| Selling the drama Shirts, mugs promote Colorado town's role in escapees' capture 04/09/2001 By Charlie Brennan / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News WOODLAND PARK, Colo. – Some residents of this town, which unwittingly played host to seven Texas prison escapees accused of killing an Irving police officer, are making a few bucks off the town's notoriety.
Less than three months after four of the heavily armed fugitives were caught at the Coachlight Motel and RV Park, the park's owners are selling a colorful array of T-shirts highlighting the town's role. The shirts, with such slogans as "Where the Texas Seven Met the Power of God," sell for $13.99 to $15.99, and tank tops are also available.
Other catchphrases offered on the shirts include "Endorsed by the Texas 7, Jan. 1-22, 2001," and "Escape to the Rockies, Temporary Home of the Texas Seven." All of the shirts prominently feature the park's Web address. Texas Seven coffee mugs are also part of the park's memorabilia line, and ball caps are on the horizon. Shirts are even available at a bar the fugitives frequented.
Gina Holder, who owns the RV park with her husband, said she's not bothered by making a few dollars off the fugitives, charged with killing Officer Aubrey Hawkins during a Christmas Eve robbery of a sporting goods store. Ms. Holder said that she and her husband are among the outlaws' victims.
"The impact was horrible for us, too," Ms. Holder said. "I feel very bad that an officer was killed. I pray for him every day. But this was still a historical event for us, too."
And, Ms. Holder says, her husband, Wade Holder, ultimately tipped authorities to the escapees' whereabouts, enabling the Holders to claim one-seventh of a reward that topped $400,000.
'Very desperate'
Jayne Hawkins, Officer Hawkins' mother, rates the Holders – and others in Woodland Park marketing their connection to the fugitives – about one notch above the criminals.
"How very desperate the people must be, who want to be associated with the Texas Seven," she said. "It's a known fact that people of a certain consciousness will make money in any way they can make money."
The prisoners escaped the maximum-security Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas, on Dec. 13. They settled in Woodland Park on New Year's Day, occupying a motor home they bought after fleeing Texas.
With their appearances altered to avoid a national dragnet laid for them, the fugitives settled at the Coachlight. They fit in easily; one even became a regular at the park's Bible study group, of which Ms. Holder is a member.
The national spotlight focused on the town Jan. 22, when four of the fugitives were captured and another killed himself to avoid being taken back into custody. The two remaining escapees were apprehended in a Colorado Springs hotel two days later.
The six fugitives were extradited to Texas and are being held in Dallas County, awaiting trial on capital murder charges.
The ordeal left residents of Woodland Park – a town of 8,000 in the Rocky Mountain foothills whose motto is "The City Above the Clouds" – with a chance to turn crime into commerce.
Best sellers
Tres Hombres, a Tex-Mex bar and restaurant where the fugitives downed Coronas and played pool during their three weeks of freedom in the area, is also selling Texas Seven T-shirts. The shirts, white or black, feature two six-shooters silhouetted against an outline of the Lone Star State.
"They're selling like hot cakes" at $20 each, said Tres Hombres bartender Brenda Cox. "We've gone through two big boxes of them, and now we've ordered two more."
Ms. Cox said locals and out-of-towners are emptying their wallets for Texas Seven memorabilia. One T-shirt order was placed by phone from Britain.
Souvenir critics
The conversion of the case into a marketing opportunity doesn't sit well with the top local law enforcement officer, Teller County Sheriff Frank Fehn.
"I have a problem with it," said the sheriff, whose jail housed the six surviving suspects before their extraditions.
"I understand where they're coming from, but I really don't appreciate it, because you have two dead police officers," he said, referring to Officer Hawkins and Colorado State Patrol Officer Jason Lee Manspeaker, 25, who died in a collision Jan. 23 on Interstate 70 responding to a possible lead in the case.
Pegg Gardner, a volunteer at the Woodland Park visitors center, said the merchandise associated with the case reflects poorly on the town.
"It's exploitative," Ms. Gardner said. "Everybody wants to make a fast buck, but this makes us look like we're something we're not. We'd much rather be known for the Millennium Tree," which town officials harvested from the Pike National Forest in November and shipped to Washington for a holiday display at the U.S. Capitol.
Supply and demand
The souvenir sellers argue that they're simply meeting a demand.
"I wasn't even going to sell T-shirts," said Ms. Holder, who says the Coachlight has sold about half of the 250 shirts it ordered. "But people kept calling and asking for them. I talked about it first with pretty much half of the people in my Bible study group, and they thought it was a great idea."
And people of the weather-whipped settlements in the high valleys northwest of Pikes Peak have tapped unusual sources to win tourist dollars before.
Until recently, a shop in the nearby community of Green Mountain Falls featured a display devoted to plaster-cast footprints and other "evidence" of an alleged "Big Foot" that some residents contend inhabits neighboring forests. Just down the highway from Woodland Park is a sprawling curio shop billing itself as "Bust, Colorado, Population 2."
Still recovering
Ms. Holder also said that she and her husband were still recovering from the ordeal involving the fugitives. She said the media onslaught that the captures brought was the most unpleasant aspect of the saga.
"The Texas Seven caused me less trouble and left behind less mess than the media," she said. "The media were pigs. I'm still cleaning up everything they left behind. I'd rather have [the fugitives] here than the media. That's pretty scary, but that's the truth."
Charlie Brennan is a free-lance writer based in Boulder, Colo. Staff writer Diane Jennings in Dallas contributed to this report.
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