Loveland man gets life term for killing man serving divorce papers

By Monte Whaley
The Denver Post

Posted: 06/08/2009FORT COLLINS — A man who brutally beat a process server to death in May 2008 and then tried to kill his two young children was sentenced to life in prison today without possibility of parole after being called heartless and a monster by the victim's friends and family.

James Whitler also was sentenced to two consecutive 24-year-sentences for the attempted murder of his son, 11, and daughter, 13.

Larimer District Judge Daniel Kaup told Whitler he could have merely accepted the divorce papers from Stephen Allen on May 28, 200,8 and moved on with his life. But instead, Whitler beat Allen to death with a baseball bat and then tried to stab his daughter and strangle both children unconscious.

"This didn't have to end this way," Kaup told Whitler before passing sentence.

A Larimer County jury convicted Whitler last month of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. Whitler's lawyers argued that he "snapped" when he got his divorce papers and didn't plan to kill Allen.
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