Columbine survivor, paralyzed after shooting, dies 25 years after tragedy

Hochhalter was found in her home in suburban Denver on Sunday. Her family suspects she died of natural causes stemming from her injuries in the 1999 shooting,

Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was partially paralyzed in the Columbine High School shooting but found strength to forgive and to heal her soul after bonding with another family devastated by the tragedy, has died. She was 43.

Hochhalter was found in her home in suburban Denver on Sunday. Her family suspects she died of natural causes stemming from her injuries in the 1999 shooting in which 12 students and a teacher were killed.

The investigation into how she died has been transferred to the office that conducted the autopsies of those killed at Columbine, the coroner’s office for Adams and Broomfield counties said.

Hochhalter in 2016 wrote a letter to one of the gunmen’s mothers saying, “Bitterness is like swallowing a poison pill,” and offering her forgiveness. Attending a vigil on the tragedy’s 25th anniversary last year — after skipping a similar event five years earlier — she said she was flooded with happy memories from her childhood and wanted those killed remembered for how they lived, not how they died.

Hochhalter struggled with intense pain from her gunshot wounds over the past 25 years. Yet her brother said she was tireless in her drive to help others — from people with disabilities to rescue dogs and members of her family.

“She was helpful to a great many people. She was really a good human being and sister,” her brother, Nathan Hochhalter, said Tuesday.

Her own tragedy was compounded six months after the shooting, when her mother, Carla Hochhalter, went into a pawnshop, and asked to look at a gun before using it on herself.

In the wake of her mother’s death, Anne Marie Hochhalter was embraced by another family who lost a daughter at Columbine.