Nampa man, described as ‘monster,’ sentenced for trying to kill family
After committing violent crimes targeting his family, a Nampa man was sentenced this week, and Daniel Colon’s wife told the court that he “would rather see individuals dead than happy.”
Colon, 40, detonated an explosive device in his wife’s vehicle in April 2024, and also set fire to their home while their five children were asleep inside. A Canyon County jury found him guilty of 11 felony and misdemeanor counts, including attempted murder, domestic battery, aggravated arson and injury to a child.
On Wednesday in 3rd District Court in Canyon County, Judge Jonathan Brody handed Colon a life sentence, but he will be eligible for parole after spending 25 years in prison. Prosecutors had asked for no parole eligibility, and his wife said in court that he should receive the maximum possible sentence to ensure others’ safety.
“He has crafted the perfect mask,” Tania Colon told the courtroom, as she detailed instances of abuse. “He knows exactly what he is doing.”
Idaho man’s premeditated plan to harm his family
On April 22, 2024, the Nampa Police Department was dispatched to a structure fire. A neighbor who called the police said a man blew up a car and the garage was now in flames.
The probable cause affidavit said that when police arrived, they found Colon lying naked in the front yard and his wife running out of the house with her two oldest children, after taking her three youngest to the neighbor’s house.
Police who responded said Colon told them the fire was an accident — that he he had lit a cigarette in the garage near a can of gasoline. His wife told police she was afraid of her husband and asked them to keep him from coming back to the home, and described a much different incident.
Her statement to Nampa police was that Colon started abusing her physically in December 2023, and that he also used their children’s phones to track her and record her conversations, police said.
Tania Colon told Nampa officers that she and her husband were in an argument that night, and he became increasingly upset, threatening to kill her, the children and himself, according to the affidavit. She tried to call 911, but he pushed her to the ground and tried to strangle her, she told police.
She was able to get away, and he then went to her car, where he set off the alarm and then held what she described as a small black cylinder that looked like a propane tank; police said she told them that he pulled something from the cylinder and flames erupted.
The affidavit said that after igniting the device, he ran back into the house, “catching everything on fire.”
Prosecutor describes a ‘monster behind closed doors’
Deputy Canyon County Prosecutor Tracy Stoff requested a life sentence without the possibility of parole, according to a release from the Canyon County Prosecutor’s Office. She said Colon was calculated and premeditated in his actions and crimes.
“The defendant was thoughtful and meticulous as he planned the murder of his family,” Stoff said in the press release. “We know that the defendant is a monster behind closed doors.”
Brody cited the severity of the crimes and the danger that Colon posed to the community when handing down the sentence, while also issuing a no-contact order for 75 years.
The judge described the defendant as exhibiting a “classic, severe domestic violence pattern of thinking,” according to the Canyon County release.
