AURORA | The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from Sir Mario Owens, the man sentenced to death for killing a murder witness and the witness’ fiancee.
Owens’ lawyers had appealed a lower court’s ruling that said Owens received a fair trial when he was convicted of killing Gregory Vann at Lowry Park in 2004. In a separate trial, Owens was later convicted of killing Javad Marshall-Fields, who was a witness to the Vann slaying.
Owens’ lawyers are expected to continue to appeal other aspects of Owens’ multiple convictions.
Owens was convicted in 2008 of killing Marshall-Fields and his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe, in a drive-by shooting in Aurora in 2005. Marshall-Fields, who had recently graduated from college, was set to testify against Owens’ friend and drug dealing partner, Robert Ray, in a 2004 fatal shooting at Lowry Park. In the Lowry Park shooting, police say Owens killed Gregory Vann after a dispute at a Fourth of July picnic and Ray wounded two other men.
Police didn’t identify Owens as a suspect in either case until linking his DNA to a hat found at the scene of the Marshall-Fields and Wofle slayings.
Like Owens, Ray was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder for Marshall-Fields and Wolfe’s slayings.