Colorado's parole board downgraded a violent offender from "very high" risk to "moderate" and released him in January 2025. Within weeks, four people were dead. Ricky Lee Roybal-Smith, 38, now faces three counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder across three Colorado counties. Every single one of these killings was preventable. The system knew exactly who this man was, and it let him walk anyway.
Roybal-Smith's alleged killing spree reads like a horror movie script. After his release from prison in January, authorities say he brutally stabbed two homeless men to death in separate attacks in Aurora. One of the victims was stabbed roughly 90 times. On the same day as those killings, police arrested him in Denver for a hit-and-run involving two pedestrians.
Then it got worse. After being booked into jail, his cellmate, 36-year-old Vincent Chacon, was found dead within hours. The medical examiner ruled it a homicide caused by strangulation. Three people killed in a single day, and a fourth death now linked to him from 2022. As Fox News reported, Roybal-Smith is being held without bond in the Denver jail, facing charges in Adams County, Denver, and Arapahoe County.
This wasn't a case where the system lacked information. It had plenty. Roybal-Smith had been classified as a "very high" risk to reoffend. He had a documented history of violent criminal behavior. In 2022, he was accused of threatening customers at a retail store. One day after that incident, a woman named Meg Eberhart was found unconscious at a light rail station and later died.
Police suspected Roybal-Smith killed her. They focused their investigation on him. He was on parole at the time for a previous offense. But prosecutors didn't file charges because the coroner ruled her cause of death "undetermined." So instead of facing a murder charge, Roybal-Smith got four years in prison for the retail store incident. That's it. Four years for threatening shoppers while a woman's death went uncharged.
Here's where the story turns from tragic to infuriating. A 9NEWS investigation found that Roybal-Smith's risk assessment scores contained errors. Despite his violent history, despite the suspected killing of Meg Eberhart, despite every red flag in the book, someone downgraded his risk classification from "very high" to "moderate." That downgrade made him eligible for parole.
In January 2025, the state of Colorado opened the prison doors and sent him on his way. Within months, police say he went on a rampage that left three more people dead. The Colorado Department of Corrections and the Colorado State Board of Parole have not responded to requests for comment. Their silence speaks volumes.
Prosecutors have now filed a second-degree murder charge against Roybal-Smith in connection with Meg Eberhart's 2022 death. The coroner's ruling hasn't changed, but the district attorney's office says the evidence supports the charge. Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley told Fox News Digital that prosecutors continued reviewing the evidence and determined the charge was appropriate.
Eberhart's daughter, Zada Veniegas, told 9NEWS she felt relief when she learned charges had finally been filed. She said it was important that her mother wasn't forgotten, that what happened to her was finally being acknowledged by the legal system. Three years later. After three more people died. That's the timeline of "justice" in Colorado's criminal system.
Republican District Attorney George Brauchler didn't mince words about what happened here. He pointed out that this case gets attention because of the sheer body count, but the underlying problem is systemic. Parole violators are reoffending everywhere, all the time, across the state.
Brauchler laid the blame squarely at the feet of Colorado's political leadership. The state legislature, the governor, and the parole board have collectively decided that putting dangerous people back on the street is preferable to spending taxpayer dollars on incarceration. Colorado has actually reduced its incarceration levels even as its population has grown. Think about that for a second. More people, fewer prison beds, and violent offenders cycling through a revolving door.
Colorado Senate Minority Leader Cleave Simpson called the case a "serious failure" in the state's criminal justice system. He said families are grieving because Roybal-Smith was allowed back on the streets. He called for stronger parole oversight and said parole should never become a revolving door for violent offenders.
That's all true. But these aren't new problems. Colorado has been softening its approach to violent crime for years. Sentences have gotten shorter. Parole has gotten easier. Risk assessments have gotten sloppier. And regular people, homeless men on the street, a woman at a train station, a cellmate in a jail cell, are paying the price with their lives.
District Attorney Amy Padden noted that her office doesn't control parole decisions but acknowledged the obvious problem. She said the privilege of parole should only be granted when there is substantial evidence of rehabilitation, acceptance of accountability, and a lack of danger to the community. Roybal-Smith met none of those criteria. His risk assessment was riddled with errors. His history screamed danger. And the system waved him through anyway.
This is what happens when states prioritize reducing prison populations over protecting citizens. Four people are dead. A daughter spent three years waiting for someone to acknowledge that her mother was murdered. Two homeless men were butchered. A man was strangled to death in a jail cell hours after his killer was booked. All because Colorado decided a "very high" risk offender was actually just "moderate."
Roybal-Smith is scheduled for arraignment in Adams County on March 30. He remains in custody on a no-bond hold. He's not going anywhere this time. But nobody in the parole system, nobody on the board that approved his release, nobody who botched his risk assessment has faced any consequences. The corrections department won't even return phone calls.
Four people are dead because the state of Colorado valued leniency over safety. Until someone in power is held accountable for these decisions, until there are real consequences for releasing known violent predators, this will keep happening. The names will change. The body counts will vary. But the story will be exactly the same. They knew. They were warned. And they let him out anyway.
