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Colorado Springs police arrest man who called 911, said he shot woman who asked him to kill her

Posted at 10:59 AM, Apr 09, 2019
and last updated 2019-04-09 12:59:33-04

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A man arrested on a first-degree murder charge called police after the alleged crime, and told them the 21-year-old woman had asked him to shoot her.

On Thursday, officers with the Colorado Springs Police Department responded to the 700 block of S. 8th Street after a shooting was reported. When they arrived, they found the body of a 21-year-old woman from Colorado Springs inside a car with multiple gunshot wounds. The fire department also responded to the scene.

Joshua Alan Thomsen, 20, of Colorado Springs, was detained at the scene.

The department’s Violent Crime Section investigated the homicide and found that the woman had been killed in Park County in an area in or around Eleven Mile State Park.

The police department contacted the Park County Sheriff’s Office, and deputies headed out to the park.

Authorities determined that the woman and Thomsen knew each other. Thomsen told authorities that she wanted to kill herself, but wasn’t able to do it herself, so she asked him to do it for her. They drove out to Eleven Mile Reservoir, got out of the car and, after woman kneeled on the ground, Thomsen shot her four or five times. He then loaded her body into his car and drove back to Colorado Springs to a Walmart off 8th Street and called 911, according to an affidavit.

Sometime after her death, he texted the woman’s ex-boyfriend to tell him she was dead.

When he called 911 from the Walmart parking lot, he told authorities where he was and said “I just killed someone.” When the dispatcher asked for clarification, he replied, “Ummm… girl asked me if I would killer her. And so we went into the mountains and I shot her four times," according to an affidavit.

Thomsen told the dispatcher that the woman had texted him at 8 p.m. and they met up around midnight.

“And I made sure she wanted it,” he said, according to an affidavit. “She said, ‘Yeah.’ So about, like, maybe 1 a.m. I shot her. And then she is in the back (clears throat), back of my car right now. And I just drove back to the Springs.”

When the dispatcher asked where the gun was, he said that it was in the glovebox and had blood on it, so authorities wouldn’t want to grab it without gloves. He said he had shot her in the back of her head, according to an affidavit.

Officers arrived at the Walmart and found Thomsen. They also found the woman‘s body in the back seat.

After gathering information about the crime, a detective corporal with the sheriff’s office went to the park and discovered a red pool of an unknown fluid, four shell casings and a red trail over snow with numerous strands of long, dark hair where Thomsen said he had shot the woman.

Thomsen was arrested for one count of first-degree murder, tampering with evidence and tampering with a deceased human body. He is being held in the Park County Jail without bond.

Park County Sheriff’s Office is leading the investigation. The Colorado Springs Police Department is assisting.