In a record year for deaths of homeless people in Denver, the small glass bottle containing a printout of a man's heartbeat reminds Elisabeth Francis about the toll. The man died this year and was remembered Thursday night at Denver's annual vigil, which listed 311 people in the memorial program.
The Colorado Coalition of the Homeless organized the 34th annual Homeless Persons' Memorial Vigil Thursday at the Denver City and County Building, and people remembered some who died.
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Remembering one of them: Todd “Apache” Ham, an exacting artist who supported his friends.
Stacy Neill holds a photo of her and her late partner, Todd Ham, in front of The Fourth Quarter apartments in Whittier. Dec. 17, 2020. Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite Dec. 21, 2020, 8:22 a.m.
On what would have been her late partner’s 49th birthday, Stacy Neill headed to a stretch of the Cherry Creek Trail where she used to help him collect fallen branches. He would transform them into walking sticks embellished with feathers, beads, strips of leather and scorch marks.
Neill sat on a bench where she and Todd Ham would have rested and used her phone to play some of his favorite music. Ham, who was known as “Apache,” loved Metallica, Guns N’ Roses and Mötley Crüe, Neill said, laughing. She’s more of an Elvis fan.