Fight Over Jukebox Ends In Death
From the Original Story Source: Rocky Mountain News
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Richard Lopez’s ex-wife can’t get over the irony and sadness of the soldier’s death – from wounds outside a Steamboat Springs bar after he slipped on the ice then suffered a severe beating.
An autopsy Tuesday determined that Lopez died Monday of severe trauma to the head and brain, Steamboat Police Capt. Joel Rae said.
Lopez was a survivor, serving in the Army Special Forces in Afghanistan, parachuting out of airplanes and battling back after being shot in the stomach in combat three years ago, said Shannon Boahn, who was married to Lopez for eight years.
“He’d just returned from Afghanistan,” Boahn said of Lopez, who was assigned to a Special Forces unit at Fort Bragg, N.C. He picked up his 16-year-old son, Nick, from Jacksonville, Fla., on Christmas Day and flew to Steamboat Springs to join his friends, Tim and Wesley Mottlau.
They had spent a great week together, and for their last night in Steamboat Springs, the three friends went to the Tap House bar on New Year’s, Boahn said. Wes Mottlau told her that the trouble started when Lopez and the Mottlaus played a Jimmy Buffett song on the jukebox.
“These other two guys didn’t like the song and were giving them a hard time,” Boahn said. “They put on a Kanye West song, and Richard, Wes and Tim were razzing them about the Kanye West song.”
A fight erupted as the men walked back to their cars, Boahn said. “The next thing they knew, Richard was over there on the ground,” she said. “They think he slipped on the ice. This one guy continued beating him when he was unconscious.”
“We know who the suspects are,” Rae said. “They have been identified.”
No arrests have been made.
A native of San Luis Obispo, Calif., Lopez enlisted as an infantryman in 1993 and served tours with the 82nd Airborne Division in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan.
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