Police tie ex-inmate to Colo. corrections chief's slaying

DENVER -- Colorado investigators yesterday said for the first time that a former prison inmate who was killed in a gunfight with Texas authorities is a suspect in the death of Colorado's state prison system chief.

The evidence gathered in Texas after the death of Evan Spencer Ebel provided a "strong, strong lead" in the fatal shooting of Colorado Department of Corrections director Tom Clements, El Paso County sheriff's spokesman Lt. Jeff Kramer said.

A connection emerged among Ebel, Clements and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper when the governor confirmed Friday he was a longtime friend of Ebel's father, attorney Jack Ebel.

Jack Ebel had testified before Colorado lawmakers two years ago that solitary confinement in a Colorado prison was destroying his son's psyche. Evan Ebel was paroled from a Colorado prison in January.

When Hickenlooper interviewed Clements for the prison job, he mentioned the case as an example of why the system needed reform, but Hickenlooper said he did not mention Ebel by name. Later, Clements eased the use of solitary confinement in and tried to make it easier for inmates to re-enter society.

Clements was shot Tuesday night when he answered the door of his home in a wooded, rural area north of Colorado Springs.

Kramer said investigators were trying to determine whether the 211 white supremacist prison gang to which Ebel belonged was involved in Clements' death. Denver police say Ebel is also a suspect in the March 17 slaying of pizza deliveryman Nathan Leon.