Coming Clean

On Thursday, the Arapahoe County District Attorney announced that she was sending the case of Aarone Thompson to a grand jury. The girl was first reported missing last November, but may have been killed up to eighteen months earlier, and her body hidden.

Aarone was just a year old when Westword wrote about Shelly Lowe, the woman who would soon set up housekeeping with Aarone's father and reportedly rule the roost, in "How to Build a Ghetto." In June 2000, Lowe was still living with her five children in an old house on Lowry, an area set to become a shiny star of new urbanism.

But at the time, Lowe's home was nothing more than an old example of grim poverty. The entire floor, from the ktichen through each of the four bedrooms, was linoleum. "Which is murder to keep clean," she said, using words that have a chilling resonance six years later.