7-year-old who was allegedly abducted in Lakewood found safe near Last Chance

OTERO COUNTY, Colo. – A 7-year-old who was allegedly abducted by a 26-year-old Lakewood woman was found safe outside Last Chance, according to the Lakewood Police Department.

An The AMBER Alert was issued on Monday shortly before 2 pm for the missing child. Around 3:45 p.m., police confirmed the child — whose name has been removed from this story — was found safe and unharmed outside Last Chance in Washington County on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. The Colorado State Patrol spotted the vehicle, found the suspect and got the child to safety, CSP said.

The suspect, identified as Crystal Denmon, 26, was arrested at the scene without incident. It is not yet clear what charges she may face, the CSP said. Denmon is not the boy’s biological mother.

This incident started around 6:10 a.m. Monday when Lakewood police responded to an incident possibly involving domestic violence that had occurred along the 1700 block of Kendall Street in Lakewood, said Lindsey Witzel, spokeswoman for the police department. When police arrived, they found a man with a gunshot wound.

The man transported to a hospital was later identified as the 7-year-old’s father. As of 4:30 p.m., the boy’s father is “doing well” at the hospital, Witzel said. Police said they believe Denmon and the shooting victim know each other.

While investigating the shooting scene, Lakewood police learned that the man’s son was missing from the apartment. They believed that Denmon had kidnapped him and fled the scene. They currently consider Denmon a suspect in the shooting, but it remains under investigation, Witzel said. In its alert, the CBI said she should be considered armed and dangerous as investigators did not find a weapon at the scene of the shooting.

“We were concerned because of the shooting that had occurred prior to (the child’s) abduction. We were concerned about the safety of the public, other officers and (the child),” Witzel said.

Before police found them, Denmon and the boy were last known to have been in Cheraw in Otero County — which is about eight miles north of La Junta — around 12:50 a.m. in a white Ford Focus. AMBER Alert was issued shortly after.

“You could sense the tension when we put it out, even just for our investigators, our officers, for so many of us who are parents — it was hard to see that we had to issue this,” Witzel said. “And the fact that the little boy was potentially very scared and in very real danger, and the concern of whether or not he was going to be harmed or whether we were going to find him and he was going to be OK.”

Witzel said police are now working to reunite the boy with his family.

“We are very, very grateful that he was able to be located,” she said.

She said she was in the room when the boy’s family learned he had been found safe and saw relief wash over them.

“I can’t even describe it, to see how wonderful it is to see the reaction, the look on their faces of how happy they were that he was found,” she said.

Anyone with information about this case should contact the Lakewood Police Department at 303-980-7300.

7-year-old who was allegedly abducted in Lakewood found safe near Last Chance

According to Colorado law, AMBER Alerts define an abducted child as someone:

• 17 years or younger
• In immediate danger or serious bodily harm

In addition, authorities must have sufficient descriptive information about the child to issue an alert, and the activation must come from a request from local law enforcement or an AMBER designee from another state. Learn more here.