Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was shot in the back during the 1999 Columbine shooting, was found dead in her home Sunday, according to the Denver Post.
Sue Townsend, whose stepdaughter Lauren was killed in the shooting, formed a close relationship with Hochhalter after the shooting, which left 15 people dead. She and her husband told the Post that Hochhalter’s death appears to be from complications she suffered from the shooting.
“She was fiercely independent,” Sue Townsend told the newspaper. “She was a fighter. She’d get knocked down — she struggled a lot with health issues that stemmed from the shooting — but I’d watch her pull herself back up. She was her best advocate and an advocate for others who weren’t as strong in the disability community.”
Hochhalter was a 17-year-old junior at Columbine High School in Colorado eating lunch outside when one of the two gunmen shot her in the back. Hochhalter told People in 2004 that when she was first shot, she thought it was from a paintball gun.
“I was bleeding to death,” Hochhalter told People in 2004. “It didn’t look bad on the outside, but inside it felt wrong — it felt wet.”
The shooting left Hochhalter paralyzed and wheelchair-bound.
In 2016, Hochhalter wrote in a Facebook post that she holds no bitterness toward Sue Klebold, the mother of one of the shooters.
“It’s been a rough road for me, with many medical issues because of my spinal cord injury and intense nerve pain, but I choose not to be bitter towards you,” Hochhalter wrote. “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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School shootings have risen over the past 25 years, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and in 2024, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared gun violence to be a public health crisis.
If you or someone you know needs help, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org for mental health support. Additionally, you can find local mental health and crisis resources at dontcallthepolice.com. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention.