Paleontologist's worth not fixed in artifacts
Burglars misjudged how much they could get for Charles Repenning's possessions, a friend says.
By Kirk Mitchell
Denver Post Staff Writer
Burglars targeted the home of a world-renowned paleontologist believing he had valuable artifacts.
Although Charles Repenning, 82, had fossils on loan from museums, they were skulls of rodents that had great scientific worth but no black-market value, experts say.
The suspects allegedly took fossils, rifles, pistols, a Nazi sword, a figurine, quartz minerals and a Navajo rug from Repenning's home.
But if the thieves who strangled the scientist to death in his bedroom believed they would find treasure, they must have been sorely disappointed, said Dr. Lou Taylor, a research associate at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
"These guys were so misinformed, they killed someone over nothing," Taylor said.
Police arrested Richard James Kasparson, 34, and Michael James Wessel, 40, late last week. They are being held at the Jefferson County Jail for investigation of killing Repenning, said Lakewood police spokesman Steve Davis.
An employee of Table Steaks Bar in Edgewater called police last week when he overheard two men talking about strangling an elderly man during a burglary.
Repenning's body was discovered Jan. 5 after a neighbor saw his dog running loose.
Detectives do not believe the burglars randomly picked his home. Police are still investigating the case, hoping "the location of the missing items might help us make additional arrests," Davis said.
Taylor, also a paleontologist and a fellow museum associate, knew Repenning for 30 years.
Even if Repenning had dinosaur bones or artifacts that were valuable, which he didn't, they would have been carefully documented, Taylor said.
Museums wouldn't buy stolen artifacts, he said.
All that was of extraordinary value in that house was Repenning himself, he said.
Anybody hear anything about what was stolen? I've heard this fellow might have done some research into death cults. I'm worried that we might have somethign loose we don't want loose.
I had no idea anyone could be that stupid, until I visited the states the first time.
