The Colorado University student accused of fatally shooting two people at his dorm had lived with one of his alleged victims and threatened ‘to kill’ him during a roommate dispute weeks earlier, according to an affidavit.
Nicholas Jordan, 25, has been charged with killing his roommate Samuel Knopp, 24, and Celie Rain Montgomery, 26, on the Colorado Springs campus on February 16.
An arrest warrant affidavit obtained by DailyMail.com on Friday reveals new details about recurring arguments among the college roommates over Jordan’s filthy and ‘unsafe’ living conditions and claims he had recently violently threatened Knopp when he was asked to take out the trash.
DailyMail.com has also learned that Knopp, who shared a dorm pod with Jordan and a third student, Giancarlo Argueta-Agudelo, had planned to move out later that same day, wanting to get away from the alleged killer who had already been evicted from one student apartment building.
Sources say Jordan was kicked out of the Lion Village Student Housing during the fall semester for peddling drugs, harassing college girls, and cursing out staff.
Nicholas Jordan, 25, from Detroit, is accused of shooting Celie Rain Montgomery, 26, and his roommate Sam Knopp, 24
Sam Knopp, a senior studying music, had complained about his new, randomly selected roommate Nicholas Jordan and was set to move out the day he died
Jordan was kicked out of his dorm for dealing drugs and catcalling women and moved into Crestone House with Knopp
Staff and residents tell DailyMail.com that Jordan would go door-to-door selling marijuana and was nicknamed ‘Slick Nick.’
He would also stand outside his apartment blasting music through a speaker and would regularly ‘catcall’ female residents as they walked to their apartments.
‘We called him Slick Nick because he was always going around dealing drugs, not good stuff, and then we had residents complaining about him,’ a service manager at Lion Village, which is privately owned, told DailyMail.com.
Celie Rain Montgomery, 26, was identified along with Knopp, 24, after what police believe was a double murder last week
‘He was trouble, he was bad news,’ the manager said. ‘He came into the office quite a few times, yelling and screaming, f*** this, f*** that, getting into it with the manager. He was just verbally abusive to everybody.
‘We gave him warnings,’ he added. ‘But he just went too far. That’s why they had to let him go.
‘And then he left here and went into the dorms over there,’ the service manager told DailyMail.com, pointing up the street toward campus and Crestone House.
Jordan is due in court Friday in connection with the case.
Knopp, a senior studying music, had complained about his new, randomly selected roommate, an accounting major from Detroit.
On Thursday last week, Knopp expressed his relief about his imminent move to his music teacher Jon Forshee.
‘He told me he was scheduled to move out the following night,’ Forshee told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview. ‘He said he was eager to move out, that his dorm life wasn’t comfortable.’
An arrest warrant affidavit obtained by DailyMail.com also reveals new details about recurring disputes among the roommates over Jordan’s filthy and ‘unsafe’ living conditions
Fellow student resident Giancarlo Argueta-Agudelo, who lived in the same dorm pod, told police the three had had an argument in January in which Jordan allegedly threatened ‘to kill’ Knopp if he was asked to take out the trash again
He said Knopp mentioned problems with garbage, piles of dirty clothes and dishes, but didn’t go into bigger issues he was having.
‘I didn’t feel like digging very deep,’ Forshee said. ‘I remember him saying I only have to deal with this one more day, then I’m out. Only one more day, Jon, then I’ll be in another dorm.’
Another professor in the visual and performing arts told DailyMail.com that Knopp’s problems with Jordan were ‘profound,’ but also couldn’t elaborate.
According to the affidavit, police were called to the scene on February 16 after student resident, Giancarlo Argueta-Agudelo, 21, who lived in the same dormitory pod reported the shooting.
Argueta-Agudelo told officers that he believed that Jordan had recently vacated his room ‘as there was significant issues and complaints of Mr. Jordan’s smoking marijuana, cigarettes, and his living area cleanliness to UCCS Police and UCCS Housing,’ the document states.
He confirmed there had been ‘multiple instances’ in which he and Knopp had to report Jordan for unsafe living conditions and smoking in the room and revealed there had been a recent argument over his trash.
‘Mr. Argueta-Agudelo described in January that there was an argument between Mr. Knopp and Mr. Jordan over a bag of trash that Mr. Knopp collected and placed near Mr. Jordan’s door,’ the affidavit states.
‘Mr. Jordan threatened Mr. Knopp and told him that he would ‘kill him’ and there would be consequences if Mr. Jordan was asked to take the trash again.’
