SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. – Authorities are looking for a snowboarder accused of running into a skier Monday at Keystone Ski Resort, leaving her with severe leg injuries that required a five-hour surgery.

The collision happened around 3 p.m. Monday on the Haywood Trail at Keystone. The Summit County Sheriff’s Office says the unidentified snowboarder collided with the skier, identified as Jenny Elma by her boyfriend, Stu Press. The skier eventually left the scene.

Elma’s boyfriend says the snowboarder was “airborne at a high rate of speed” when he collided with Elma’s leg. She slid about 30 feet with the snowboarder on top of her. Press says the man stayed at the crash scene for about five minutes, then left without providing his contact information.

Elma was transported to Keystone Clinic, where she was diagnosed with multiple fractures in her left Tibia, an injured meniscus and a broken Fibula bone. She was then taken to Vail Valley Hospital, where she underwent a five-hour surgery and had 13 screws put in her leg.

She is expected to be hospitalized through the weekend, and her recovery could take up to a year. She works in product sales at the Keystone Ski School.

The Skier Safety Act requires all skiers and snowboarders involved in a crash to stop, exchange information and summon ski patrol to render aid to the injured parties. Often times, ski collisions are settled in civil lawsuits. But the sheriff’s office does have an open and ongoing criminal investigation.

The snowboarder was wearing light brown pants and a distinct, full-face black and red Ruroc Inferno helmet (pictured above) at the time. He was described as being about 5-foot-9 and about 160 pounds.

Anyone with information on the collision or snowboarder is asked to contact Summit County Sheriff’s Office Detective Scott Wagner at 970-423-8913.

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. – The death of a woman and her two young sons found with gunshot wounds inside a van in a Lone Tree parking lot last month has officially been declared a murder-suicide.

The designation was made by Douglas County Coroner Jill Romann, who determined Adam and Ethan Laber died of homicide by gunshot wounds and their mother, Jennifer Laber, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The autopsy for each also confirms that the boys were heavily drugged before their mother killed them, which their father hinted at in a Facebook post Thursday discussing his late wife’s depression.

Both boys had evidence of oxycodone, oxymorphone and diphenhydramine in their blood. The first two listed are potent narcotic painkillers, and diphenhydramine is better known by its brand name, Benadryl.

In the Thursday Facebook post, Ryan Laber wrote that his sons were in a “deep sleep” when they were killed.

The autopsy also confirmed Jennifer had a slew of health problems, was taking medication and had a history of depression. She had undergone weight loss surgery months before her death, which her husband said ended up furthering her depression because of the saggy skin left over.

Ryan also said that she was a “tremendous” mom, but her motherhood “turned into her greatest source of pain” and said that the only way she thought her pain could be resolved was in heaven.

“Going to heaven was just a next step to her,” he wrote. “So as an act to insure [sic] she could provide the best motherhood to her boys, she took them with, painlessly, while they were under a deep sleep.”

“Depression is a sickness,” Ryan wrote. “It is coercive and often operates in silence. There is no fault to lay blame.”

Editor’s note: This story has been changed to clarify that diphenhydramine is not a painkiller.

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. – Douglas County Detective Dan Brite was released from the hospital Thursday 3 ½ months after he was shot in the line of duty by a suicidal man in Parker.

Dozens of people, police officers and firefighters lined the streets as Brite was discharged from Craig Hospital and taken home in the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office BearCat tactical vehicle.

His wife and daughters were there to accompany him.

The sheriff’s office says Brite was discharged six months earlier than expected after doctors originally gave him a 1 percent chance to live.

He is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot, allegedly by Randall Rodick, on Sept. 2. Rodick was shot and killed by law enforcement in the incident.

“Dan is still paralyzed and unable to move his legs, but he says he believes in miracles and he will do everything in his power to ensure that he does walk again some day,” the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a Facebook post.

The sheriff’s office also posted an emotional video of Brite calling in-service for the first time since he was shot.

BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. – A well-known Nederland veterinarian faces charges for allegedly sexually assaulting a girl who worked for and lived with him in 2011 when she was just 15 years old.

Joseph Evans, 67, better known to Boulder County residents as “Doc Joe,” is charged with one count of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust.

Evans turned himself into police on Monday, three days after the warrant was issued. He was officially charged Wednesday and is out of jail after posting a $5,000 bond.

