Illescas covered Columbine and the Aurora theater shooting
By John Ingold
In a chaotic newsroom during some of Colorado’s worst crises of the past two decades or on a placid mountain lake with a fishing line dipped into the water, Carlos Illescas carried with him the humble compassion and thoughtfulness for others that defined him, his friends and colleagues recalled Wednesday.
Illescas, a longtime Denver Post reporter who was part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, died recently of unknown causes. His body was found Sunday evening at his home in Arvada by a friend. Illescas was 54.
During his 19 years at The Post, Illescas was deeply involved in the coverage of just about every major event to strike the state — mass shootings, fires, floods and blockbuster criminal trials, to name a few. But he showed just as much dedication to his craft in covering local city council meetings or the minute details of education policy. His bylines at The Post numbered well into the thousands.
“When you work in a newsroom, you spend hours and hours crammed together in often stressful circumstances,” Lee Ann Colacioppo, The Post’s editor, said Wednesday. “It speaks to the kind of man Carlos was that every story we’ve told about him has us laughing and recalling a warm-hearted, patient, eclectic colleague who pitched in doing whatever was needed, whenever it was needed.”
Illescas began working at The Post in 1997 after stints at newspapers in Aspen and Fort Worth, Texas. He at first covered education but quickly grew to become a Swiss Army knife of a journalist — equally adept at covering police as he was covering politics. He hustled across the state chasing breaking news. He worked as a news editor for a time.
“He was just a very kind person, and he had a good heart, which is a good thing I think for a journalist to have,” said Dan Haley, who was one of Illescas’ editors at The Post and is now the president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. “He cared about the words that were under his byline.”
Illescas was part of The Post’s team covering the Columbine High School shooting, work that was recognized in 2000 with the Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting. More than a decade later, he was part of the team covering the Aurora movie theater shooting, which also won a Pulitzer.
When one of the planes carrying members of the Oklahoma State University men’s basketball team crashed one snowy night in 2001 near Byers, killing all 10 people on board, Illescas was the only reporter working the news desk. He assembled a team, eventually taking dispatches that night from 11 other journalists, and quickly wove together a story that combined a vivid explanation of what happened with poignant remembrances of those who died.
Illescas spent years reporting on the 2005 murders of an Aurora man and his fiancée, covering the court trials that resulted in death sentences for the killers. He also wrote about the disappearance of an Aurora 6-year-old, Aaroné Thompson, and the eventual conviction of her father for her death. Aaroné’s remains were never found, a fact that haunted Illescas. When he left The Post in the summer of 2016, after taking a buyout, he gave to colleagues a several-inches-thick stack of records on the case and the stated hope that another reporter would pick up his work to find the little girl and provide her a proper burial.
“He’d ask some pretty challenging questions, which a good reporter would do,” said Charlie Richardson, an Aurora City Council member who often dealt with Illescas when he was the city’s attorney and Illescas was assigned to cover Aurora government. “I really sensed that he cared a lot about Aurora.”
Illescas was born in Los Angeles and lived briefly with his family in Guatemala before settling in Rawlins, Wyo. He was a member of the high school’s 1982 state championship basketball team, and he graduated from Colorado State University.
His upbringing gave him a lifelong enthusiasm for sports: the Los Angeles Dodgers, University of Wyoming athletics, and the Denver Nuggets. But it also embedded in him a love of the mountains. He had a favorite camping and fishing spot in South Park — a location that he kept secret to all but those he trusted most.
Illescas was also devoted to his dogs, most recently one named Presley who was found with him this week and is now being cared for by Illescas’ uncle, Bert Torres. Torres on Wednesday recalled how Illescas always said as a kid that he wanted to be journalist. Though his path was somewhat winding — he worked for a time at a prison in Wyoming — he achieved that.
“That’s something,” Torres said, “when you grow up to be what you always dreamed you’d be.”
Illescas is survived by his father, stepmother and two sisters, Torres said. Illescas was preceded in death by his mother and a sister. Torres said the family is making arrangements for a memorial.
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/27/carlos-illescas-denver-post-obituary/
Bush71
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento