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Eagle bar will close earlier, beef up security in wake of Monday attack on bartender

Randy Wyrick / Vail Daily

EAGLE — Locals have poured out compassion and cash for a woman who was severely beaten early Monday morning.

Dita Richterova was the only one working in Eagle’s Brush Creek Saloon at 1:18 a.m. Monday, when security video shows her being savagely beaten allegedly by Pedro Gonzalez, 34, the only patron in the bar at closing time, according to the arrest affidavit.

Locals started a fund at the Brush Creek Saloon, as well as a GoFundMe page.

Richterova saved herself, Eagle Police said.

“It appeared that if (the female bartender) had not escaped the violent, continuous and deliberate assault, she would have been killed,” said the arrest affidavit from the Eagle Police Department.

Richterova has been released from the hospital.

SUSPECT APPREHENDED

Gonzalez was caught five hours after he allegedly beat Richterova. He was renting a room up the street from the Brush Creek Saloon, and after canvassing the area, Eagle police found him in his bedroom.

Security video of the beating shows Gonzalez allegedly following Richterova with a beer bottle in his right hand. He started beating the left side of her head with it and then with his fists, the affidavit said.

Richterova defended herself as best she could, but Gonzalez continued to beat her, throwing her around and at one point banging her head on a sink, the affidavit said.

Richterova forced Gonzalez off of her and ran out of the bar. At 1:25 a.m., seven minutes after the beating began, she called police from a neighboring apartment to which she had escaped, the arrest affidavit said.

In the wake of Monday’s incident, Brush Creek Saloon managers said Tuesday they would cut their hours back to midnight several nights a week and that security guards would be on site.

Gonzalez remains in the Eagle County jail on $500,000 bond, booked for attempted first-degree murder, punishable by up to 48 years in prison, and first-degree assault, punishable by up to 24 years in prison.

He’s back in court at 9 a.m. Aug. 29.

Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 and rwyrick@vaildaily.com.


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