Denver prosecutors have charged a 53-year-old homeless man with first-degree murder in the death of a LoDo chef who friends say was walking home from work at the time.
District Attorney Beth McCann formally charged Raoul Lanius on Thursday morning in the stabbing death of Marlon Casanova, 35. The murder charge was direct filed in Denver court.
Lanius claimed he fatally stabbed the man early Monday morning after a dispute erupted with Casanova about a sleeping space outside a bicycle shop. Lanius claimed the victim charged him after he called the man a racial epithet.
But numerous friends, co-workers and employers at two gourmet LoDo restaurants say Casanova was walking home after working a late shift and deny he would have been fighting with a homeless man over a sleeping place because he has an apartment only a few blocks from the scene of the stabbing.
Lanius, whose shirt was covered in blood, asked passersby to call 911. He told police he stabbed the man about 10 times in self defense believing the man was going to tackle and punch him. An autopsy showed that Casanova was stabbed 14 times in the face, heart and lungs.
Lanius is in custody in the Denver city jail, according to McCann’s spokesman Ken Lane.
