For more than a quarter of a century, the death toll in the Columbine High School mass shooting, a statistic intertwined with the gun violence epidemic in the United States, stood at 13 victims.
But another name has now been added to the list: Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was a student at the time and was paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the shooting. Her death on Feb. 16 has been officially classified by a coroner in Colorado as a homicide, bringing the number of victims to 14.
In a 13-page autopsy report, Dr. Dawn B. Holmes, a forensic pathologist with the Jefferson County coroner’s office, linked Ms. Hochhalter’s death to the injuries that she suffered as a 17-year-old high school junior.
“Complications of paraplegia due to two (2) gunshot wounds are a significant contributing factor,” Dr. Holmes wrote.
The report, which was obtained on Thursday by The New York Times, said that Ms. Hochhalter had died from sepsis, an extreme immune response to an infection.
Twelve students and a teacher were killed when two heavily armed students opened fire at the school in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999, before taking their own lives. At the time, it was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. It also left 21 other people wounded.
Ms. Hochhalter was eating lunch with friends when the gunfire erupted. She was hit twice, in the chest and the back. Despite experiencing a lifetime of medical challenges as a result of her injuries and having to use a wheelchair, Ms. Hochhalter maintained her independence and spoke often about gun violence.
Her brother, Nathan, who was a freshman at Columbine at the time of the shooting but was not injured, said on Thursday that it made no sense to include his sister among the other people who were killed that day.
“She got an extra 26 years,” Mr. Hochhalter said. “She was very independent, but it was not an easy 26 years.”
Mr. Hochhalter, 40, said that his sister had considered herself a survivor instead of a victim: She was able to drive, go to the store and attend school and lived by herself for a number of years.
Police officers discovered Ms. Hochhalter’s body at her home in Westminster, Colo., on Feb. 16 while conducting a welfare check.
Sue Townsend, who became close to Ms. Hochhalter after her stepdaughter, Lauren Townsend, was killed in the shooting, told The Times last month that Ms. Hochhalter had been dealing with lingering effects from her injuries, including a pressure sore and an infection.
Over the years, the trauma manifested itself on a multitude of levels for Ms. Hochhalter and her brother.
Six months after the shooting, their mother, Carla June Hochhalter, walked into a pawnshop, asked to see a gun, loaded it and killed herself. The elder Ms. Hochhalter, 48, had been struggling with depression and other mental health issues before the Columbine shooting, her daughter later said.
In 2016, when Sue Klebold, the mother of one of the Columbine shooters, released a memoir, “A Mother’s Reckoning,” Ms. Hochhalter wrote a note addressed to Ms. Klebold on Facebook saying that she harbored no ill will.
“Just as I wouldn’t want to be judged by the sins of my family members, I hold you in that same regard,” Ms. Hochhalter wrote. “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. 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.”
Michael Levenson contributed reporting.
