{"id":1208,"date":"2026-06-04T04:05:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=1208"},"modified":"2026-06-04T04:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:05:14","slug":"colorado-mother-charged-with-murder-in-16-year-old-daughters-death-from-chronic-alcoholism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=1208","title":{"rendered":"Colorado mother charged with murder in 16-year-old daughter\u2019s death from chronic alcoholism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Colorado mother is charged with murder in the death of her 16-year-old daughter after investigators say the woman encouraged the teen\u2019s alcoholism and failed to seek help even when the girl\u2019s health plummeted to the point she had trouble walking before her March death.<\/p>\n

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Gretchen Ryan, 55, was charged with second-degree murder in mid-May in the death of her 16-year-old daughter, Grace Ryan, the First Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office announced in a news release Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The teenager died March 9 at the family\u2019s Arvada home in the 6400 block of West 85th Avenue, according to the news release. Investigators found 173 empty bottles of alcohol hidden in the girl\u2019s bedroom and discovered that her mother frequently arranged for alcohol to be delivered to the house, according to the news release.<\/p>\n

Gretchen Ryan \u201ctook steps to conceal\u201d the teenager\u2019s alcohol use from the girl\u2019s father, who \u201cprimarily resided in the basement of the residence,\u201d according to the news release. The mother and daughter often drank and used marijuana together, investigators found, and communicated almost daily about drinking alcohol.<\/p>\n

Cellphone records show that Grace\u2019s health suffered in the months before her death, according to the news release. In messages to her mother, the teen described \u201cepisodes of vomiting blood, difficulty eating, difficulty walking and the use of diapers due to symptoms associated with excessive alcohol consumption,\u201d according to the news release.<\/p>\n

The 16-year-old told her mother she was afraid she was going to die and asked for help, according to the news release, which does not say whether Gretchen Ryan took any steps to seek medical attention for her daughter.<\/p>\n

Court records that would further detail the allegations against Gretchen Ryan were not immediately available Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Grace sent a message to her mother from her iPad at 10:07 p.m. on March 8, according to the news release. Gretchen Ryan\u2019s responses to that message went unanswered. No one called 911 until 8:15 a.m. the next day, according to the news release. First responders found the girl\u2019s iPad near her body in a bathroom.<\/p>\n

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The teenager had been pulled from public high school in April 2025 and had been attending online school, according to the news release, which said she \u201chad not participated in activities outside the home for several months\u201d before her death.<\/p>\n

The Jefferson County Coroner\u2019s Office found Grace died from aspiration pneumonia related to chronic alcohol use, and classified her death as natural \u201cdue to the volitional component of the alcohol consumption,\u201d according to the news release.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors charged Gretchen Ryan with second-degree murder on May 15. She is being held in the Jefferson County Jail on a $500,000 cash-only bail and is next due in court June 17.<\/p>\n

She is represented by the Colorado Office of the State Public Defender, whose attorneys, as a matter of policy, do not comment on individual cases. A spokesman for the office did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Gretchen Ryan has almost no prior criminal history in Colorado, according to court records and records kept by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Officers with the Northglenn Police Department cited her for driving under the influence in 1993, when she was 22, CBI records show. It was not immediately clear how that decades-old case was resolved.<\/p>\n

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The girl\u2019s father declined to comment Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Gretchen Ryan, a Colorado mother, is charged with murder in the death of her 16-year-old daughter after investigators say the woman encouraged the teen’s alcoholism and failed to seek help even when her health plummeted to the point she had trouble walking before her March death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-and-public-safety","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nColorado mother charged with murder in 16-year-old daughter\u2019s death from chronic alcoholism - Colorado Springs Moverss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=1208\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Colorado mother charged with murder in 16-year-old daughter\u2019s death from chronic alcoholism - 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