Lyndon McLeod: The Denver Shooting Spree, Novels, and Warnings

The Lyndon McLeod Denver shooting spree was a two-hour, targeted attack on December 27, 2021, in which 47-year-old Lyndon James McLeod killed five people and wounded two others at tattoo shops, a private home, and a hotel across Denver and Lakewood before a Lakewood police officer shot him dead. Four of the five people he killed were former associates he blamed for perceived betrayals. He had named several of them, by name and by location, in a self-published novel series years earlier. Police had investigated him twice in the eighteen months before the attack and filed no charges.

What Happened That Evening

The shootings began at 5:25 p.m. at Sol Tribe Tattoo and Piercing, near West 1st Avenue and Broadway in Denver. McLeod killed the shop’s owner, Alicia Cardenas, 44, and jewelry manager Alyssa Gunn-Maldonado, 35. A third person, Jimmy Maldonado, was wounded.¹

Six minutes later he forced his way into a residence near West 6th Avenue and Cherokee Street that also housed a tattoo business, fired at the occupants without hitting anyone, and set a van on fire outside. At 5:45 p.m. he entered a home in the 1200 block of North Williams Street near Cheesman Park and killed Michael Swinyard, 67.¹

Denver officers tried to stop him near West 13th Avenue and Zuni Street around 5:49 p.m. A brief chase and shootout followed. McLeod disabled a police vehicle and escaped into Lakewood. At 5:58 p.m. he killed Danny Scofield, 38, a tattoo artist at Lucky 13 Tattoo on Kipling Street.¹

At 6:04 p.m., Lakewood Police Agent Brianna Hagan spotted his van and initiated a traffic stop. McLeod got out and fired eight to ten rounds at her. She returned two. He escaped again and entered the Hyatt House hotel in the Belmar shopping center, where he shot 28-year-old front desk clerk Sarah Steck. She later died at the hospital.² Police said McLeod had prior interactions with the hotel but did not know Steck personally, making her the only victim he apparently did not know.³

Who He Killed

Five people died:

Alicia Cardenas, 44, owner of Sol Tribe Tattoo and Piercing, an Indigenous activist and mural artist described by fellow artists as a mentor and leader in Denver’s tattoo and body modification communities.⁴
Alyssa Gunn-Maldonado, 35, killed alongside Cardenas at Sol Tribe.
Michael Swinyard, 67, killed at his home near Cheesman Park.
Danny Scofield, 38, a tattoo artist killed at Lucky 13 Tattoo and a former employee of a shop McLeod had once co-owned.⁵
Sarah Steck, 28, the Hyatt House hotel clerk.

Police described the four victims other than Steck as former business partners, associates, or acquaintances who McLeod felt had betrayed him.⁶ McLeod had roots in the local tattoo industry. Around 2013 he co-owned a shop called All Hearts Enterprise, also known as Flat Black Ink Corp., on West 6th Avenue. The business reportedly failed because of his aggressive behavior toward employees. At least two of his eventual victims had worked there, and Cardenas later took over the building and ran Sol Tribe from the location before relocating.⁵ Denver city records showed McLeod was never licensed to operate a tattoo business or work as a tattoo artist.⁷

The Novels That Named His Victims

Between 2018 and 2020, McLeod self-published a science fiction trilogy titled Sanction under the pen name Roman McClay. The books were published through Flat Black Ink Corp. and sold on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats.⁸ The protagonist was named Lyndon and functioned as a thinly veiled stand-in for the author. Across three volumes the character commits more than 40 murders.

The books named real people and real places. The second volume depicted the protagonist in tactical gear entering a building on West 6th Avenue, killing a woman, and then moving to a tattoo studio; it named Alicia Cardenas, her shop Sol Tribe, and Michael Swinyard. The first volume described a character named Lyndon posing as a police officer, forcing his way into a poker party hosted by a character named Michael Swinyard, and killing everyone present.⁹¹⁰ On the night of the attack, witnesses saw McLeod wearing a vest labeled “POLICE.”²

The trilogy also contained white supremacist rhetoric and misogynistic material. One Amazon reviewer referred to “fantasies of killing people involved in the BLM movement.” Another, writing in January 2020, described the series as “an angry alt-right wolf wrapped in science fiction wool” that “fetishize[d] violence as the great equalizer.”¹⁰ McLeod also maintained a Twitter account under his pen name promoting extremist views about firearms, women, and violence.⁸ After the shooting, Amazon removed the books from sale. The Anti-Defamation League classified the attack as an act of domestic extremism linked to what it called the “manosphere” and included the killings in its 2021 tally of extremist-linked murders.¹¹

