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Man Confesses to 1996 Murder in Cortez City Park

Austin Cope
/
KSJD

A man has confessed to a decades-old murder in Cortez’s City Park.

The Cortez Journal reports that 38-year-old Sergio Tito Rivera told Phoenix police officers in December that he slit the throat of a Native American man on September 26th, 1996, near the Welcome Center. Rivera reportedly said he targeted 37-year-old Milton Lee because of his race. Though Rivera was 17 at the time, he has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder as a hate crime. He was extradited to Cortez and remained in the county detention center as of Tuesday.

Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Cortez Journal, and was the editor of the Four Corners Free Press, based in Cortez.
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