Colorado mother charged with murder in 16-year-old daughter's death from chronic alcoholism

Shelly Bradbury, The Denver Post on Jun 3, 2026

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DENVER — 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.

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’s Office announced in a news release Wednesday.

The teenager died March 9 at the family’s 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’s bedroom and discovered that her mother frequently arranged for alcohol to be delivered to the house, according to the news release.

Gretchen Ryan “took steps to conceal” the teenager’s alcohol use from the girl’s father, who “primarily resided in the basement of the residence,” according to the news release. The mother and daughter often drank and used marijuana together, investigators found, and communicated almost daily about drinking alcohol.

Cellphone records show that Grace’s health suffered in the months before her death, according to the news release. In messages to her mother, the teen described “episodes of vomiting blood, difficulty eating, difficulty walking and the use of diapers due to symptoms associated with excessive alcohol consumption,” according to the news release.

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.

Court records that would further detail the allegations against Gretchen Ryan were not immediately available Wednesday.

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’s 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’s iPad near her body in a bathroom.

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 “had not participated in activities outside the home for several months” before her death.

The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office found Grace died from aspiration pneumonia related to chronic alcohol use, and classified her death as natural “due to the volitional component of the alcohol consumption,” according to the news release.

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.

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.

The girl’s father declined to comment Wednesday.

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