Court document: Kelsie Schelling’s boyfriend listed as person of interest

The family of a Denver woman who disappeared in Pueblo in 2013 filed a lawsuit claiming the police department mishandled the case. Now the lawyer representing the city and the officers named in the suit is responding.

Person of interest

In the motion filed by the defense, it states Donthe Lucas is a person of interest in the investigation. Lucas is the purported boyfriend of Kelsie Schelling, 22, who was eight weeks pregnant when she drove to Pueblo and disappeared. According to Schelling’s family, Lucas is also the father of Schelling’s unborn baby.

KRDO NewsChannel 13 contacted Deputy Chief Andy McLachlan, a defendant in the lawsuit, about the motion. McLachlan said he was unaware that his lawyer, Gordon Vaughan, had listed Lucas has a person of interest in the motion, but McLachlan said Lucas is not and did not know why the lawyer wrote that.

“I’m not the lawyer,” McLachlan said. “I don’t know what the lawyer writes.”

In an interview with KRDO NewsChannel 13 in February, McLachlan said there were no persons of interest in the case.

KRDO NewsChannel 13 asked Vaughan why Lucas was listed as a person of interest, but he said he had no comment on the investigation.

History of Lawsuit

Schelling’s parents filed a lawsuit on Feb. 5. The defense filed a motion to dismiss the suit on Aug. 14.

In the lawsuit, Laura Saxton and Doug Schelling allege that Lucas killed Schelling and that the police department mishandled the case.

Lucas and several of his relatives are also named in the suit. Lucas has denied having a relationship with Kelsie Schelling.

In a document filed Friday, the defense requested a stay of discovery pending the outcome of its motion to dismiss. The motion to stay discovery was granted Monday.

In legal terms, discovery is a procedure in which both sides can request and obtain evidence from each other in preparation for a trial.

The request to stay discovery in the Schelling’s lawsuit argues in part that the discovery process could result in Lucas gaining access to information about the investigation into Kelsie Schelling’s disappearance. The document reads in part “Disclosure in this case will inevitably include information from the criminal investigation that should not be provided to anyone outside of the investigation and certainly should not be provided to a person of interest.”

The suit, which you can read here, says that Schelling was pregnant with Lucas’ baby and alleges that Lucas and his mother coaxed Schelling into traveling from Denver to Pueblo on Feb. 4, 2013.

In the suit, Schelling’s parents claim that Lucas killed Schelling, and with help from his mother and grandmother, attempted to cover it up.

In February 2015, KRDO.com reported that the lawsuit levied several allegations against the Pueblo Police Department. Among them:

Police went to Lucas’ home and told him that he needed to go defend himself to the media while Schelling’s family was holding a news conference.
Police repeatedly lied to Schelling’s family and said that no evidence was found in Kelsie’s car after it was recovered from St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center.
A detective admitted to lying to the family about whether evidence was found in the car.
Another detective said that a substance consistent with dry bodily fluids was recovered from the trunk of the car.
Police failed to search Lake Minnequa after receiving a tip that a fisherman found what appeared to be human remains.
Evidence stored in the police department’s evidence room was never submitted for testing with the crime lab.
That after family members began their own investigation, police were hostile toward them, lied to them and intimidated them.
That Pueblo police deliberately tried to destroy evidence, mishandled evidenced and failed to investigate leads.

KRDO.com previously reported that police questioned Lucas as part of their investigation and determined that there was no evidence that he was involved in Schelling’s disappearance.

The Pueblo Police Department has said that, according to policy, it will not comment on the lawsuit.