TRUE CRIME: PROBATE COURT RULED THAT MURDERED NORTH DENVER PRIEST HAD SECRET WIFE AND SON

After years of legal wrangling, a probate judge ruled a North Denver priest slain during a card game was married to a woman who bore him a son.

The ruling, in September 1907, came in the strange case of the Rev. Felix Mariano Lepore, who was shot in his study on Nov. 19, 1903, according to the Rocky Mountain News.

After the slaying, Evelyn Benns - who acted as the priest's private secretary - came forward and testified that the pair had married in 1896 and she gave birth to a child, Victor, in 1898, the News said.

The court ruled in her favor, and she was awarded a portion of his $20,000 estate, which included bank accounts, real estate and patent rights. That's roughly $700,000 in 2026 dollars. 

Giuseppe Lorice of Philadelphia, Lepore's alleged killer, was also fatally injured in the shooting, however, Denver police detectives were never able to conclude which of the men fired the shot that felled Lorice at Mt. Carmel Roman Catholic Church, which then had an address of West 36th and Palmer avenues in North Denver's Little Italy, according to the News.

"The death of Father Lepore and Sorice was one of the city's darkest tragedies, and the surrounding mystery has never been cleared away," the News said. "The priest, upon assuming his duties at Mt. Carmel church had incurred much enmity. He was bitterly hated by one faction in the church and his life was threatened several times.

"On the day of the murder Father Lepore and Sorice were playing cards. Without warning Sorice is said to have drawn his revolver and begun firing. The weapon was finally wrested away by the priest who turned it on his assailant and mortally wounded him. From the ante-mortem statement made by Father Lepore it is believed Sorice came to Denver from the East for the express purpose of putting the pastor out of the way. At any rate the murder did not occasion much surprise in the Italian colony." 

The priest's secret marriage and child did, however, surprise his flock.

[Photos: Public Domain]