The investigation into Evans’ alleged misconduct started in November, when the victim tried to file a restraining order against Evans. As part of the background for the order, the victim told the Boulder District Attorney’s Office that Evans had sexually assaulted her while she was living with him in fall 2011.

The victim said she had started working for Evans after he performed surgery on her dog that she could not pay for at the time. The affidavit says Evans agreed to let her work the charges off. Once she had done so, after working at his clinic after school for some time, he hired her and paid her under the table.

The girl’s mother was experiencing marital troubles, and eventually left for more than a month to Costa Rica. It was then that the girl started living with Evans. She told the chief investigator at the district attorney’s office that “she was always indebted to [Evans].”

Evans was married at the time but was going through marital trouble himself. Though he was a counselor for Alcoholics Anonymous, the affidavit says Evans was using prescription drugs and Ketamine.

The affidavit says the girl would get scared of Evans during his alleged drug-induced episodes and briefly moved in with a friend when her mother went to Iowa after Costa Rica. However, she couldn’t stay with the friend for long and eventually moved back in with Evans.

Sometime in fall 2011, Evans invited her up to his room to watch a movie. It was then that the alleged assault occurred.

He felt her breasts and eventually her genitals before performing oral sex on her, according to the affidavit. The girl said Evans was “messed up and had done some drugs” and that she was “’just lying there, not saying anything’ because she did not know what to do,” according to the affidavit.

At some point, she said she grew “totally disgusted” and got up and told her to stop. He told her to never tell anyone about the incident, which she agreed to, according to the affidavit.

But the girl told a friend, and other locals had told the girl’s mom “something was not right” with the relationship between Evans and the girl. She eventually told her mother as well.

He had told her he would leave her his home and ranch when he passed away, which worried some in the community who already thought his relationship with the girl was questionable, according to the affidavit.

The girl worked for Evans and lived there on and off until she graduated high school in 2014 and moved to Arkansas, where she got into trouble for drug possession and moved back to clean up.

Her mother and siblings were living in a cabin in Eldora but were forced out because the owner was selling it, making the girl and her family homeless.

Evans let them put their belongings in his home, and the girl moved back in with him. Her mother joined them after another brief stint in Iowa.

But his demeanor changed when the girl got a boyfriend, who would at times stay at Evans’ house with her. He grew wary of their relationship and some of the requests Evans made, according to the affidavit.

He eventually started requesting more and more money from the girl and her mother, and the affidavit says the girl’s getting a boyfriend “really hurt him and upset him.”

In an interview with the district attorney’s office, the boyfriend said the girl and her mother “were totally dependent upon [Evans].”

In November, the district attorney’s office investigators got a hold of text messages referring to the alleged assault in addition to the girl’s testimony, and an arrest warrant was drafted.

The affidavit says Evans has no prior criminal history.

The Boulder District Attorney’s Office is asking anyone with knowledge of the case to call Investigator Jane Harmer at 303-441-4779.

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. — The husband of Jennifer Laber, who took her own life as well as her two young boys’ at the end of November, opened up on Facebook Thursday to talk about his wife’s depression.

Ryan Laber first talked about his wife’s depression at the memorial service for Jennifer and their sons, Adam and Ethan.

But in a post to the Laber Family Memorial Page on Facebook Thursday, he elaborated on exactly how deep and crippling her depression was.

He says she had struggled with bouts of depression before that “involved very low self-esteem, no recognition of consequences to self harm, and a strong desire to escape.”

He said Jennifer had lost 80 pounds, but still felt self-conscious about the extra skin that was left over following her weight loss.

He also said that she was a “tremendous” mom, but her motherhood “turned into her greatest source of pain” and said that the only way she thought her pain could be resolved was in heaven.

“Going to heaven was just a next step to her,” he wrote. “So as an act to insure [sic] she could provide the best motherhood to her boys, she took them with, painlessly, while they were under a deep sleep.”

“Depression is a sickness,” Ryan wrote. “It is coercive and often operates in silence. There is no fault to lay blame.”

He acknowledged that some might find his explanation of what happened disturbing, but said he wanted people to understand “a bit more of where Jen was that day.”

Anyone who needs help treating or dealing with depression or mental illness should call the national suicide hotline at 1-800-273-8255.