CO- Halloween party disruption puts college student in hospital

11-4-2008 Colorado:

DENVER - A hundred young adults, many of them college students, were gathering at a home on South Raleigh Street Friday evening to celebrate Halloween. But, sometime after midnight, a half-dozen strangers arrived.

Unlike the invited guests, they weren't wearing costumes.

"Nobody knew who they were," said Aaron Newell. "Everyone there, we knew, they were friends. But this group of people, no one knew."

Twenty-year-old Vince Boudrieu and some of his friends moved the strangers out into the yard, where fighting erupted.

Vince's girlfriend, Tess Diaz, said the scene was chaotic.

"We started to hear sirens, and a friend got me in her car," she told 9NEWS. "It was then that I realized Vince was no longer with us."

A neighbor reported seeing a man wearing a black shirt and light blue pants hitting Boudrieu with a metal bat.

Boudrieu is a student at the Colorado School of Mines. He was taken to Denver Health Medical Center, where he is listed in critical but stable condition.

His family said he has a cracked skull, bleeding from his ears, brain swelling and an irregular heart rhythm.

"I know he's going to be able to walk out of there," said his mother, Leslie Newell. "But brain damage, I'm afraid of. I don't know how long-term that's going to be."

Police say they have only vague descriptions of Boudrieu's assailants. They welcome any information about similar incidents with a group of strangers crashing Halloween parties Friday evening or early Saturday morning. ..News Source.. by John Fosholt