Paul Robert Klein

On a spring night in 1993, a burst of gunfire at a Colorado Springs bar ended the life of Paul Robert Klein, a man known to his friends as "PK." He was 40 years old, a White male, and the manager of Jim and I's Star Bar, a local establishment known as a hangout for bikers. The evening of Saturday, April 17, turned into a scene of chaos and violence that left two men dead and several others wounded, forever altering the lives of those present.

Paul was a full-time member of the Sons of Silence motorcycle club and was working at the bar, located on South Nevada Avenue, that night. The night took a fatal turn when a man named Eugene Herbert Baylis entered the establishment heavily armed. Baylis was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle, two handguns, and four hand grenades. He opened fire inside the crowded bar, causing patrons to dive for cover. In the hail of bullets, Paul was struck multiple times. Another patron, 33-year-old Steven Fairfax, was also shot and killed during the rampage. The shooting only stopped when a police officer arrived and wounded Baylis. Paul was rushed to a hospital but died during surgery in the early hours of April 18, 1993.

The immediate aftermath saw the arrest of Eugene Baylis by the Colorado Springs Police Department. During the investigation, Baylis claimed that his actions were a form of self-defense. He alleged that earlier in the day, Paul Klein had shot him with a pellet gun. Baylis maintained that he had returned to the bar not with the intent to kill, but to detain Paul until the police could arrive. This narrative became the centerpiece of his defense when he faced murder charges for the deaths of Paul Klein and Steven Fairfax.

The case went to trial, and in a development that stunned many, a jury acquitted Baylis of the murder charges in 1995. His defense attorneys successfully argued that he had fired in self-defense, creating enough reasonable doubt for the jury to find him not guilty. Despite the acquittal on the state murder charges, Baylis's legal troubles were not over. He later faced federal weapons charges related to the arsenal he brought to the bar. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in federal prison for these offenses.

The story of the shooter did not end there. Decades later, in May 2018, Eugene Baylis's life concluded in another violent confrontation. He was killed in a shootout with Bureau of Land Management officers in a separate incident, bringing a final, violent end to the man who had taken two lives in the Colorado Springs bar 25 years earlier. The television series Homicide Hunter later featured the case in an episode titled "The Outlaw," examining the shocking events of that night at Jim and I's Star Bar.

For the families of Paul Klein and Steven Fairfax, the legal outcome of the trial was a bitter pill. The acquittal of Baylis meant that, in the eyes of the law, no one was held criminally responsible for the two deaths. The case is now considered closed, not by a conviction, but by the death of the man who pulled the trigger. The memory of Paul "PK" Klein lives on with those who knew him, a life cut short by an act of extreme violence in a place he managed.