At the heart of the Shining Mountains stands a mountain the ancient Ute knew as Tava, the Ute word for Sun. It was the most sacred of all places to the Ute because the sun, which gives forth life from the Creator, always rose there first. The Ute believed that at the beginning of time, the Creator made the Shining Mountains; then, He created the animals, and when He was finished He created The Nuche, The People. The Ute believed the Shining Mountains were created by the Creator to sustain, not just them, but all The People. To the Ute people, life began in the Shining Mountains.

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True Crime: On Christmas Night 1996, six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was murdered in her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado. A ransom note was found in the home, but it was hours before her father, John, found her body in the basement. She had been strangled with a garrote and her skull was fractured. The media sensationalized the tragic death of the “child beauty queen” and public speculation and rumors ran rampant. What followed was one of the most notorious unsolved murder investigations in American history. Boulder police fixated on JonBenét’s parents as suspects. Needing investigative help, the Boulder DA brought in legendary homicide detective Lou Smit. However, he was soon disenchanted with law enforcement’s obsession with the Ramsey family as the primary suspects, excluding other possibilities. Now, for the first time, Anderson tells the story of Lou Smit’s investigation.

Bio: John Wesley Anderson, MBA, is an author, storyteller and TEDx speaker. He enjoyed a 30-year law enforcement career, retiring as a sergeant after 22 years with the Colorado Springs Police Department, followed by 8 years serving as the elected county sheriff for El Paso County, Colorado. After being term-limited as Sheriff John retired from public safety and worked in homeland security for 10 years in the corporate world. He retired from Lockheed Martin in 2012 to launch a small consulting business allowing him the freedom to pursue his love of history, writing and the arts. Although John has travelled around the world, including several adventures on a catamaran sailing the Caribbean, three corporate security assignments into a combat zone on the Horn of Africa and landed on an aircraft carrier at sea in the Pacific Ocean, he remains most fascinated by the rich history and art discovered in his own backyard in the American Southwest.