Denver homicide arrests in the last two years include a felon who remained on probation despite arrests for illegally carrying handguns that his past convictions barred him from owning.

Warren Simpson Jr. had a history of five criminal convictions, ranging from felony menacing to aggravated robbery, when a Denver District Court judge sentenced him on July 16, 2020 to one year of probation after his conviction on two drug possession charges in separate arrests.

Records filed in court show Simpson, now 41, regularly failed to adhere to the terms of his probation. While on probation, he failed to show up for every single one of his required drug tests – all 28 of them – over a nine-month period, the documents state.

Yet he continued to remain free from custody on probation even after Denver police arrested him twice on new criminal charges, one of which he pleaded guilty to while on probation, according to the records.

A month after a judge sentenced Simpson to the one-year probation, Denver police arrested him on August 16, 2020 for possession of a firearm as a previous offender.

Police reported that they found Simpson slumped over the driver’s seat in a parked maroon 2006 Nissan SUV with the driver’s door open. They said they found a black semi-automatic handgun on the ground next to the open car door. When an officer approached, an unconscious Simpson moved and dropped a glass pipe with burnt residue, prompting police to suspect narcotics involvement, according to court documents.

Simpson was freed from jail on a $10,000 personal recognizance bond, still on probation. He pleaded guilty on April 29, 2021 to the weapons charge and remained fee from custody as he waited to be sentenced.

After a second arrest for possession of a weapon as a previous offender, Simpson still remained on probation. That arrest occurred on May 23, 2021, nearly a month after his guilty plea, after Denver police initiated a traffic stop after responding to reports of threats at a gas station. During the traffic stop, Simpson fled from police, who said they retrieved a handgun they saw Simpson place in an open garbage can between houses.

Simpson, despite being on probation, was able to post a $1,000 bond on the second weapons arrest, according to records. Records show he failed to show for court hearings on both weapons charges he incurred while on probation. Failing to appear for court hearings was common for him. He’d racked up seven failures to appear for court appearances for past criminal charges, records show.

Denver probation officers finally filed to revoke Simpson’s probation on July 6, 2021, nearly a year after his August 16, 2020 weapons charge and a little over a month after the second weapons charge. But the warrant for his probation revocation arrest was canceled, and he was never picked up even after the warrant was reinstated two months later.

Denver police would go on to charge Simpson in the October 25, 2021 fatal shooting of an acquaintance, Robert Turner, 54. Turner cried out “Mama” after he was shot and before he died, according to audio obtained by police.

The homicide arrests in Denver tied to individuals already on supervision for past crimes also include the case of Angel Manzanares, now 30. Manzanares paroled homeless from prison on a mandatory parole release last November. He crashed at his mother’s house temporarily upon his release, records show. Denver police arrested him in the early morning November 10, 2021 fatal shooting of Fred Sailas, 30, in the 1400 block of Osage Street near the Auraria Campus in downtown Denver.

Cornelius Haney was granted early parole release on a robbery conviction in April 2020 after he claimed that diabetes and chronic respiratory problems made him vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus. Prison officials deemed Haney, 42, at high risk of committing a new crime, but the Colorado Parole Board still granted him parole four months before his mandatory release date due to his medical conditions. He pleaded guilty to fatally shooting 21-year-old Heather Perry in an alley in an East Colfax neighborhood in Denver three weeks after he paroled from prison.

Stephanie Martinez, 38, was given a personal recognizance bond for two pending assault charges that allowed her release from jail without having to post any monetary bond despite a history of violence. Now she’s been convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the bludgeoning death of an 80-year-old man that occurred following her release from jail. The victim, George Black, reportedly was feeding pigeons outside the state Capitol in May 2020.

Devin Franklin, now 28, was on two probations when Denver police arrested him for the July 6, 2020 North Park Hill neighborhood drive-by shooting death of Tayvion Washington, 19 – one of eight people killed in the first eight days of that month. Records show that at the time of his homicide arrest, he was on probation for a 2019 vehicular eluding case in Texas and also on a probation for a Denver conviction of carrying a concealed weapon.

At the time of the homicide, Denver’s probation department was supervising Franklin on an interstate compact with Texas. He was arrested on his first probation office visit in Denver in January of 2020. But he posted a $200 bond to get released from jail. He was arrested again in March 2020 but posted a bond again to secure his release from custody and remained on probation. On August 4, 2020, a failure to appear warrant was issued for his arrest. First-degree murder charges were filed against him seven days after that warrant was issued.

Police in court documents said the shooting death of Washington is tied to gang violence, and that they tied seven other gun-related crimes in Denver in less than a year to the homicide due to ballistics and matching vehicles driven by suspects. Prosecutors eventually dismissed the charges pending against Franklin in connection with the shooting death of Washington, but they have filed 12 new criminal charges, including seven attempted murder charges.

In another case, Steven Young, now 46, was on parole for aggravated robbery and menacing convictions when he became a fugitive from supervision after he became a suspect in the June 1, 2020 fatal shooting of John Cyprian along 16th Avenue in Aurora. Cyprian was shot in the small intestine and had a damaged artery. He crawled to a nearby field where he died.

Young was apprehended on June 8, 2020, one day too late to keep him from killing again, according to Denver police. Six days after the Aurora homicide, Young fatally shot Charley Lewis, an eyewitness to the Aurora homicide, and left her body in an alley behind Federal Boulevard, a Denver police report states.

Young has been convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Cyprian. He still faces charges in the alleged witness slaying of Lewis.