16th Street Mall stabbings suspect labeled threat to others in previous cases

DENVER — Long before Elijah Caudill was the suspect in the stabbings on the 16th Street Mall, a probation officer concluded that he exhibited “anti-social behavior” and a judge described him as a “substantial risk” to others, according to court documents obtained by 9NEWS Investigates.

Those statements were included in motions filed in the wake of a 2021 case in Westminster in which Caudill was charged with felony menacing after threatening a man with a knife.

That was three and a half years before the 24-year-old stabbed four people Saturday evening and Sunday night along the mall. Two of them died, including a Phoenix-based flight attendant in Denver on a layover.

Denver police arrested Caudill on Sunday. He’s being held on suspicion of multiple counts of murder and other charges. Formal charges are pending.

In the 2021 Westminster case, a maintenance supervisor at a shopping center at 120th Avenue and Huron Street caught a man using a trash enclosure as a bathroom and told him to leave. As the supervisor walked toward his vehicle, he heard a noise and turned to see a man coming at him with a knife.

That man threatened to cut the supervisor’s throat, according to court records.

Westminster police arrested Caudill the next day, and prosecutors charged him with felony menacing.

In a deal with prosecutors, Caudill pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge and got probation.

“The initial plea bargain – pleading the felony menacing down to third-degree assault – is a pretty standard plea agreement for most situations. Even those involving a threat to cut someone’s throat,” said Scott Robinson, an attorney and 9NEWS legal analyst.

According to court documents, Caudill didn’t show for multiple meetings with his probation officer. Eventually, that officer filed a motion seeking to revoke his probation and requesting that the judge order Caudill to complete what’s known as “cognitive behavioral therapy” to address “anti-social behaviors.”

“Cognitive behavioral therapy is a well-establish psychotherapy tool,” Robinson said. “It’s designed to change the way someone thinks about themselves and to avoid negative thinking.”

But Caudill didn’t complete the therapy and led to another motion to revoke probation. In that case, the judge checked a box in a court order that said, “There is reason to believe the defendant poses substantial risk of serious harm to others.”

The judge revoked the probation and sentenced Caudill to a year in jail. That occurred on Feb. 6, 2023, and he spent most of the rest of the year and much of 2024 behind bars in that case and others.

He was freed in November.

“This situation illustrates that sometimes individuals fall through the cracks and the results in this case were, in fact, quite tragic,” Robinson said.