Lisa West wrote that she had nowhere to go and no money on the day she was fatally shot in Colorado Springs.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — On the day Lisa West was killed, she sent a friend a message describing a problem that had become immediate and practical: She wanted to leave her boyfriend, Kevin Wells, but said she lacked both a place to go and the money to get away. More than a year later, an El Paso County jury convicted Wells of murder.
West’s message became one of the most direct glimpses into the relationship documented in public court reporting. At Wells’ July 2025 preliminary hearing, a homicide detective testified that West wrote, “I wish I could leave, but I literally have nowhere to go and no money.” Prosecutors described her as trying to leave because Wells was abusive and said the couple had a history of domestic violence. Hours after the message, police found West fatally shot at the Mountain Shadows Apartments on Fontmore Road. Wells’ conviction on Sept. 25, 2026, shifted the case from the question of criminal responsibility to sentencing, which is set for Nov. 20.
The text mattered because it placed West’s own words into a record otherwise built largely from police observations and accounts of what Wells said after the shooting. The message did not describe what would happen later that morning, and public reports do not indicate that West predicted she would be killed. It did, however, document that she wanted to leave and believed she lacked the resources to do so. Lead Detective Shelby Johnson testified about the text during the preliminary hearing as prosecutors described the relationship between West and Wells and sought to establish enough evidence for the murder charge to proceed to trial.
The living arrangement described in the same hearing gave additional context to West’s words. Detective Ashton Lofgreen testified that Wells was the only resident listed on the apartment lease and the only person listed as paying its utilities. West had applied to become a roommate but had been denied, the detective said. Those details did not by themselves establish what occurred during the shooting, but they placed the message about having nowhere to go within the physical and financial circumstances described to the court. They also became part of a broader prosecution account that treated the couple’s relationship as relevant to understanding what happened inside the apartment.
By the time officers reached that home, however, they had been given a story about an outside threat rather than a conflict between the couple. Wells called 911 at about 11:35 a.m. on May 13, 2025, and said somebody was trying to break into his apartment, according to arrest papers reported by KKTV and The Gazette. He said he was not there but that his girlfriend was inside. Officers responded as though they were going to a possible burglary. Instead, they found West dead from a single gunshot wound. Officer Tyler Bresson later testified that nothing outside the apartment initially struck him as suspicious.
The focus on an unknown intruder did not last. About half an hour after Wells’ emergency call, his father contacted police and said his son had admitted shooting his girlfriend, according to the arrest affidavit. Wells’ father later told investigators that Wells described an argument, said West had struck him and claimed she threatened to bring other people to the apartment. According to the father’s account, Wells said he told West to leave and shot her when she did not. Wells’ father told officers that he urged his son to surrender. The account carried an added contrast with West’s same-day text, in which she had told a friend that leaving was what she wanted but did not believe she had the means to do it.
Police then received a second reported admission from outside the family. Wells’ employer called authorities and said Wells had sent a text acknowledging that he shot West. Earlier reporting on the arrest described the employer’s call as coming at about 1:15 p.m. The combination of the father’s report and the employer’s message gave investigators information from two separate people who said Wells had acknowledged responsibility shortly after a 911 call in which he had directed police toward a possible break-in. Court documents cited in news reports also said Wells made statements to his father expressing that he had seriously damaged his own future after the shooting.
Investigators searched the apartment under warrants obtained that day, according to testimony later given at the preliminary hearing. Lofgreen said officers found multiple bullet casings, an empty handgun safe and a shattered sliding glass door. Those discoveries were examined alongside the burglary report rather than treated in isolation. Public court reporting also recorded evidence useful to Wells’ defense: Johnson acknowledged under cross-examination that a person at the complex had reported seeing a “suspicious person” there that morning. The defense later argued at the preliminary hearing that the state had not shown enough evidence of premeditation to send a first-degree murder charge to trial.
The judge allowed the charge to proceed. Judge Amanda Philipps said the evidence had to be considered under the legal standard that governs a preliminary hearing, when the court is deciding whether prosecutors have met the threshold for a case to continue rather than whether guilt has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The hearing therefore did not decide Wells’ guilt. It established that the prosecution could move forward. The defense’s challenge, the reported sighting of another person and other issues remained matters to be tested as the criminal case continued.
Wells was not at the apartment when officers found West. Trooper Mathew Tillman testified in the 2025 hearing that law enforcement circulated information about Wells’ vehicle while investigators worked to locate him. Testimony indicated that Wells first told Bresson he was traveling toward Denver, then corrected himself and said he was in Monument. Cellphone tracking showed movement to the south, according to the trooper. Authorities ultimately arrested Wells about 60 miles from his residence. Tillman described Wells as compliant during the arrest.
Those events produced two very different records from the same day. One was West’s message to a friend, in which she described wanting to leave but being constrained by money and housing. The other was the trail investigators attributed to Wells: the break-in call, his father’s report of an admission, the employer’s report of another admission and his movement away from Colorado Springs before his arrest. Prosecutors later connected those records in a homicide case centered on West’s death. The available public reports do not contain a complete trial transcript, so they do not show precisely how every piece of earlier evidence was presented to the jury in September 2026.
The jury’s verdict nevertheless established the case’s central legal outcome. KKTV reported that Wells was convicted of murder on Sept. 25 after being tried in El Paso County. The conviction came about 16 months after the shooting and more than a year after the preliminary hearing at which prosecutors first laid out much of the publicly reported evidence. The verdict means Wells is no longer merely accused in the case; a jury has found him guilty. News reports reviewed for this story do not provide a complete account of the defense presented at trial or a transcript of the jurors’ deliberations.
West’s age is reported differently in the available coverage. The Gazette identified her as 34 in its reporting based on the arrest affidavit and preliminary hearing, while a May 2025 KKTV report said police identified her as 35. No source reviewed for this story explained that difference. What is consistent across the reporting is her identity, the Fontmore Road location, the May 13 shooting, Wells’ arrest that day and the later murder conviction.
The next proceeding is expected to focus on Wells rather than revisit the jury’s determination of guilt. Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 20, according to KKTV and subsequent reports. As of Nov. 9, no reliable source reviewed for this story reported a change to that date. West’s same-day message remains part of the documented history of the case: a brief statement about wanting to leave that entered the court record months before a jury ultimately held Wells criminally responsible for her death.
Author note: Last updated Nov. 9, 2026.