Something about the company kept by the petite teenager with the blonde curls didn’t sit right with a man bicycling by in Boulder.
Things looked so wrong that Jud Valeski did a U-turn and took a cellphone video of Zaria Hardee. Just in case, he thought. In a screenshot photo from that footage, she leaned into an older man who appeared to be sleeping as they sat on a discarded cushion next to a shopping cart.
The image was taken at 7:30 a.m. on July 5 underneath Junction Place on Goose Creek Path in Boulder. It shows Zaria wide awake, an aluminum foil package in her hand.
“She was a clean young girl in a transient encampment. It was clear she hadn’t been totally consumed by the transient lifestyle, if you can call it that,” said Valeski, who called 911 in hopes of interrupting what he thought might be an eventual downward spiral. “Here’s someone who clearly still had a chance.”
Others reported seeing Zaria hanging out on the Pearl Street Mall.
“It took me back. She was obviously homeless but she looked so young. Like she should have been in class at Boulder High,” said Boulder’s Shari Roth.