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New York Times
13-03-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Death Toll in 1999 Columbine School Shooting Climbs to 14 With Homicide Ruling
For more than a quarter of a century, the death toll in the Columbine High School mass shooting, a statistic intertwined with the gun violence epidemic in the United States, stood at 13 victims. But another name has now been added to the list: Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was a student at the time and was paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the shooting. Her death on Feb. 16 has been officially classified by a coroner in Colorado as a homicide, bringing the number of victims to 14. In a 13-page autopsy report, Dr. Dawn B. Holmes, a forensic pathologist with the Jefferson County coroner's office, linked Ms. Hochhalter's death to the injuries that she suffered as a 17-year-old high school junior. 'Complications of paraplegia due to two (2) gunshot wounds are a significant contributing factor,' Dr. Holmes wrote. The report, which was obtained on Thursday by The New York Times, said that Ms. Hochhalter had died from sepsis, an extreme immune response to an infection. Twelve students and a teacher were killed when two heavily armed students opened fire at the school in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999, before taking their own lives. At the time, it was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. It also left 21 other people wounded. Ms. Hochhalter was eating lunch with friends when the gunfire erupted. She was hit twice, in the chest and the back. Despite experiencing a lifetime of medical challenges as a result of her injuries and having to use a wheelchair, Ms. Hochhalter maintained her independence and spoke often about gun violence. Her brother, Nathan, who was a freshman at Columbine at the time of the shooting but was not injured, said on Thursday that it made no sense to include his sister among the other people who were killed that day. 'She got an extra 26 years,' Mr. Hochhalter said. 'She was very independent, but it was not an easy 26 years.' Mr. Hochhalter, 40, said that his sister had considered herself a survivor instead of a victim: She was able to drive, go to the store and attend school and lived by herself for a number of years. Police officers discovered Ms. Hochhalter's body at her home in Westminster, Colo., on Feb. 16 while conducting a welfare check. Sue Townsend, who became close to Ms. Hochhalter after her stepdaughter, Lauren Townsend, was killed in the shooting, told The Times last month that Ms. Hochhalter had been dealing with lingering effects from her injuries, including a pressure sore and an infection. Over the years, the trauma manifested itself on a multitude of levels for Ms. Hochhalter and her brother. Six months after the shooting, their mother, Carla June Hochhalter, walked into a pawnshop, asked to see a gun, loaded it and killed herself. The elder Ms. Hochhalter, 48, had been struggling with depression and other mental health issues before the Columbine shooting, her daughter later said. In 2016, when Sue Klebold, the mother of one of the Columbine shooters, released a memoir, 'A Mother's Reckoning,' Ms. Hochhalter wrote a note addressed to Ms. Klebold on Facebook saying that she harbored no ill will. 'Just as I wouldn't want to be judged by the sins of my family members, I hold you in that same regard,' Ms. Hochhalter wrote. 'It's been a rough road for me, with many medical issues because of my spinal cord injury and intense nerve pain, but I choose not to be bitter towards you. A good friend once told me, 'Bitterness is like swallowing a poison pill and expecting the other person to die.' It only harms yourself. I have forgiven you and only wish you the best.'
NBC News
13-03-2025
- Health
- NBC News
Paralyzed Columbine survivor's death ruled a homicide 26 years after school massacre
The Columbine killers have claimed another victim. Nearly 26 years after two troubled Colorado teenagers barged into Columbine High School and opened fire, killing a dozen classmates and a teacher, one of the students left wounded by their barrage of bullets has died from the injuries she sustained on that April 20, 1999, the Jefferson County Coroner's Office reported. Anne Marie Hochhalter, 43, died of sepsis on Feb. 16 and the two gunshot wounds that left her paralyzed were a "significant contributing factor" in her death, Dr. Dawn B. Holmes, a forensic pathologist, wrote in a 13-page report released March 1. 'The manner of death is best classified as homicide,' Holmes wrote. With Hochhalter's passing, the death toll now stands at 14. That total does not include the shooters, Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18, who killed themselves before police could arrest them. Hochhalter, then a 17-year-old junior, was eating lunch with friends when she was shot in the chest and back, suffering wounds that left her paralyzed from the waist down and in chronic pain for the rest of her life. Six months later, Hochhalter suffered another loss from which she never completely recovered when her mother, Carla June Hochhalter, who had been struggling with depression, walked into a pawnshop and killed herself with a loaded gun that she had been inspecting. Leaning on her faith and on friendships forged in the wake of Columbine, Hochhalter devoted her life to supporting other victims of mass shootings. 'She was fiercely independent,' Sue Townsend, stepmother of Columbine shooting victim Lauren Townsend told The Denver Post last month. 