Relatives worry about missing woman after boyfriend's suicide

Police are searching for a 22-year-old woman whose boyfriend fatally shot himself inside the couple's apartment as officers arrived to check on her.

The gunshot rang out about 9:30 p.m. Monday as officers searching for Bekime "Becky" Elshani approached their home in the 6000 block of Twin Oaks Drive, near North Academy Boulevard in northwest Colorado Springs.

Inside was the body of 25-year-old Daniel Dereere, dead from an apparent selfinflicted gunshot wound, police said; his girlfriend was nowhere to be found.

According to family members, the officers were responding to a report that Dereere had threatened to shoot Elshani and himself, pushed to the breaking point by fears that she was seeing her ex-husband.

"I feel it in my bones my daughter is dead," Agim Elshani said through tears at his home in northwest Colorado Springs on Tuesday evening. "It's just a matter of time until someone spots her body, and that's it."

Police on Tuesday were circulating a photo of the woman in the hopes that she is alive and someone might spot her. They say they are not yet certain whether she was harmed.

"Hopefully, she's just alive and well somewhere and will return," said police spokesman Lt. Skip Arms. "But we don't know, and her family is concerned, and we want to get the word out to find her."

Elshani and Dereere met five or six years ago while working at a telephone call center in Colorado Springs. They dated off and on through the years, though Elshani became involved with another man, briefly marrying him, during a period when Dereere moved to Detroit.

Dereere returned to Colorado Springs, and he and Elshani moved in together about a year ago, though their relationship has been marked by violence.

Relatives said Elshani wanted to get a restraining order in October after a quarrel in which her boyfriend used a stun gun, shocking her as many as 20 times. There is no record she got the order, and the couple later reconciled.

Elshani told her ex-husband about Dereere's threat, and the ex-husband relayed that to police, her brother Bekim Elshani said.

Elshani is white, 5 feet 5 inches tall, 110 pounds, with blond hair and blue eyes. Anyone with information is urged to contact Colorado Springs police detective Pete Quick at 444-7557.