible through a grant from the Colorado Media Project.
Ramon Chacon, a 42-year-old Rifle resident, died on April 29, 2024, after being struck by a vehicle on Highway 13, north of the Rifle Bridge and within city limits. Two years later, authorities have not identified the vehicle or the driver. The case remains unsolved.
On May 7, 2024, Chacon’s family members and friends held a protest outside the Rifle Police Department. Gabriela Gonzalez, Chacon’s widow, explained in an interview with Sol del Valle that they were seeking answers.
“A week passed and then we buried him,” she said. “It was a Tuesday, and later that same day, after we buried him, we came here to the police department and held a protest outside, and the police [chief] came out, but she was angry.”
During the protest, the group chanted, “We want justice.”
Jessica Gonzalez, Gabriela’s sister-in-law, led the protest. At the time she stated, “We need justice, that is what we are asking. We haven’t received any answers in a week.”
As the protest continued, an exchange took place between some demonstrators and then-Police Chief Debra Funston. After members of the group questioned the progress of the investigation, Funston responded that the department had more than one investigator assigned to the case, stating, “We wanted that person in custody that day… I sympathize with you. We are so sorry. We are working as hard as we can.” She later added, “I will just be honest, the investigator that is working on it does not speak Spanish.”
Funston retired from her position in April 2026 and was unavailable for comment regarding the Chacon case.
The Rifle Police Department issued three urgent appeals for information about the case through four posts on its Facebook page. The last was a repost by the Rifle Police Foundation on July 9, 2024.
Two public records requests filed by KDNK — one in August 2024 and another in September 2025 — resulted in the release of a partially-redacted incident report. No witness statements or other investigative documents were included.
In late April of this year, Interim Police Chief Mike Kuper agreed to an interview with KDNK but later canceled after consulting with department staff, stating that the case remained active.
However, after Gabriela and Jessica visited the Rifle Police Department on May 21, 2026, Gabriela told Sol del Valle she was told the case was closed. In a phone call to confirm the information, KDNK verified with Angela Mills, public information officer for Rifle PD, that the case had been reclassified as “closed inactive.”
Closed inactive does not mean the case is concluded or fully resolved. “All that means is you’ve kind of exhausted your leads and you can go back at any time and change it back to active when you get presented with something new,” said Angela Hawkins, program director for the Colorado Law Enforcement Training Academy at Colorado Mountain College in Breckenridge. “But, you know, the thing about the cold case is that the leads have stopped coming in and there’s no new direction to follow.”
Some investigations last years
An unrelated homicide case in western Garfield County was recently brought to a conclusion five years and one day after Wayne Moore was found shot to death inside his vehicle on May 21, 2021 on Highway 6 west of Parachute.
Josh Craine, commander of the investigations division at the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office, told KDNK that investigators had very little evidence at the beginning of the case.
“We had a handful of shell casings that we presumed at the time were from the murder weapon,” he said. “And that’s all we had.”
Craine said the limitations were significant, “We didn’t have any tire tracks, footprints. We didn’t have fingerprints. We didn’t have DNA. We didn’t have any witnesses.”
He also described some of the investigative work by his team. “We analyzed the victim’s cellphone. We analyzed GPS data, cellphone tower data,” he explained. “A lot of it was just true, dogged, old-fashioned police work.”
Approximately a year and a half later, people began coming forward with information that helped identify a suspect. The investigation progressed from those leads and, on May 21, 2024, exactly three years after Moore was found dead, authorities made an arrest.
Two years later, John Michael Worley was found guilty of second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence. On May 22, five years and one day after Moore’s body was found, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
In need of leads
Craine explained that in both homicide investigations and hit-and-run cases, one of the most important elements is information provided by the community.
“We are looking for someone who’s willing to put themselves out there, to step up and say, ‘I know something and I’m willing to give it to you,’” he continued. “And whether what they know, to them, may be nothing, it may be the Rosetta Stone of a case for us.”
He also noted that there is a balance between informing the public and protecting an ongoing investigation. According to Craine, sharing information can be helpful in some cases, while in others certain details are considered sensitive to the investigation.
“It’s not necessarily that we’re stonewalling, but we do protect case information because it is ongoing,” he explained. He gave an example, “It’s like, we have a person of interest. We have who’s most likely our suspect, but if we start releasing a bunch of information, we’re gonna lose anything we have.”
For Chacon’s family, the lack of information about the progress of the investigation led to uncertainty and questions.
In an interview with Sol del Valle, Jessica recalled a conversation with authorities. “I told them that they were trying to hide something. I asked if it was because we are Mexican, because we are Latino, that they didn’t want to help us,” she said. “And they told us to control ourselves and calm down, that they needed to investigate more and that they would be in better communication.”
Two years after Chacon’s death, the Rifle PD has released no further information.
Anyone with information related to the case can contact the Rifle Police Department at 970-625-8095 and request to speak with a detective. Tips or comments related to this story may be sent to info@soldelvalle.org