Jordan, 25, allegedly opened fire shortly after 6am Friday at Crestone House. The shooting took place in the four-bedroom unit Jordan shared with Knopp on the first floor.
Sources tell DailyMail.com that Knopp was dating Montgomery, a non-student from Pueblo who’d slept over and was also killed.
Sources tell DailyMail.com that another roommate heard the shots, then locked himself in his room and called 911.
By the time police arrived, Jordan had already fled. The university lifted a campus lockdown a few hours later, as police, unknown to the public, issued a warrant for Jordan’s arrest.
He was captured two days later with a gun, during a car stop.
The shooting took place in the four-bedroom unit Jordan shared with Knopp on the first floor. Knopp was a talented senior studying music at the university
Knopp expressed his relief about his imminent move to his music teacher Jon Forshee. ‘He said he was eager to move out, that his dorm life wasn’t comfortable,’ Forshee told DailyMail.com
Forshee specifically wrote a composition for Knopp. During their session Thursday, he noted, Knopp asked that the work, originally called Fictions, be renamed Angeles Novus (New Angel)
Jordan is being held on two first-degree murder charges in the county jail on $5 million cash bail.
Police have shared few details about the case, including about a possible motive and information about the nature of Knopp’s relationship with Montgomery, a single mother of two.
Many of Knopp’s friends had never met or knew of her.
‘All of us here in the music department are baffled and curious about Celie,’ Forshee noted. ‘I don’t know if Celie was a girlfriend or just an acquaintance or an old friend. The other guitar students that knew Sam, that name was entirely new to them. Nobody knew who that second victim was until that (police press) release on Monday.’
The university has also kept a lid on information, leaving many students baffled by details and rumors that spread by word of mouth.
‘I don’t think he should have even been allowed to live on campus in the first place after he’d been evicted for what he did here,’ Lion Village resident Aubrie Leen, 19, told DailyMail.com
Some students and faculty took issue with the fact the school lifted lockdown within hours of the shooting, while withholding news that the alleged killer was a student who was still at large.
‘The first thing the university put out was that the campus was safe, nothing to be worried about,’ a Colorado University professor told DailyMail.com. ‘How can it be that the campus is safe yet there’s no one in custody?’
Others questioned why the university let Jordan move into a dorm after being kicked out of Lion Village.
‘I don’t think he should have even been allowed to live on campus in the first place after he’d been evicted for what he did here,’ Lion Village resident Aubrie Leen, 19, told DailyMail.com as she walked outside Jordan’s old off-campus apartment.
Even with the arrest, there was still some unease among students around campus.
Forshee said on Wednesday that some of his students have yet to return to classes, mostly because they’re finding it hard to cope with the loss.
‘Everybody really liked Sam,’ said Forshee, who taught him in several classes. ‘The one phrase I hear over and over again from people who knew him is that there wasn’t a mean bone in his body.
‘He was just a very outgoing, dynamic, present and very noticeable young guy who just seemed like he was going to have a terrific career in music,’ he added. ‘Music requires a lot of thick skin and good energy and he had both of those things.’
‘He was just a very outgoing, dynamic, present and very noticeable young guy who just seemed like he was going to have a terrific career in music,’ Knopp’s former teacher said
Knopp and Forshee spent three hours together Thursday afternoon into the evening in a studio at the Ent Center for the Arts, practicing a new musical composition Forshee wrote specifically for Knopp
They spent three hours together Thursday afternoon into the evening in a studio at the Ent Center for the Arts, practicing a new musical composition Forshee wrote specifically for Knopp.
During the session, he noted, Knopp asked that the work, originally called Fictions, be renamed Angeles Novus (New Angel). The new title was based on a painting of the same name by German artist Paul Klee.
Knopp, playing a nylon string guitar, had been practicing for weeks, planning to perform it for his senior recital in March. Now music students are considering performing the song as a tribute to Knopp this spring.
Earlier this week, Forshee said a Colorado Springs police detective reached out and interviewed him about the studio session and whether Knopp said anything that could be useful to the investigation.
Forshee shared what Knopp said about his plans to move out.
He told DailyMail.com that he’ll always cherish his final moments with Knopp, how they hugged when they parted and discussed plans to practice again the following week. But he still can’t help but second guess his own words and actions that evening.
‘I wish that after meeting with him, if I’d just taken him out, or maybe if we’d met for another hour,’ he said, shaking his head while sitting in the studio where they met.
‘You start to wonder what small continuation to the events leading up to that act could have prevented it or made Sam unavailable for it. That’s how close and present this felt, that my gosh, if I’d done something differently, could that have made a difference?’