DENVER -- The death of a woman who was partially paralyzed in the Columbine High School shooting was ruled a homicide, raising the death toll of the 1999 attack to 14.
Anne Marie Hochhalter died Feb. 16 of sepsis -- a reaction to infection -- and complications from her paralysis were a "significant contributing factor" in her death, the Jefferson County Coroner's Office said in an autopsy report obtained Thursday. She was 43.
Her family and friends suspected her death was because of natural causes related to her injuries in the shooting, in which two student gunmen killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.
Because of the role her paralysis was suspected of playing in her death, the investigation was transferred to the office that also reviewed the deaths in the school shooting.
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Hochhalter struggled with intense pain from her gunshot wounds in the years following the shooting, but fought hard to to overcome the complications of her injuries and remain positive, relatives and friends said. She was tireless in her drive to help others, including people with disabilities and members of her family, and she loved dogs, they said.
Hochhalter chose to forgive the mother of one of the gunmen, writing in a 2016 letter to Sue Klebold: "'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."
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Hochhalter's own tragedy was compounded six months after the shooting, when her mother, Carla Hochhalter, died by suicide. Anne Marie Hochhalter said her mother suffered from depression and did not believe the shootings were directly to blame for her mother's death.
After her mother's passing, she became the "acquired daughter" of another family that lost a child, Lauren Townsend, in the Columbine shooting.
Townsend's stepmother, Sue Townsend, reached out to help Hochhalter as a way to cope with her own grief. Eventually, Hochhalter joined the family for dinners and on vacations.
Hochhalter attended a vigil marking the 25th anniversary of the shooting last year, after skipping a similar event five years earlier because of post-traumatic stress disorder, she said in a social media post.
This time she said she was flooded with happy memories from her childhood and said she wanted those killed to be remembered for how they lived, not how they died.
"I've truly been able to heal my soul since that awful day in 1999," she wrote.
A look at some of America's deadliest school shootings Intro
Until the massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School in 1999, the number of dead in U.S. school shootings tended to be in the single digits. Since then, the number of shootings that included schools and killed 10 or more people has mounted. The most recent two were both in Texas. In May 2022, an 18-year-old attacker killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. In May 2018, a 17-year-old killed 10 people at Santa Fe High School near Houston. Most of the victims were students.
Columbine High School, April 1999 Red Lake High School, March 2005 Virginia Tech, April 2007 Sandy Hook Elementary School, December 2012 Umpqua Community College, October 2015 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, February 2018 Santa Fe High School, May 2018 Robb Elementary School, May 2022 Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
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