In late April 2019 a neighbor checked on 63-year-old Joseph Sonny W. Brigman and found him unresponsive inside his Verbena Way apartment in Fort Collins. He was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead; the Larimer County Coroner’s Office ruled his death a homicide caused by blood loss from a gunshot wound.

Some reports list his age as 62.The initial investigation by Fort Collins Police Services exhausted its early leads and the case went cold for years. Detectives reopened the file in 2023 and, using new forensic avenues, developed leads that focused on a single suspect identified as 42-year-old Clayton Pierce. Before an arrest could be made, Pierce was killed in a July 21, 2024, shootout with officers after a rollover crash at Grandview Cemetery; an officer injured in that exchange was released from the hospital the next day.

No trial took place; the Larimer County District Attorney’s Office said Pierce would have been charged with Brigman’s murder had he survived.Is there anyone who knew Sonny Brigman or who remembers unusual activity at the Verbena Way complex in spring 2019?