'She was a fighter. She'd get knocked down — she struggled a lot with health issues that stemmed from the shooting — but I'd watch her pull herself back up. She was her best advocate and an advocate for others who weren't as strong in the disability community.' In 2016, Hochhalter found it in her heart to reach out with forgiveness to Klebold's mother, Sue Klebold, after she published a memoir about raising a mass killer called "A Mother's Reckoning." 'Just as I wouldn't want to be judged by the sins of my family members, I hold you in that same regard,' Hochhalter wrote. 'It's been a rough road for me, with many medical issues because of my spinal cord injury and intense nerve pain, but I choose not to be bitter towards you." The mass killing at Columbine put a previously obscure Denver suburb called Littleton on the nation's radar, and images of heavily armed SWAT teams descending on the school and the sight of students filing out with their hands up were burned into the national consciousness. 'Columbine played out on TV,' Bruce Beck, who was Lauren Townsend's stepfather, told NBC News in 2019 on the 20th anniversary of the massacre. 'No previous school shooting had done that. There was the unknown of where the shooters were during the entire time that it was being filmed, so I think people connected with Columbine more.' The others killed at Columbine that day were teacher William "Dave" Sanders, 47, and students Cassie Bernall, 17, Steve Curnow, 14, Corey DePooter, 17, Kelly Fleming, 16, Matt Kechter, 16, Daniel Mauser, 15, Daniel Rohrbough, 15, Rachel Scott, 17, Isaiah Shoels, 18, John Tomlin, 16, and Kyle Velasquez, 16. Sadly, the Columbine massacre also set a tragic template for the school shootings that followed. The Washington Post, using law enforcement reports, news articles and various databases, has calculated that as of Thursday, more than 394,000 students 'have experienced gun violence at school' since Columbine.
The Guardian
19-02-2025
- The Guardian
Columbine shooting survivor dies 26 years after being paralyzed in massacre
A former Columbine high school student who only narrowly survived the deadly 1999 mass shooting there – and subsequently spent nearly three decades grappling with complications from her wounds in the attack – has died. Anne Marie Hochhalter, 44, died on Sunday from what were described as natural causes, according to a statement from the principal at Columbine when the shooting at the Colorado school occurred. Frank De Angelis's statement, as reported by Colorado's Denver Gazette, called Hochhalter 'a pillar of strength for … so many' after she fostered a love of dogs and music despite having to live in a wheelchair after the shooting. 'She was an inspiration and exemplified never giving up,' he added in the statement. Hochhalter, then 17 and a clarinet player, was eating lunch at the cafeteria when she was shot in her back and chest with a semiautomatic pistol on the day of the Columbine shooting. She was among the most grievously wounded of more than 20 people who were injured during the attack, which killed 12 of her schoolmates as well as one teacher. The two shooters – who were students – then died by suicide in what remains one of the deadliest school shootings in the US's ignominious history of such cases. Surgeons managed to save Hochhalter's life. But, as the Denver Post reported, her wounds left her paralyzed – and they were not the only traumatic ordeal she was confronted with that year. Six months after the shooting, her mother, Carla Hochhalter, walked into a local pawn shop, asked to see a gun and used it to take her own life. The Denver Post recounted how the younger Hochhalter prioritized living as normal a life as possible amid the media frenzy surrounding the killings at Columbine, which came during one of more than 400 school shootings between then and the day she died. She lived independently at a handicap-accessible home, showering her love on her dogs and friends. Beside the clarinet, she also loved playing the harp, piano and guitar, her brother, Nathan Hochhalter, said to the Post. 'She never wanted to be called a victim,' Anne Marie Hochhalter's close friend Sue Townsend – whose stepdaughter, Lauren Townsend, was killed at Columbine – told the Denver Gazette. 'She considered herself a survivor.' Sue Townsend told the Post that she believed Hochhalter ultimately died from complications associated with medical ailments stemming from her injuries in the Columbine shooting. But, in her remarks, Townsend suggested that Hochhalter never stopped battling to overcome the devastation that 1999 had inflicted on her. For instance, when the mother of one of the Columbine shooters published a book in 2016, Hochhalter wrote the author a letter saying she held no recriminations for her, as the Post reported. 'It's been a rough road for me, with many medical issues because of my spinal cord injury and intense nerve pain, but I choose not to be bitter towards you,' Hochhalter wrote to Sue Klebold, whose book was titled A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy. 'A good friend once told me, 'Bitterness is like swallowing a poison pill and expecting the other person to die.' It only harms yourself. I have forgiven you and wish you the best.' Hochhalter further elaborated on those sentiments in two social media posts, which she published on successive Aprils in 2023 and 2024 – the 24th and 25th anniversaries of the Columbine shooting, respectively. 'Why did I survive and so many others didn't that horrific day?' she wrote in April 2023, as the Gazette noted. 'I think of that often, and I've tried to live the best life possible in honor of the 12 students and one teacher we lost 24 years ago.' A year later, Hochhalter wrote: 'I've truly been able to heal my soul since that awful day in 1999.'
