COLD CASE: 3 DIED IN HOTEL ARSON, INCLUDING HERO

This is fire hero Ernest Peterson. An arson blaze killed Peterson, John F. Simmons and Thaddeus Hosey, residents of the old Jefferson Hotel in downtown Denver.

The hotel manager, Tammy Lee, awoke to knocking on her door. “I think it was old man Peterson at the door trying to alarm us that a fire was here,” Lee told the Rocky Mountain News.

Lee’s husband, John, said he saw a figure staggering in the flaming hallway and figured it was Peterson. Firefighters raised ladders to rescue people cut off by the blaze. The found Peterson and Simmons beneath a windowsill, badly burned. Hosey was found elsewhere.

The hotel was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived at the three-story structure at 1529 Champa St. at 5:15 a.m. on Aug. 12, 1980.

A hotel resident said she saw two men dash out of the building and drive off. Police questioned several people but made no arrests. The hotel housed transients. It closed. The now renovated brick structure still stands. Peterson was 62, Simons was 69 and Hosey was 53. [Photo: Colorado Bureau of Investigation]