GUNNISON — In the hours before he apparently committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree on a moonless, frigid night, Dammion Heard was busy. He was making plans that had nothing to do with death.

The 20-year-old Western State Colorado University standout wrestler made arrangements with a friend to share an off-campus apartment next semester. He talked on the phone with his father, Gary, in Fort Worth, Texas, about the hike he planned to take the next day, about how his knee-injury rehabilitation was coming along and about a party he would be attending that evening with other wrestlers.

Dammion went to that party and got into several altercations with other students because he thought they were treating a girl poorly, friends later told his father. He might have been only 5-feet-7 and less than 130 pounds, but he was known as the protector type.

After he left that party, Dammion filled the tank of his black Saturn with $25 in gas shortly after 1:30 a.m. He texted a female classmate and asked her to meet up with him in his dorm. The texts back and forth were flirty.

Then, nothing.

He didn’t show up for that meeting. He was absent from classes and meals. He didn’t respond to his father’s texts: “What’s going on?” “Give me a shout.”

Four days later, his body was found hanging from a lone tree in a brushy rock outcropping in an otherwise bare area just off U.S. 50 about 7 miles east of Gunnison. His vehicle, with its Texas plates, was parked within sight of the highway.

An autopsy showed Dammion had been dead since about the early-morning hours of March 30, when he disappeared. The autopsy showed he died from strangulation.

“He hung himself,” Gary Heard recalled being told by Gunnison police officers and the Gunnison County coroner shortly after his son’s body was found. He said they reiterated that in later conversations after Heard made the 13-hour drive from Fort Worth to Gunnison to look into his son’s death.

Gunnison authorities say they haven’t determined it was suicide. Detective Chris Danos said they aren’t releasing any records or information related to the case because the investigation is ongoing.

The Gunnison Police Department released only one paragraph when Dammion’s body was found more than three weeks ago. It said the investigation was ongoing and that “no suspects are being pursued at this time.”

Gary Heard didn’t believe then that his son committed suicide. He believes it less now.

Seeking evidence

Heard admits it is only natural for a parent to have difficulty accepting that a child would take his own life. But Heard said he is a realist: He would accept it — if there was evidence that pointed to suicide over foul play.

Instead, after weeks of sifting through information surrounding his son’s last days and his death, examining what was done and not done by investigators and interviewing friends and acquaintances, Heard is pouring tens of thousands of dollars into a private investigation to do what he said authorities in Gunnison failed to do.

He has commissioned a private autopsy and toxicology tests. He has hired one of Colorado’s most high-profile attorneys, Pamela Mackey, to handle lawsuits he intends to file and to use her own team of investigators. He has established a reward of $25,600 for any information that might lead to an arrest and conviction in his son’s death. He has created a tribute and information-seeking website.

“My son didn’t know the word ‘quit.’ So I have to suck it up and carry on with that same no-quit attitude my son had,” he said.

That attitude had been on display in Texas, where the scrappy “shrimp,” as one friend referred to Dammion, had been wrestling since he was 4 years old.

“He wrestled like a kamikaze,” said Rod Mondragon, who coached Dammion in elementary school.

Dammion won the 2013 state wrestling championship title in the 113-pound class as a high school senior in Texas. He had come to Western State on a scholarship and had helped the Mountaineers to their claim on a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference championship this past season.

He was popular in the small town of Gunnison, where he was nearing the end of his first year as a petroleum geology major. A memorial service at the university was packed with friends. Dozens of them expressed shock and offered condolences on an online tribute page set up by the university.

But authorities in this town of 5,800 have been silent on the subject of Dammion Heard, frustrating even the hometown media’s attempt to get more. In an editorial this week, the Gunnison Country Times called on authorities to tell the public more about a case that is “complex and mystifying.”

In the absence of answers, Gary Heard has been carrying on his own investigation, and he said he has been ahead of authorities on most steps. He said he believes the Gunnison Police Department quickly concluded his son’s death was suicide and thus didn’t do normal investigatory work.

Heard said in his discussions with police that he learned the scene was not examined for tracks or footprints. His son’s cellphone records were not looked at until he did it himself. Those who had been texting with Dammion, including the girl he planned to meet and others at the party, told Heard they were not interviewed by police before Heard talked to them.

The only authorities who could be reached by The Denver Post, Danos and Frank Vader, a longtime rancher and Gunnison County coroner, said they couldn’t talk about the case because it is still being investigated and they are awaiting the results of the autopsy and toxicology tests.

“We still have witnesses to do and all,” Vader said.

Changing stories

Some of those witnesses have changed their stories about fights at the party before Dammion died. They initially told his father it was a verbal altercation. Later, some said it was physical. Some said they saw Dammion being dragged into a laundry room in a neck hold.

That has Heard asking many questions: Did his son go back to the party after he got gas? Was his son accidentally killed during a fight?

Was his body quickly hanged from the tree to cover up how he really died?

Mackey will be trying to help answer those questions. She said she was just hired by Heard, so it is too early for her to say much about the case. She said she is concerned that authorities may have concluded suicide and overlooked any other possibilities.

“That is certainly the concern — that a conclusion could have been jumped to,” she said.

Heard said if someone can show him any evidence that would support that his son died by his own hand, he will accept that.

“I know in my heart and with every ounce of my being that he did not do this,” he said. “I also know I’m trying to suppress the sadness of losing my son. I’m running on pure anger right now. I’ll be honest about that.”

Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957, nlofholm@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/nlofholm