The Warnings Police Had

McLeod had a prior felony conviction that was not publicly known until after the attack. On February 2, 2012, Denver police arrested him after he allegedly pointed a gun at two co-workers at a medical marijuana warehouse. In April 2012 he pleaded guilty to felony menacing and received a deferred sentence with two years of probation. Upon completing probation the charge was dismissed, and in 2014 the court records were sealed. One month after the case was sealed, McLeod applied for a concealed carry permit.¹² Between 2012 and 2016, police had at least six additional encounters with him involving domestic disturbances, welfare checks, and alarms. A 2015 domestic disturbance call involving a partner and property damage produced no charges. A Denver District Court judge unsealed the felony case on January 14, 2022, after petitions from news organizations.¹³

Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen confirmed after the attack that McLeod had been the subject of two separate investigations, one in mid-2020 and another in early 2021. Both were closed without state or federal charges because, the department concluded, there was not enough evidence.¹⁴

The 2021 investigation was triggered in part by a tip from Andre Thiele, a man in Wolfsburg, Germany, who had encountered McLeod in an online fan chatroom for the Sanction books. On January 3, 2021, Thiele contacted Denver 311, submitted an online tip to the FBI, and mailed a letter through the U.S. Embassy in Frankfurt via Germany’s intelligence agency. He warned there was “a small, but undeniable possibility” that McLeod might “commit a terrorist attack,” and described the books as potentially serving as “a far-right manifesto and a terrorist prophecy.”¹⁵¹⁶

Denver police said they could not link McLeod to a Denver address and had no reason to believe he lived in the city at the time. An investigator followed up on an allegation of possible theft or fraud involving a victim outside Colorado, but no Denver connection was established. Thiele later told the Colorado Gazette that Denver police were the only agency to contact him. The FBI did not publicly comment on what it did with his tip.¹⁵ The Denver police department’s own summary of the January 2021 tip characterized it as involving “several concerns” about theft and fraud but did not mention terrorism, which had been the core of Thiele’s warning.¹⁶

The Officer Who Stopped Him

After leaving the Hyatt House, McLeod fled on foot into the Belmar shopping district. Lakewood Police Agent Ashley Ferris encountered him near West Alaska Drive and South Vance Street. He was wearing the “POLICE” vest and appeared to be loading handgun magazines. Ferris tried to de-escalate, telling him, “Don’t hurt other people, please” and “Don’t do this.” McLeod pointed a handgun at her and said, “I’ll show you what I’ll do,” then opened fire. Ferris was struck multiple times in the abdomen, below her protective vest. As she fell she returned fire, then fired at least seven more rounds from the ground, performed a tactical reload, and fired at least five more. McLeod was killed.²

On August 22, 2022, First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King announced that both Ferris and Hagan were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, finding they reasonably believed they faced imminent deadly harm.

Calls for a Federal Review

On January 13, 2022, four Democratic members of Colorado’s congressional delegation — Representatives Ed Perlmutter, Jason Crow, Diana DeGette, and Joe Neguse — sent a letter to U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz requesting a formal investigation into how law enforcement handled the McLeod case. Their letter asked whether agencies had adequately assessed the severity of the threats he posed, whether closing both investigations was appropriate, and whether information sharing between local and federal agencies was sufficient.¹⁴ The Department of Justice declined to comment. The Denver Department of Public Safety said it was conducting its own internal review of the January 2021 investigation and would cooperate with any federal inquiry. No public findings from a DOJ inspector general investigation have been reported.¹⁷

1
Colorado Sun. Denver Area Shooting Spree Details
2
First Judicial District Attorney. DA Alexis King Clears Heroic Officers Responding to Belmar Shooting Spree
3
CBS News Colorado. Lyndon McLeod Knew Victims Killed in Shooting Spree
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Denverite. Beloved Denver Tattoo Artist Alicia Cardenas Among the Victims
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Newsweek. Denver Shooting Suspect Lyndon McLeod’s Books Disappear From Amazon
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CBS News Colorado. Books, Social Media Posts of Suspect Lyndon McLeod Reveal Rants, Fantasies
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NPR. Denver Shootings Suspect Wrote Books Previewing Attacks
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Newsweek. Denver Suspect’s Books Describing Mass Shooting Still on Amazon
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NBC News. Suspect in Denver Area Rampage Believed to Have Authored Books Previewing Attacks
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Colorado Sun. Lyndon James McLeod’s Books
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Colorado Sun. Conspiracy Theorists, Extremism, and Violence
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Denver Post. Denver Shooting Lyndon McLeod Felony Menacing
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Denver7. Denver Shooting Spree Killer Threatened Co-Workers With Gun 10 Years Before Killings
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Denver Post. Lyndon McLeod Denver Lakewood Shooting Spree
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NBC News. Denver Police Received Tip on Shooting Spree Gunman’s Books in January 2021
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Denver Gazette. Denver Police Received Tip About Shooting Rampage Suspect Lyndon McLeod
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NBC News. Colorado Lawmakers Ask Justice Department to Probe Police Handling of Denver Shootings