When Lives Collide : Denver Hit-and-Run Kills One Man--Then One More

On a gray, snowy St. Patrick’s Day, Greg Lopez and his wife took in an evening movie, “Rumble in the Bronx.” Then she dropped him off at work to pick up his car; he told her he loved her, and was off.

Meanwhile, 36-year-old millionaire Spicer Breeden and a friend finished dinner at a trendy Denver restaurant and jumped in Breeden’s BMW.

Half an hour later, the paths of Lopez and Breeden crossed in a clash of metal on a busy highway.

Breeden’s car, a rare 540i Sport model, was traveling more than 100 mph when it hit Lopez’s Toyota on Interstate 25, snapping the right rear wheel and causing it to roll four times. Lopez, a 35-year-old columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, died instantly.

Witnesses said Breeden’s car stopped momentarily near the wreck, then took off. Two days later, as police closed in, Breeden killed himself.

At the speed limit, 55 mph, this would have been “another fender-bender on I-25 and nobody would’ve cared,” said Det. Tom Tedesco.

But two men died, and many--survivors, friends and readers--do care. They grieve for the columnist who embraced life’s riches and the millionaire who struggled to find life’s meaning.

In the hard-edged world of journalism, Lopez had the rare knack of capturing everyday life in a way that tugged at a reader’s emotions, whether it dealt with gang violence, a backyard squirrel or the homeless.

In September 1994, he wrote of the stillborn death of his daughter, and of finding a tiny rosebud on a withered branch in his backyard.

Of friends and relatives who offered comfort, he wrote, “Almost all of them said there was nothing they could say. Some had gone on to say there must be a reason these things happen.

“You can choose to believe that or not, but you can’t choose when you will believe it and when you won’t.”

Born in Denver, he worked in Louisiana and Michigan before returning home with his wife, Kathleen Bohland. He had met her at the Detroit News; friends say he decided the day he met her that this would be the woman he’d marry.

“I think he had two great loves in his life. His first love was Kathleen and his second love was journalism,” said fellow News columnist Gene Amole.

Wearing a trademark Hawaiian shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, the sandy-haired Lopez wandered about with an ear for the unusual story and a ready handout for the less fortunate. He once gave a new down jacket to a homeless man in Detroit.

He never took notes. But he meticulously searched for the right words to tell the story.

“He had the unique ability to find a story in the unexpected,” Bohland said. “Most people would probably dismiss many of the people he interviewed.”

While Lopez seized life at every turn, Breeden seemed to spend his days looking for a purpose for living. Friends recall him as generous and sensitive, but a troubled man who suffered from bouts of depression.

Breeden was the great-grandson of Charles Boettcher, who made millions in mining, agriculture and investments.

The family lived in a mansion on Lookout Mountain outside Golden, Colo., and in Hawaii and California. They traveled to Europe and sailed the world’s oceans, often taking young Spicer Breeden’s friends along.

A friendly, outgoing youngster, Breeden was a good student who enjoyed outdoor sports and wanted to be an oceanographer, said Rick Eagen, a longtime friend.

His mother, Charline, who suffered from cerebral palsy, was the guiding light for the family in those early, harmonious years. When she died of cancer in 1972, Breeden took it hard, friends say.

He graduated from high school, but didn’t attend college. One serious love affair ended the night before the wedding; Breeden’s only marriage ended in divorce about 18 months later.

With at least $2 million inherited from his mother, Breeden kept a close watch on his investments, but didn’t have a steady job: “He was very conscious of where his money was and where it was being spent,” Eagen said.

Breeden’s true passion, inherited from his father, was cars. The elder Breeden owned the first BMW 320i in the United States.

Was Breeden driving at the time of the accident? In his suicide note, he insisted he was not.

The other man in the car, artist Jorg Peter Schmitz, has refused to talk with police. He has not been arrested, but is expected to be subpoenaed by a Denver grand jury considering the case.

After the accident, Breeden and Schmitz went to a popular bar and ran up a $29 bar tab in half an hour, the bar’s manager said.

Investigators used a car grille at the crash scene to trace the hit-and-run vehicle to Breeden, who had barricaded himself and his dog, Gambo, in his basement.

Breeden’s body was in a bathroom; he had cocaine in his system and his blood-alcohol level was 0.199, almost twice the level defined as drunk in Colorado law. Gambo, shot and wounded by Breeden before he took his own life, was standing nearby. The television was on.

“I think he felt he took another man’s life,” said Ken McSpadden, a longtime friend. “He was the cause of it and this was the only thing he could give back and say he was sorry.”

While police are sorting through the evidence, others are left to sort through the emotional wreckage. “It is our deepest wish that somehow this double tragedy can in some way inspire healing and save even one life,” said a Breeden family statement.

“Greg would not want us to dwell on feelings of anger or regret,” Bohland said. “He would want us to live our lives like his--with love and tolerance for the frailties of others.”

But the sadness is great--both for the people who knew the two men and for those who felt they knew Lopez through his golden words.

“It has to get awfully dark before we can see the stars,” the Rev. Frank McCall of Aurora, Colo., told the Rocky Mountain News. “Greg Lopez sounded like the kind of guy who brought stars and light into people’s lives.”