DENVER: Former Denver Post crime reporter Kirk Mitchell — who contributed to Pulitzer Prize-winning breaking news coverage of two mass shootings in Colorado — has died of prostate cancer at 64, his family said.
Mitchell died Monday at his home in Lititz, Pennsylvania, his son, Vance Mitchell, said.
Mitchell, who helped cover the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School and the 2012 shooting at the Aurora movie theater, wrote about other notorious murders, including the 2013 killing of Colorado Department of Corrections executive director Tom Clements by a parolee who was a member of a white supremacist prison gang.
For years, he wrote the Post’s cold case blog, which drew strong readership and sometimes led to tips that helped detectives solve the cases, The Denver Post reported.
“The thing he was most passionate about was trying to solve the mystery,” Vance Mitchell said.
Mitchell wrote a true crime book “The Spin Doctor,” and he appeared on true crime television shows, even after his retirement, to talk about the cases he covered.
“A person who spent so many years writing about crime could become hardened and cynical. But that didn’t happen to Kirk,” said Lee Ann Colacioppo, The Post’s executive editor.
“There was an optimism to him that you could actually see in the way his eyes twinkled and a desire for justice that found its voice in his devotion to writing about cold cases. He was a diligent and sensitive reporter and a proud and devoted father,” she said. “The newsroom just felt right when he was hunched over his computer.”
Mitchell was born in Indiana, graduated from high school in New York and earned his journalism degree from Brigham Young University. He began his journalism career at The Associated Press in Salt Lake City and worked at newspapers in Twin Falls, Idaho, and Mesa, Arizona, before joining The Post in 1998.
He was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in 2016 and retired from The Post in 2020.
Mitchell is survived by his wife, Robin Ritchie, who he married in 2022, along with five children and eight grandchildren. A memorial service will be held Saturday in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.