{"id":1258,"date":"2026-06-05T08:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T08:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2026-06-05T08:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T08:03:18","slug":"colorado-mother-told-police-i-feel-like-i-killed-her-after-alcoholic-teen-daughters-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=1258","title":{"rendered":"Colorado mother told police \u2018I feel like I killed her\u2019 after alcoholic teen daughter\u2019s death"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Five days before 16-year-old Grace Ryan died, she begged her mother for help.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in so much pain I can\u2019t keep doing this. Do something,\u201d the girl messaged her mother, according to an Arvada Police Department arrest affidavit released Thursday.<\/p>\n

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Gretchen Ryan, 55, dismissed her daughter\u2019s concerns. She is now charged with second-degree murder in Grace\u2019s death after investigators found she enabled and encouraged her daughter\u2019s alcoholism even when Grace\u2019s health plummeted to the point that the teenager vomited blood and became incontinent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to do this to me you need to take me to a hospital,\u201d the girl wrote during a text-message exchange with her mother shortly after 4 p.m. on March 4, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did you ask me to get more?\u201d her mother responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna die,\u201d the teenager said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo you aren\u2019t,\u201d her mother answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not doing it,\u201d Grace wrote.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t drink anymore. Just smoke weed,\u201d Gretchen Ryan responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cCall 911,\u201d Grace wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeriously?\u201d her mother said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what else to do,\u201d the girl answered.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cYou are going to breathe and stop drinking,\u201d Gretchen Ryan responded. \u201cAre you throwing up?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou won\u2019t do anything,\u201d Grace wrote. \u201cI\u2019m in so much pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 16-year-old girl died March 9 at her home in Arvada. In her obituary, she is remembered as enjoying music, art, church, pets and friends. She hoped to become a social worker, according to the obituary.<\/p>\n

In interviews with police, Gretchen Ryan repeatedly said she caused her daughter\u2019s death, according to the 25-page affidavit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I killed her,\u201d the woman said.<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old mother, who described herself as an alcoholic, repeated that sentiment several times before and after the teenager\u2019s death, according to the records, even as she ensured her daughter had a heavy supply of available alcohol and worked with the teenager to hide both of their drinking habits from Grace\u2019s father.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m committing child abuse and murder,\u201d Gretchen Ryan messaged her daughter in a string of unanswered texts in January. \u201cAnd I will go to prison. So we have to do something it is really bad. Do you understand? Vomiting blood is a really bad sign. Look it up. I probably should tell (redacted) and take you to the hospital. Are you reading these? Hello!!!\u2019nnm Respond!!!!!!!!!! Do you want to die? If (redacted) saw you he\u2019d freak out. Quit ignoring me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other messages, Gretchen Ryan said she \u201ctried to be the cool (redacted) and (expletived) up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Both mother and daughter consumed about a bottle of vodka a day each, according to the affidavit. Gretchen Ryan frequently ordered the liquor to be delivered to the family\u2019s home, and the pair worked together to hide the severity of their drinking from Grace\u2019s father, using a backpack to secretly move bottles of alcohol through the house, and hiding bottles for each other in a bathroom.<\/p>\n

Grace\u2019s father told investigators he\u2019d only discovered his daughter drinking on two occasions, and that he\u2019d confiscated the alcohol. The father declined to comment when reached by The Denver Post on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In November, Grace messaged her mother to say that her father discovered some of her drinking. Gretchen instructed her daughter on what lies to tell to explain away the alcohol bottle, and Grace reassured her mother that her father did not know how often or how much she drank, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Gretchen Ryan estimated that her daughter drank to the point of vomiting at least once a week.<\/p>\n

On March 3, Grace texted a friend and said she\u2019d been an alcoholic for a year but wanted to get sober.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never wanted to be like this,\u201d the teenager wrote to her friend, before expressing fear that her mother would be sent to prison. \u201cI don\u2019t think she wants me to get help which is what really scares me\u2026 I\u2019m gonna die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investigators later found 173 empty bottles of alcohol hidden in the teenager\u2019s bedroom, according to the affidavit. The messages reviewed by investigators show the teenager often had to drink alcohol to avoid withdrawal. Her mother pulled her from public school in the fall of 2025 and enrolled the teenager in an online school.<\/p>\n

On the night that Grace died, Gretchen told police she heard the girl fall in the bathroom and checked on her. She rolled Grace on her side but believed Grace was experiencing a seizure and would recover. She said Grace woke up and asked her to leave the bathroom. She checked on the girl one more time before going to bed, the woman said.<\/p>\n

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She messaged her daughter at 9:52 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing ok?\u201d Gretchen Ryan wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cPplplplease\u201d her daughter wrote back at 10:07 p.m.<\/p>\n

That was the last message Grace ever sent.<\/p>\n

Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gretchen Ryan, 55, is charged with second-degree murder in Grace Ryan’s death after investigators found she enabled and encouraged her daughter’s alcoholism even when Grace’s health plummeted to the point the teenager vomited blood and became incontinent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courts","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nColorado mother told police \u2018I feel like I killed her\u2019 after alcoholic teen daughter\u2019s death - 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=1258\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Colorado mother told police \u2018I feel like I killed her\u2019 after alcoholic teen daughter\u2019s death - 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