ASPEN — A Colorado man accused of holding three strangers at gunpoint on Independence Pass near Aspen has pleaded guilty to menacing and attempted kidnapping.
The Aspen Times reports 33-year-old Brolin McConnell, of Colorado Springs, struck a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty Tuesday. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 3.
Prosecutors say he held the men at gunpoint in July 2016, forced them to remove their shirts and repeatedly threatened to kill them as he fired guns at birds he said were drones.
Two of the men were able to run away, but the third man had a leg injury and couldn’t get away as easily. McConnell is accused of firing at the injured man’s feet and next to his head before he was able to get away.
McConnell had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but psychiatrists at the state’s mental hospital found him to be sane.