New York Times
18-02-2025
- New York Times
Anne Marie Hochhalter, Paralyzed in Columbine Shooting, Dies at 43
Anne Marie Hochhalter, who spoke publicly about the long-lasting effects of gun violence after she was paralyzed in the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, was found dead on Sunday at her home in Westminster, Colo. She was 43. The police said that officers had found Ms. Hochhalter after they were called for a welfare check. The Jefferson County Coroner's Office said on Tuesday that autopsy results were not yet available. Sue Townsend, who became close to Ms. Hochhalter after her stepdaughter, Lauren Townsend, was killed in the shooting, said that Ms. Hochhalter had been dealing with lingering effects from her injuries, including a pressure sore and an infection. Ms. Hochhalter was eating lunch with friends when two students opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999, killing 12 other students and a teacher before fatally shooting themselves. Ms. Hochhalter, a junior who was 17, was shot twice — once in the chest and once in the back — and was paralyzed from the waist down. Her brother, Nathan Hochhalter, who was a freshman at Columbine, was trapped in the school for hours until a SWAT team arrived. Six months after the shooting, their mother, Carla June Hochhalter, walked into a pawnshop, asked to see a gun, loaded it and killed herself. The elder Ms. Hochhalter, 48, had been struggling with depression and other mental health issues before the Columbine shooting, her daughter later said. But her death was 'very much harder than what happened at Columbine,' Ms. Hochhalter told U.S. News & World Report in 2009. 'It shocked me because, you know, I was injured by a gun and the fact that, you know, she committed suicide with one was very hard to understand.' As Ms. Hochhalter dealt with loss of her mother, she leaned on her faith to help her rebuild her life, emotionally and physically, she said. She became 'fiercely independent' and learned to maneuver in a wheelchair, to drive and to live by herself, Ms. Townsend said. 'She told me, 'I can do anything you can do, it just takes me longer,'' said Ms. Townsend, who said she and her husband, Rick, had considered Ms. Hochhalter 'our acquired daughter.' After initially offering to help the family with Ms. Hochhalter's medical appointments, the Townsends formed a lifelong bond with her, spending holidays with her and taking her to Hawaii on a vacation, where she went into the ocean for the first time. 'She never thought of herself as a victim,' Rick Townsend said. 'She identified as a survivor.' In 2016, when Sue Klebold, the mother of one of the Columbine shooters, released a memoir, 'A Mother's Reckoning,' Ms. Hochhalter wrote a note addressed to Ms. Klebold on Facebook, saying she felt no ill will toward her. 'Just as I wouldn't want to be judged by the sins of my family members, I hold you in that same regard,' Ms. Hochhalter wrote. 'It's been a rough road for me, with many medical issues because of my spinal cord injury and intense nerve pain, but I choose not to be bitter towards you. A good friend once told me, 'Bitterness is like swallowing a poison pill and expecting the other person to die.' It only harms yourself. I have forgiven you and only wish you the best.' Ms. Hochhalter worked for a time at Bath & Body Works and counseled other people with disabilities, Ms. Townsend said. She also supported other victims of gun violence. In 2012, she attended a vigil after a gunman killed 12 people inside an Aurora, Colo., movie theater. Her message to survivors: 'It does get better. But it never goes away,' she told The Associated Press. As she dealt with chronic pain, she was often reminded of the lingering effects of the Columbine shooting. Once, when checking out at a grocery store, a cashier asked her bluntly why she was in a wheelchair. Ms. Hochhalter responded just as bluntly that she had been one of the students injured in the Columbine shooting. Then a man behind her in line said he had been part of a SWAT team that was not allowed to enter the school until hours after the shooting. He told her he was sorry he had not been able to get to her sooner. 'And I was able to tell him, 'It's OK,'' she told U.S. News & World Report in 2009. ''No one blames you; I don't blame you.' It was one of the greatest moments of my life.'
