What should have been a booming day at the height of Eldora Mountain Resort’s ski season turned tragic Tuesday when an employee clad in black and armed with a semi-automatic handgun arrived at a morning staff meeting and opened fire on his supervisor.
Eldora General Manager Brian Mahon died after being twice shot by the gunman, who himself was killed following a vicious fire fight with a sheriff’s deputy along a secluded stretch of mountain highway south of Nederland.
The incident began at 7:26 a.m. when a young man walked into a building known at the Eldora pump house — where about 20 employees were getting ready for the day in a locker room area — and fired a shot into the ceiling, sheriff’s Cmdr. Phil West said.
The suspect, identified by the Boulder County Coroner’s Office as 24-year-old Derik A. Bonestroo, of Nederland, yelled something about religion to the employees and then fatally shot Mahon, Sheriff Joe Pelle said.
