Death toll in Columbine High School shooting increases nearly 26 years later with coroner's ruling
Published in News & Features
DENVER — Nearly 26 years later, the Columbine High School massacre officially claimed another life.
The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office, in a newly completed autopsy report, ruled last month’s death of Anne Marie Hochhalter, a 43-year-old paralyzed in the 1999 shooting, was a homicide.
Hochhalter died of sepsis, with complications from paraplegia due to two gunshot wounds serving as a “significant contributing factor,” Dr. Dawn B. Holmes, a forensic pathologist in the coroner’s office, wrote in the 13-page report.
Holmes’ ruling that “the manner of death is best classified as homicide,” means the death toll from the April 20, 1999, school shooting has increased to 13 students and one teacher. The two killers took their own lives.
Hochhalter, who died in her Westminster home on Feb. 16, was paralyzed after being shot in the back. She spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair with ongoing health issues. However, loved ones told The Denver Post after her death that despite her medical complications and grief, she never wanted to be portrayed as a victim.
Hochhalter lived a rich life surrounded by friends, loved ones and dogs. She advocated for the disability community and had an affinity for playing musical instruments.
“She was fiercely independent,” Sue Townsend, stepmother of 18-year-old Lauren Townsend, who died in the Columbine shooting, told The 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.”
The others killed at Columbine that day include Cassie Bernall, 17; Steve Curnow, 14; Corey DePooter, 17; Kelly Fleming, 16; Matt Kechter, 16; Daniel Mauser, 15; Daniel Rohrbough, 15; William “Dave” Sanders, 47; Rachel Scott, 17; Isaiah Shoels, 18; John Tomlin, 16; and Kyle Velasquez, 16.
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