The latest edition of the Ouray County Plaindealer hits coin-operated newspaper racks every Thursday morning. The paper’s publishers still stock the racks because, their readers tell them, buying the newspaper is like a “little treat.”
“You put in four quarters and you feel like you won the lottery,” Co-Publisher Erin McIntyre said.
The papers were stocked late Wednesday night, but readers discovered Thursday morning that a dozen of the Plaindealer’s racks in the towns of Ouray and Ridgway – nearly all of them in Ouray County – had been mysteriously emptied during the night.
They were angry.
“They (readers) expect it to be there first thing on Thursday morning, and it absolutely was not there and they were not happy about it,” McIntyre said.
The motive for the crime? The publishers can’t draw any certain conclusions. But it may have had something to do with the paper’s lead story.
“Girl: Rapes occurred at chief’s house,” the front-page, above-the-fold headline read.
McIntyre wrote the story, which detailed allegations made by an unnamed minor who said she was raped multiple times in the home of Ouray Police Chief Jeff Wood. The girl identified Wood’s stepson, Nate Dieffenderffer, as one of three young men present at a May 14, 2023, party when the alleged sexual assaults occurred as “others slept upstairs.”
Dieffenderffer and two other suspects, Gabriel Trujillo and Ashton Whittington, were arrested in December on warrants for suspected felony sexual assault, the Plaindealer reported.
The story was posted online Wednesday and was supposed to come out in print Thursday. In a newsletter sent Thursday to subscribers, McIntyre said it appeared someone inserted a dollar’s worth of quarters – the price of a single paper – and wiped out every rack in Ouray and Ridgway. They spared one rack. She estimated more than 200 newspapers were stolen.
McIntyre said Friday that the Ouray County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident and does have a suspect. Investigators are using video surveillance footage, she said, and a garbage bag full of newspapers was returned to the office Thursday night. McIntyre was told that a suspect planned to turn themselves in, although an deputy at the Sheriff’s Office was unable to confirm details Friday afternoon.
“We have no reason to believe that any of the defendants in this case or their families or the Ouray Police Department are involved in the theft of our newspapers,” McIntyre said.
Wood did not respond to a request for comment.
By Friday morning, McIntyre and her husband, Co-Publisher Mike Wiggins, had restocked the racks with reprinted editions of the paper.
In response to the attempt to inhibit access to the news, the publishers also removed the paywall from the story.
It can be read at bit.ly/47GycXd.
As word of the theft spread Thursday, journalists around the state spoke up on X, formerly known as Twitter, and amplified the story. The host of Next with Kyle Clark on 9 News recommended Thursday night that viewers read the story “if for no other reason, than because somebody doesn’t want you to see it.”
Tonight's @nexton9news recommendation: Read the small-town newspaper story that someone didn't want you to see. Link: https://t.co/oBZkMiiKYw pic.twitter.com/EPogsh1ZZe
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) January 19, 2024
McIntyre and Wiggins purchased the Plaindealer in 2019. Ouray County has a population just over 5,000, and McIntyre said the paper’s circulation is about 1,500 print editions and 1,000 e-editions. She and Wiggins make up two-thirds of the paper’s full-time staff.
“They messed with the wrong newspaper publishers,” she said. “… We write stories that inspire empathy, we write stories about things going on here, but we also are going to write the tough stories, and I know that someone’s going to be mad at me every week – and that is OK.”
But, she said, it was “a huge mistake” to try to hide this story from the Plaindealer’s readers.
Jeffrey Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said stealing the papers was not only ineffective, but amplified an important story.
“To think that stealing the newspapers from the rack is going to prevent people from knowing that is kind of silly in 2024,” he said.
A 2022 statute allows for the assessment of a civil penalty against anyone who interferes with the “lawful distribution of newspapers.” The offender could be fined up to $2,500. The publishers do intend to press charges if a suspect is apprehended.
It is a small punishment for a materially minor, but symbolically major offense.
“Without the Ouray County Plaindealer and Erin and Mike doing what they do at that newspaper, the community wouldn’t know about this,” Roberts said. “It just is so important that we have journalism and good journalism in every community. And this, to me, it just points it out even more.”
The community’s hunger for news is voracious, as McIntyre described it, and the outcry after the crime was swift.
As she and Wiggins restocked racks, locals cheered at them from passing cars and readers excitedly grabbed copies. Although the reprint was in some respects unnecessary and certainly costly, the publishers said that it sends a message.
“You cannot stop the presses. And we’re going to print more,” McIntyre said. “I dare them to do it again. I dare them. Go ahead. I will keep printing. We’re not going to stop.”
rschafir@durangoherald.com
