Accused UCCS killer Nicholas Jordan pled not guilty at his Nov. 22 court hearing. While the defense entered the plea, the judge gave them until January to decide if the not guilty plea would be by reason of insanity.  

Jordan, 25, is accused of shooting and killing his roommate and UCCS student Sam Knopp, 24, and Pueblo resident Celie Rain Montgomery, 26, in the early morning hours of Feb. 16 in Jordan and Knopp’s dorm room at the Crestone building on campus. 

The trial date for the double homicide is set for April 7 and is expected to take two weeks. Another trial for Jordan’s assault of a deputy while being held in the El Paso County jail will occur on April 21.  

The defense, which consists of attorneys Nick Rogers and William Patrick, asked El Paso County Judge David Shakes for another arraignment, citing that the investigation into Jordan’s mental health is still ongoing, an argument used in October to delay the arraignment hearing until today. 

Shakes denied the request. 

Rogers said the defense is waiting for information from mental health experts before making a decision to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.  

“[His] mental health is obviously an issue in this case, and it has been for a long time,” Rogers said. “Without this information, your honor, we cannot make an informed decision as to how we will proceed in this case.”  

Shakes gave the defense until Jan. 31 to decide if they will enter a not guilty plea by reason of insanity while keeping the case on track, despite noting it’s an unusual way to do it. The date is a week or two after the information from experts is expected to come in.  

“I do not believe [the] additional time for an arraignment date is appropriate in this case. However, I am cognizant of the situation the defense finds themselves in,” Shakes said. 

The defense also filed a renewed motion to remove Shakes from the case, a request that was originally addressed and denied on March 7. The motion questioned Shake’s impartiality because he taught classes at UCCS. 

Shakes denied the motion again, stating that his relationship with the campus has diminished because he’s no longer teaching at the university. 

“The actions of the university, the students, officials of the university and other outside investigators are of no concern to me … I don’t think my impartiality of this matter is called into question,” Shakes said. 

Before the trial, Jordan will appear in court multiple times for various hearings: 

• Jan. 31: The defense will make the final decision to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Shakes will also rule on whether the case will have a venue change, a motion that was filed by the defense.  

• March 13: Shakes is anticipating that the defense may file more motions, so he has given them another date to do so. The court is also keeping March 6 open in case the defense needs another day, which will be decided during the Jan. 31 hearing. 

• March 28: Jordan will have his pre-trial readiness hearing for both of his cases. 

Jordan remains in jail on a $5 million bond.  

Timeline of Jordan’s case before today’s hearing 

The case has seen numerous delays since starting nine months ago. Here is a timeline of events:  

• Feb. 23: Jordan appears in court for the first time, and the request to reduce his bond was denied, according to reporting from The Gazette.  

• March 18: Jordan and his defense claims he isn’t competent enough to stand trial, and Shakes ordered a mental evaluation to determine his competency. His preliminary hearing, which occurs before an arraignment, was scheduled for March 27 but was delayed indefinitely.  

• March 26: Jordan faces new charges after an alleged assault involving a deputy while he was being held in the El Paso County jail. According to previous reporting from The Scribe, deputy Taylor Smith testified in court that Jordan had assaulted another deputy after they denied him cleaning supplies for the toilet in his cell.   

• April 12: After an evaluation from Sarah Velsor, a forensic psychologist at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo, found Jordan to be incompetent, a second competency evaluation was requested by Vaughan, according to reporting from The Gazette.  

• July 12: Forensic psychiatrist Patricia Westmoreland testified in court that she found that Jordan was competent enough to procced, which conflicted with the first evaluation done by the psychologist. The evaluation, which was performed on April 30, found that he had mental health issues, but it did not make him unable to help his defense team.  

• Aug. 2: Shakes ruled that Jordan was competent to stand trial after hearing testimony from both Velsor and Westmoreland. During the hearing, the defense used Velsor’s statements to argue that his “waxing and waning” symptoms have made it difficult to communicate with him, but the conflicting evaluations were enough for Shakes to deem Jordan competent.   

• Sept. 3: Extensive evidence is revealed by investigators at the preliminary hearing that was initially scheduled for March 27. Detective Ed Crofoot testified that the cartridges found in Knopp’s dorm room matched a handgun that was found inside Jordan’s vehicle when he was arrested, and fingerprint found on the handgun’s magazine was a match for Jordan, according to previous reporting from The Scribe. He also testified that Jordan was the only person who scanned into Crestone’s eastern entrance from midnight to 9 a.m. on Feb. 16, doing so twice less than 20 minutes prior to the police responding to the shots fired. 

• Oct. 25: Jordan was supposed to enter a plea but was given extra time at the request of Rogers and Patrick, who said Jordan was “severely mentally ill” and that it was impacting the defense’s ability to represent him, according to past Scribe reporting. 

Nicholas Jordan enters the courtroom for a preliminary hearing on Sep. 6. Photo by Lillian Davis.