A Texas man whose body was found inside a pickup truck along Interstate 25 in Colorado Springs was gagged and his hands and feet were bound with duct tape and zip ties. He was shot up with heroin and left to die, according to a coroner’s report.
On Dec. 20, police found 30-year-old Ivan Maldonado, of Dallas, inside an abandoned and disabled GMC Sierra with Texas plates near the Martin Luther King Jr. Bypass in the southbound lanes. The front passenger tire of the truck was flat, and the back passenger door on the driver’s side was open.
“Multiple articles of clothing covered the gagged and bound decedent who was found on his knees and face down between the back floorboard and back seat of the vehicle,” according to an El Paso County Coroner’s Office autopsy report on Maldonado’s death, which has been ruled a homicide.
Maldonado suffered blunt injuries to his head and neck, according to the report. He had bruises on his torso.
Duct tape was “wrapped multiple times” around his upper lip, just below his nose, the autopsy report said. His hands and wrists were tightly bound. As part of his attire, Maldonado was wearing a gray jacket and white long-sleeved shirt, the left arm of the jacket and shirt had a vertical cut in the left elbow area. There was a needle- puncture wound in his left arm.
Maldonado “died as a result of smothering in the setting of acute heroin toxicity,” the coroner’s report said. “The overall finding are consistent with these injuries being caused by the actions of another individual(s).”
The victim has less than $3 cash in his pockets when his body was found. A homicide investigation is ongoing. Police have not announced any arrests in the case.
Anyone with information or who is a witness to this investigation is asked to call the Colorado Springs Police Department at 719-444-7000.
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